Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2)

Ardea was a city of Latium. Some soldiers having set it on fire, the inhabitants propagated a report that their town had been changed into a bird! It was rebuilt, and became a very rich and magnificent town, whose enmity to Rome rendered it famous. Tarquin was besieging this city when his son dishonoured Lucretia.

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Some suppose that he then gave it the name of Spargetone.

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Polybius; Livy; Pliny; Rollin; Kennett; Jose.

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As he was but of mean extraction, he met with no respect, but was only contemned by his subjects, in the beginning of his reign. He was not insensible of this; but nevertheless thought it his interest to subdue their tempers by an artful carriage, and win their affection by gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern in which himself, and those persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet: he melted it down, and had it cast into a statue, and then exposed the new god to public worship. The people hastened in crowds to pay their adoration to the statue. The king, having assembled the people, informed them of the vile uses to which this statue had once been put, which nevertheless had now their religious prostrations. The application was easy, and had the desired success; the people thenceforward paid the king all the respect that is due to majesty.

He always used to devote the whole morning to public affairs, in order to receive petitions, give audience, pronounce sentence, and hold his councils: the rest of the day was given to pleasure; and as Amasis, in hours of diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered, that it was as impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent upon business, as for a bow to continue always bent.

It was this king who obliged the inhabitants of every town to enter their names in a book, kept by the magistrate for that purpose, with their professions, and manner of living. Solon inserted this custom among his laws.

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Now in the vestibule of the university library at Cambridge.

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Herodotus; Apollonius Rhodius; Rollin; Egmont and Heyman; Clarke.

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II. Chronicles, ch. xi.

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Rees; Malte-Brun; Browne.

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Σεβαστός, in Greek, signifies Augustus.

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Clarke; La Martine.

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Chap. iii. 1-4.

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Phalaris.

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The Pactolus flowed through the centre of the Forum at Sardis, and brought, in its descent from Tmolus, a quantity of gold dust. Hence the vast riches of Crœsus. It ceased to do this in the age of Augustus.

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Herodotus; Pindar; Polyænus; Plutarch; Arrian; Quintus Curtius; Rollin; Wheler; Chandler; Peysonell.

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Lib. i. v. 10.

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Lib. i. c. 17, 18, 19.

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Most authors agree that the Parthians were Scythians by origin, who made an invasion on the more southern provinces of Asia, and at last fixed their residence near Hyrcania. They remained long unnoticed, and even unknown, and became successively tributary to the empire of the Assyrians, then of the Medes, and thirdly, of Persia.

When Alexander invaded Persia, the Parthians submitted to his authority, like other cities of Asia. After his death, they fell successively under the power of Eumenes, Antigonus, Seleucus Nicanor, and Antiochus. At length, in consequence of the rapacity of Antiochus’s lieutenant, whose name was Agathocles, Arsaces, a man of great military powers, raised a revolt, and subsequently founded the Parthian empire, about two hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. Arsaces’ successors were called, after him, the Arsacidæ.

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For the precise situation of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Modain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each other, see an excellent geographical map of M. d’Anville, in Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xxx.

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Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263; Herodian, 1. iii. 120; Gibbon, vol. i. 335.

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Pietro della Valle, Olivier, Otter, &c.

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Pliny; Prideaux; Gibbon; Gillies; Rees; Brewster; Malte-Brun; Porter; Robinson.

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Vid. Mannert, Géographie des Grecs et des Romains, t. v. p. i. p. 397, 403, &c.

