The Parthian monarchs delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian
ancestors; and the royal camp was frequently pitched in the plain of
Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of only
three miles from Seleucia. It was, then, no other than a village. By the
influx of innumerable attendants on luxury and despotism, who resorted
to the court, this village insensibly swelled into a large city; and
there the Parthian kings, acting by Seleucia as the Greeks, who built
that place, had done by Babylon, built a town, in order to dispeople and
impoverish Seleucia. Many of the materials, however, were taken from
Babylon itself; so that from the time the anathema was pronounced
against that city, "it seems," says Rollin, "as if those very persons,
that ought to have protected her, were become her enemies; as if they
had all thought it their duty to reduce her to a state of solitude, by
indirect means, though without using any violence; that it might the
more manifestly appear to be the hand of God, rather than the hand of
man, that brought about her destruction."
This city was for some time assailed by Julian[206], who fixed his camp
near the ruins of Seleucia, and secured himself by a ditch and rampart,
against the sallies and enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful
and pleasant country the Romans were supplied with water and forage; and
several forts, which might have embarrassed the motions of the army,
submitted, after some resistance, to the efforts of their valour. The
fleet passed from the Euphrates in an artificial diversion of the river,
which forms a copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small
distance _below_ the great city. Had they followed this royal canal,
which bore the name of Nahar-Malcha[207], the immediate situation of
Coche would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the vast
attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and forcing
their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must have been
attended with the total destruction of the Roman army. As Julian had
minutely studied the operations of Trajan in the same country, he soon
recollected that his warlike predecessor had dug a new and navigable
canal, which conveyed the waters into the Tigris, at some distance above
the river. From the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the
vestiges of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design
or accident. He, therefore, prepared a deep channel for the reception of
the Euphrates: the flood of waters rushed into this new bed; and the
Roman fleet steered their triumphant course into the Tigris. He soon
after passed, with his whole army, over the river: sending up a military
shout, the Romans advanced in measured steps, to the animating notes of
military music; launched their javelins, and rushed forwards with drawn
swords, to deprive the barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage
of their missile weapons. The action lasted twelve hours: the enemy at
last gave way. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon, and the
conquerors, says the historian from whom we have borrowed this account,
might have entered the dismayed city, had not their general desired them
to desist from the attempt; since, if it did not prove successful, it
must prove fatal. The spoil was ample: large quantities of gold and
silver, splendid arms and trappings, and beds, and tables of massy
silver. The victor distributed, as the reward of valour, some honourable
gifts civic and mural, and naval crowns: and then considered what new
measures to pursue: for, as we have already stated, his troops had not
ventured to attempt entering the city. He called a council of war; but
seeing that the town was strongly defended by the river, lofty
walls[208], and impassable morasses, he came to the determination of not
besieging it; holding it a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. This
occurred A.D. 363.
In this city Chosroes, king of Persia, built a palace; supposed to have
been once the most magnificent structure in the East.
In process of time Seleucia and Ctesiphon became united, and identified
under the name of _Al Modain_, or the two cities. This union is
attributed to the judgment of Adashir Babigan (the father of the
Sassanian line). It afterwards continued a favourite capital with most
of his dynasty, till the race perished in the person of Yezdijerd; and
Al Modain was rendered a heap of ruins, by the fanatic Arabs, in the
beginning of the seventh century.
At that period (A.D. 637), those walls, which had resisted the battering
rams of the Romans, yielded to the darts of the Saracens. Said, the
lieutenant of Omar, passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital
was taken by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a
keener edge to the sabre of the Moslems, who shouted in religious
transport, "This is the white palace of Chosroes: this is the province
of the apostle of God."
"The spoils," says Abulfeda, "surpassed the estimate of fancy, or
numbers;" and Elmacin defines the untold and almost infinite mass by the
fabulous computation of three thousands of thousands of thousands of
pieces of gold[209].
