LITMIR.BIZ

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were so extensive that its gold coins were current in all the Asiatic factories.376 The town of Abydos possessed gold mines.377 The wheat of Assus was reputed the best in the world, and was reserved for the table of the kings of Persia.378

      We may estimate the population and resources of this part of Asia from the armies and fleets which the kings had at their command at the time of the conquest of Greece by the Romans. In 555, Attalus II., and, ten years later, Eumenes II., sent them numerous galleys of five ranks of oars.379 The land forces of the kings of Pergamus were much less considerable.380 Their direct authority did not extend over a great territory, yet they had many tributary towns; hence their great wealth and small army. The Romans drew from this country, now nearly barren and unpeopled, immense contributions both in gold and wheat.381 The magnificence of the triumph of Manlius and the reflections of Livy, compared with the testimony of Herodotus, reveal all the splendour of the kingdom of Pergamus. It was after the war against Antiochus and the expedition of Manlius that extravagance began to display itself at Rome.382 Soldiers and generals enriched themselves prodigiously in Asia.383

      The ancient colonies of Ionia and Æolis, such as Clazomenæ, Colophon, and many others, which were dependent for the most part on the kingdom of Pergamus, were fallen from their ancient grandeur. Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander, was still an object of admiration for the beauty of its monuments. The exportation of wines, as celebrated on the coast of Ionia as in the neighbouring islands, formed alone an important support of the commerce of the ports of the Ægean Sea.

      The treasures of the temple of Samothrace were so considerable, that we are induced to mention here a circumstance relating to this little island, though distant from Asia, and near the coast of Thrace: Sylla’s soldiers took in the sanctuary the Cabiri, an ornament of the value of 1,000 talents (5,820,000 francs [£232,800]).384

      Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia.

      XIV. On the southern coast of Asia Minor, some towns still sustained the rank they had attained one or two centuries before. The capital of Caria was Halicarnassus, a very strong town, defended by two citadels,385 and celebrated for one of the finest works of Greek art, the Mausoleum. In spite of the extraordinary fertility of the country, the Carians were accustomed, like the people of Crete, to engage as mercenaries in the Greek armies.386 On their territory stood the Ionian town of Miletus, with its four ports.387 The Milesians alone had civilised the shores of the Black Sea by the foundation of about eighty colonies.388

      In turn independent, or placed under foreign dominion, Lycia, a province comprised between Caria and Cilicia, possessed some rich commercial towns. One especially, renowned for its ancient oracle of Apollo, no less celebrated than that of Delphi, was remarkable for its spacious port;389 this was Patara, which was large enough to contain the whole fleet of Antiochus, burnt by Fabius in 565.390 Xanthus, the largest town of the province, to which place ships ascended, only lost its importance after having been pillaged by Brutus.391 Its riches had at an earlier period drawn upon it the same fate from the Persians.392 Under the Roman dominion, Lycia beheld its population decline gradually; and of the seventy towns which it had possessed, no more than thirty-six remained in the eighth century of Rome.393

      More to the east, the coasts of Cilicia were less favoured; subjugated in turn by the Macedonians, Egyptians, and Syrians, they had become receptacles of pirates, who were encouraged by the kings of Egypt in their hostility to the Seleucidæ.394 From the heights of the mountains which cross a part of the province, robbers descended to plunder the fertile plains situated on the eastern side (Cilicia Campestris).395 Still, the part watered by the Cydnus and the Pyramus was more prosperous, owing to the manufacture of coarse linen and to the export of saffron. There stood ancient Tarsus, formerly the residence of a satrap, the commerce of which had sprung up along with that of Tyre;396 and Soli, on which Alexander levied an imposition of a hundred talents as a punishment for its fidelity to the Persians,397 and which, by its maritime position, excited the envy of the Rhodians.398 These towns and other ports entered, after the battle of Ipsus, into the great commercial movement of which the provinces of Syria became the seat.

      Syria.

      XV. By the foundation of the empire of the Seleucidæ, Greek civilisation was carried into the interior of Asia, where the immobility of Eastern society was succeeded by the activity of Western life. Greek letters and arts flourished from the Sea of Phœnicia to the banks of the Euphrates. Numerous towns were built in Syria and Assyria, with all the richness and elegance of the edifices of Greece;399 some were almost in ruins in the time of Pliny.400 Seleucia, founded by Seleucus Nicator, at the mouth of the Orontes, and which received, with five other towns built by the same monarch, the name of the head of the Græco-Syrian dynasty, became a greatly frequented port. Antioch, built on the same river, rivalled the finest towns of Egypt and Greece by the number of its edifices, the extent of its places, and the beauty of its temples and statues.401 Its walls, built by the architect Xenæos, passed for a wonder, and in the Middle Ages their ruins excited the admiration of travellers.402 Antioch consisted of four quarters, having each its own enclosure;403 and the common enclosure which surrounded them all appears to have embraced an extent of six leagues in circumference. Not far from the town was the delightful abode of Daphne, where the wood, consecrated to Apollo and Diana, was an object of public veneration, and the place where sumptuous festivals were celebrated.404 Apamea was renowned for its pastures. Seleucus had formed there a stud of 30,000 mares, 300 stallions, and 500 elephants.405 The Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (now Baalbek) was the most colossal work of architecture that had ever existed.406

      The power of the empire of the Seleucidæ went on increasing until the time when the Romans seized upon it. Extending from the Mediterranean to the Oxus and Caucasus, this empire was composed of nearly all the provinces of the ancient kingdom of the Persians, and included peoples of different origins.407 Media was fertile, and its capital, Ecbatana, which Polybius represents as excelling in riches and the incredible luxury of its palaces the other cities of Asia, had not yet been despoiled by Antiochus III.;408 Babylonia, once the seat of a powerful empire, and Phœnicia, long the most commercial country in the world, made part of Syria, and touched upon the frontiers of the Parthians. Caravans, following a route which has remained the same during many centuries, placed Syria in communication with Arabia,409 whence came ebony, ivory, perfumes, resins, and spices; the Syrian ports were the intermediate marts for the merchants who proceeded as far as India, where Seleucus I. went to conclude a treaty with Sandrocottus. The merchandise of this country ascended the Euphrates as far as Thapsacus, and thence it was exported to all the provinces. Скачать книгу