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The following observations are by the same hand. They may be taken as a supplement to our article entitled Ægina: – “In the Phigalian room of the British Museum, against the southern wall, a pediment has recently been erected, corresponding with that opposite, which contains eleven of the casts from the Ægina statues. On this are placed five more, which were brought from the ruins of the same temple of Jupiter Panhelleneus, in the island of Ægina. These five statues were all that were found belonging to the eastern front sufficiently in a state of preservation to assure of their original destination and design; and it is the more to be lamented, as that was the principal façade of the edifice, and contained the great entrance into the soros of the temple. This front was by far the most magnificent in its decorations; the esplanade before it extending one hundred, while that of the western was but fifty feet; the statues also on this tympanum were more numerous, there being originally on this fourteen figures, and but eleven on the other; they are also both in style and sculpture far superior, and appear as the work of the master, the others, in comparison, as those of the scholars. The superiority of conception and manner is apparent, the forms are more muscular and robust, the veins and muscles more displayed, an imitation of a maturer nature. At the first opening of the ruins twenty-five statues were discovered, besides the four female figures belonging to the Acroteria. To the artist the canon of proportion and the system of anatomical expression observable throughout the whole may be regarded as the models whence was derived that still bolder style of conception which afterwards distinguished the sculptors and made the perfection of the Athenian school; what the works of Ghulandia were to Raphael, these were to Phidias. The surprise of the common observer may be excited when he contemplates these figures, however disadvantageous the circumstances under which he views them. Perhaps he cannot call to mind in the capital of his country, however civilisation and the arts may have advanced, any sculptures of the nineteenth century which appear equally imposing; the more so, when he reflects that the history of their origin is buried in the darkness of two thousand four hundred years. Long after this period Lysippus held as a principal of the ideal which has in later times been too generally followed, to make men as they seem to be, not as they really are. In this group there is not, as seen in the opposite one, any figure immediately under the centre of the tympanum; that of Minerva, which was found, and which, no doubt, had occupied it, being thought too much broken to be placed. The one nearest is the figure of a warrior, who appears as having fallen wounded to the ground. He is supporting himself on the right arm, endeavouring to rise. The hand no doubt held a sword, as the rivets of bronze still remaining indicate. On the left arm is a shield held close to the body, the hand enclasping the τελαμών, or holder. The countenance, contrary to the one in a similar position on the opposite pediment, seems calmly to regard, and to mark the moment to resist with any chance of success an advancing adversary, who is rushing forward to seize his spoils. Whether this statue is rightly placed we think will admit of doubt. The figure rushing forward could not have inflicted the wound by which he has been disabled, and it seems more probable that an arrow, which an archer at the extreme of the pediment has just discharged, has been the cause of his wound, and that it should, instead of being on the ground, have been placed as if in the act of falling. In the attitude of the attacking warrior, a desire is shown to give the greatest interest to the action; the position of the right leg seems calculated to give movement to the figure as seen from below; behind the fallen an unarmed figure is stooping forward, apparently to raise him; but this statue would seem rather to belong to the other pediment, where a hollow is found in the pedestal on which the Goddess Minerva stands, which appears to have been made to allow room for its advance. Among the statues found, but broken, was one which stood nearly over the body of the wounded hero, to defend him against the advancing enemy before mentioned. Near the archer is another combatant on the ground; the countenance of this figure is aged, the beard most minutely sculptured; it is of a square form, and descends to the breast; on the lip are long mustachios. It is by far the most aged of either group, and appears to be a chief of consequence; he is raising himself on his shield; the expression of the face is very fine, it has a smile on it, though evidently in pain. The archer is a Phrygian, and his body is protected by leathern armour; as he has no shield allowed, he is holding the bow, which is small and of the Indian shape, in the left hand, with the arm outstretched; the bow-string has been drawn to the ear, the arrow seems just to have sped, and the exultation of the countenance shows it has taken effect. Three of these figures have that sort of helmet which defends the face by a guard descending over the nose, and the back by the length of the λόφος, or crest, or horsehair, crista; the shields are massy and large, they are the Argive ἀσπὶς ἔγκυκλος, circular shields, and the handles are nicely framed. The inside of all of them were painted in red colour, and within a circle of the exterior a blue colour was seen, on which was pictured, without doubt, the symbol adopted by the hero; for on a fragment of one of those belonging to this front was in relief a part of a female figure. The remaining figures belonging to this tympanum, the fragments of which were found, were principally archers.

“Those statues offer the only illustration now extant of the armour of the heroic ages. The bodies of all the figures of this pediment, with the exception of the archer who is encased in leathern armour, are uncovered. The great minuteness of execution in the details corresponds with the exactness which Æschylus, Homer, and the earlier writers of the heroic age have preserved in their descriptions; in the whole of these statues this is observable in every tie and fastening. It would appear that the whole had undergone the strictest scrutiny; as, in each, those parts which, from their position on the building, could not have been seen, are found equally exact: in every particular they are the same as those which are traced on the vases of the most Archaic style, where they are delineated in black on a red ground, as is seen in the Museum collection. The two female figures on the apex of the pediment are clothed; the drapery falls in thick folds around the figure; in their hands they hold the pomegranate flower; the feet are on a small plinth; they are the Ἐλπίς of the Greeks, the Goddess of Hope, so well known in museums and on coins, and their situation here is peculiarly appropriate, as presiding over an undecided combat. It does not appear that any of the figures on either pediment had any support to fix them in position but the cornice where they came in contact with it; they must all have been easily removable; and perhaps it may not be unreasonable to suppose, that on particular festivals they were so disposed as to represent the actions then in celebration, to recall to the imagination of the votaries the reason for those sacrifices then offered to the god who presided over the temple. This would account why almost all the celebrated groups of antiquity, which have decorated the façades of their sacred edifices, among which may be reckoned those of the Parthenon, the Sicilian Adrimetum, and the Ægina, are so completely finished, and shows how what would otherwise seem a waste both of talent and labour, was brought to account.”

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