One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet of silk,
60 cubits in length, and as many in breadth; a paradise, or garden, was
depicted on the ground; the flowers, fruits, and shrubs, were imitated
by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the colours of the precious
stones; and the ample square was encircled by a verdant and variegated
border. The conqueror (Omar) divided the prize among his brethren of
Medina. The picture was destroyed; but such was the value of the
material, that the share of Ali was sold for 20,000 drachms. The sack
was followed by the desertion and gradual decay of the city. In little
more than a century after this it was finally supplanted by Bagdad under
the Caliph Almanzor.
"The imperial legions," says Porter, "of Rome and Constantinople, with
many a barbaric phalanx besides, made successive dilapidation on the
walls of Seleucia and Ctesiphon; but it was reserved for Omar and his
military fanatics to complete the final overthrow. That victorious
caliph founded the city of Kufa on the western shore of the Euphrates;
whilst the defeat, which the Persians sustained from one of his best
generals in the battle of Cadesia, led to the storming of Al-Maidan, and
an indiscriminate massacre of all its Guebre inhabitants. In after times
the caliph Almanzor, taking a dislike to Kufa, removed the seat of his
government to Bagdad; the materials for the erection of which he brought
from the battered walls of the Greek and Parthian city; so as Babylon
was ravaged and carried away for the building of Seleucia and Ctesiphon,
in the same manner did they moulder into ruin before the rising
foundations of Bagdad." Little more remains of Seleucia but the ground
on which it stood; showing, by its unequal surface, the low moundy
traces of its former inhabitants. Small as these vestiges may seem, they
are daily wasting away, and soon nothing would be left to mark the site
of Seleucia, were it not for the apparently imperishable canal of
Nebuchadnezzar, the Nahar Malcha, whose capacious bosom, noble in ruins,
open to the Tigris, north of where the city stood."
What remains of the palace of Chosroes is thus described by the same
hand. "Having passed the Diala, a river which flows into the Tigris, the
lofty palace of Chosroes, at Modain, upon the site of the ancient
Ctesiphon, became visible to us; looking exceedingly large through the
refracting atmosphere of the southern horizon, above the even line of
which it towered as the most conspicuous object any where to be seen
around us. It looked from hence much larger than Westminster Abbey, when
seen from a similar distance; and in its general outline it resembled
that building very much, excepting only in its having no towers. The
great cathedral of the Crusaders, still standing on the ancient
Orthosia, on the coast of Syria, is a perfect model of it in general
appearance; as that building is seen when approaching from the
southward, although there is no one feature of resemblance between those
edifices in detail."
On the northern bank of the Diala, Mr. Buckingham saw nothing but some
grass huts, inhabited by a few families, who earned their living by
transporting travellers across the river; and to the westward, near the
Tigris, a few scattered tents of Arab shepherds. On the south bank a few
date-trees were seen; but, besides these, no other signs of fertility or
cultivation appeared.
When Mr. Buckingham reached the mounds of Ctesiphon, he found them to be
of a moderate height, of a light colour, and strewed over with fragments
of those invariable remarks of former population, broken pottery. The
outer surface of the mounds made them appear as mere heaps of earth,
long exposed to the atmosphere; but he was assured by several well
acquainted with the true features of the place, that on digging into the
mounds, a masonry of unburnt bricks was found, with layers of reed
between them, as in the ruins at Akkerhoof and the mounds of Meklooba at
Babylon. The extent of the semicircle formed by these heaps, appears to
be nearly two miles. The area of the city, however, had but few mounds
throughout its whole extent, and those were small and isolated; the
space was chiefly covered with thick heath, sending forth, as in the
days of Xenophon, a highly aromatic odour, which formed a cover for
partridges, hares, and gazelles, of each of which the traveller saw
considerable numbers.
After traversing a space within the walls, strewed with fragments of
burnt bricks and pottery, he came to the tomb of Selman Pauk. "This
Selman Pauk[210]," says Mr. Buckingham, "was a Persian barber, who, from
the fire-worship of his ancestors, became a convert to Islam, under the
persuasive eloquence of the great prophet of Modain himself; and, after
a life of fidelity to the cause he had embraced, was buried here in his
native city of Modain. The memory of this beloved companion of the great
head of their faith is held in great respect by all the Mahometans of
the country; for, besides the annual feast of the barbers of Bagdad, who
in the month of April visit his tomb as that of a patron saint, there
are others who come to it on pilgrimage at all seasons of the year."
The large ruin, which forms the principal attraction of this place, is
situated about seven hundred paces to the south of this tomb. It is
called by the natives Tauk Kesra (the Arch of Kesra). It is composed of
two wings and one large central hall, extending all the depth of the
building. Its front is nearly perfect; being two hundred and sixty feet
in length, and upwards of one hundred feet in height. Of this front the
great arched hall occupies the centre; its entrance being of an equal
height and breadth with the hall itself. The arch is thus about ninety
feet in breadth, and rising above the general line of the front, is at
least one hundred and twenty feet high, while its depth is at least
equal to its height. "The wings leading out on each side of the central
arch," continues Mr. Buckingham, "to extend to the front of the
building, are now merely thick walls; but these had originally
apartments behind them, as may be seen from undoubted marks that remain,
as well as two side doors leading from them into the great central
hall." The walls which form these wings in the line of the front were
built on the inclined slope, being in thickness about twenty feet at the
base; but only ten at the summit. The masonry is altogether of burnt
bricks, of the size, form, and composition of those seen in the ruins of
Babylon; but none of them have any writing or impression of any kind.
The cement is white lime, and the layers are much thicker than is seen
in any of the burnt brick edifices at Babylon; approaching nearer to the
style of the Greek and Roman masonry found among the ruins of
Alexandria, where the layers of lime are almost as thick as the bricks
themselves. At Babylon the cement is scarcely perceptible. The symmetry
of the work bears considerable resemblance, however, both to the Birs
and the fine fragments of brick-masonry of the age of the Caliphs, still
remaining at Bagdad.
The wings, though not perfectly uniform, are similar in their general
construction; "but the great extent of the whole front," says our
accomplished traveller, "with the broad and lofty arch of its centre,
and the profusion of recesses and pilasters on each side, must have
produced an imposing appearance, when the edifice was perfect; more
particularly if the front was once coated, as tradition states it to
have been, with white marble; a material of too much value to remain
long in its place after the desertion of the city." The arches of the
building are described to be all of a Roman form, and the architecture
of the Roman style, though with less purity of taste; the pilasters
having neither capital nor pedestal, and a pyramidal termination is
given to some of the long narrow niches of the front.
There is a circumstance, in regard to the position of this pile, very
remarkable. The front of it, though immediately facing the Tigris, lies
due east by compass; the stream winding here so exceedingly, that this
edifice, though standing on the _west_ of that portion of the river
flowing before it, and facing the _east_, is yet on the _eastern_ side
of the Tigris, in its general course. Another curiosity of the same kind
is exhibited; that in regard to the sailing of boats, the stream being
so serpentine, that those which are going _up_ by it to Bagdad are seen
steering south-south-west through one reach, and north-west through
another above it. Nor ought we to close here. Sir R. K. Porter furnishes
a beautiful anecdote. "The history of Persia, from the Royut-ul-Suffa,"
says he, "gives an interesting anecdote of this palace. A Roman
ambassador, who had been sent to Chosroes with rich presents, was
admiring the noble prospect from the window of the royal palace, when he
remarked a rough piece of ground; and making inquiry why it was not
rendered uniform with the rest, the person to whom he spoke replied, 'It
is the property of an old woman, who, though often requested to sell it
to the king, has constantly refused; and our monarch is more willing to
have his prospect spoiled, than to perfect it by an act of violence.'
'That rough spot,' cried the Roman, 'consecrated by justice, now
appears to me more beautiful than all the surrounding scene'."[211]