The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

Were one: why did we not remain
Through life thus side by side?

‘And my brother’s gentle voice then fell
Upon my tortured ear;
Those tones I once had loved so well,
Now wither’d my soul like a flame from hell
With vain remorse and fear!

‘All, all that memory still had kept
In her hidden and silent reign,
My youth’s warm feelings, which long had slept,
Like a torrent of fire that moment swept
In madness o’er my brain.

‘For before me there his pallid face
In death’s cold stillness lay;
Even murder could not all efface
Its beauty, whose sad and shadowy trace
Still lingered round that clay.

‘Sternly I bent me over the dead,
And strove my breast to steel,
When the dagger from hilt to point blood-red,
Flash’d on my sight, and I madly fled,
The torture of life to feel.

‘Since that dread hour o’er half the earth
My weary path has lain;
I have stood where the mighty Nile has birth,
Where Ganges rolls his blue waves forth
In triumph to the main.

‘In the silent forest’s gloomy shade
I have vainly sought for rest;
My sunless dwelling I have made
Where the hungry tiger nightly stray’d,
And the serpent found a nest.

‘But still, where’er I turn’d, there lay
My brother’s lifeless form;
When I watched the cataract’s giant play
As it flung to the sky its foaming spray,
When I stood ’midst the rushing storm:

‘Still, still that awful face was shown,
That dead and soulless eye;
The breeze’s soft and soothing tone
To me still seemed his parting groan—
A sound I could not fly!

‘In the fearful silence of the night
Still by my couch he stood,
And when morn came forth in splendor bright,
Still there, between me and the light,
Was traced that scene of blood!’

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He paused: Death’s icy hand was laid
Upon his burning brow;
That eye, whose fiery glance had made
His sternest guards shrink back afraid,
Was glazed and sightless now.

And o’er his face the grave’s dark hue
Was in fixed shadow cast;
His spasm-drawn lips more fearful grew
In the ghastly shade of their lurid blue;
With a shudder that ran that cold form through,
The murderer’s spirit passed!

SICILIAN SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES

NUMBER TWO

We proceed, in another and concluding paper, as promised in the last number of the Knickerbocker, to direct the reader’s attention to the Architectural Antiquities of Sicily, especially those of Grecian structure, which will be described in the order in which they were visited. The first are those of Egesta, or Segeste, as it is sometimes called; a city said to have been built in the remote age of the Siculi, and which was destroyed by Agathocles, the potter’s son, who reduced all Sicily two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. It lies about forty or fifty miles from Palermo, among the mountains which cluster round the famed Mount Erix, on which once stood a temple dedicated to Venus. On leaving Alcamo, which may be called a city of convents, midway between Palermo and Segeste, the broad slopes of an ample valley lie before the traveller, which though almost treeless, are waving with beans, and grain and grass. In the depth, is a river meandering among fragrant oleanders; on the left, the valley is intersected by a range of distant mountains; on the right is a beautiful bay of the Mediterranean. Across the valley the mountains form a green amphitheatre, and high in its remotest part is seen the Temple of Segeste, but merely as a point of light and shade upon the bosom of the mountain. The next view, if he takes our route, is from the ancient Grecian city of Catafimi, itself perched on a mountain’s top. He looks down a deep luxuriant vale, and on a grassy knoll about three miles distant, lifted from the depths of the valley by precipitous crags, stands the solitary temple; and if seen as we saw it, receiving the last golden rays of the setting sun while all below is wrapped in shade. The next day, would he visit the temple, his road lies through the valley of which I have last spoken. And surely he never passed through such an Arcadian scene as this. Almond and orange trees fill the air with fragrance; his path struggles through the tangled flowers, the cistus and the blue convolvulus, and he disturbs the nightingale in her pleasant haunt. At length, emerging from the valley, and climbing the steep side of a mountain, he stands before the temple. It is a majestic pile, about two hundred feet in length and eighty-eight in breadth, having fourteen columns on each side and six at each end, in all thirty-six columns, of about six feet in diameter; not fluted, as is usual in Grecian Doric temples, but having a very peculiar form. It stands on a platform raised on three gigantic steps. All the columns are standing; the entablatures and pediments are in pretty good preservation, but it is roofless, and flowers and weeds are now waving where once trode the white-robed priests. The breezes from the fragrant mountains and the distant sea, of which it commands a fine view, sigh through it in harmony with its sad and solitary grandeur.

On a neighboring hill are the vestiges of the ancient city, a few ruined towers, probably of the citadel, and a theatre, the stone seats of which are almost entire; part of the sculptured figure of a faun still remains on the proscenium; wild shrubs shade a great part of the ruin, and where manhood and beauty once sat, listening to the tragedies of an Eschylus or Euripides, the adder and the lizards sun themselves. The next ruins we visited were those of Selinunte, anciently Selinus or Selinuntium, which lies on the southern coast of the island. This city was founded by a colony of Greeks about twenty-five hundred years ago. It was taken during the Carthaginian wars, and in a great measure destroyed by Hannibal the son of Giscon, four hundred and nine years before Christ. The country on approaching Selinunte is a dreary plain covered with the palmetto. On gazing toward the sea, when distant two or three miles, the traveller’s eye catches what he would take for a rocky hill, were it not for a few mutilated columns which rise above the blue horizon. As he approaches, the stupendous scene of ruin strikes him with awe. There in a mighty heap lie column and capital, metope and cornice; and the mind is lost in wonder at the power that raised these giant structures, and the power that overthrew them. Only one complete column, and that without its capital, and several mutilated ones, remain standing of the great temple supposed to be of Neptune; the rest are prostrate; and all lying in one direction, bear evidence that they have been thrown down by an earthquake.

The first temple is Grecian Doric, as are all those of which I shall speak. Its columns are about eleven feet across, and they must have been, including their capitals, more than sixty feet high. Above these lofty columns was placed the architrave, one of the stones of which, that we measured, was twenty-five feet in length, eight in height, and six in thickness; but another is still larger; forty feet long, seven broad, and three deep. To transport these enormous masses of stone from their quarry, which is several miles distant, with a deep valley and river intervening, would trouble the modern engineer; but to poise and place them on the top of the columns, seventy feet from the ground, with our mechanical means, were indeed a great feat. The columns were not of single pieces, but composed of several, and they now lie, to use an unpoetical phrase, like rows of enormous cheeses. The great temple was three hundred and thirty-four feet long, one hundred and fifty-four wide; its porticoes at each end were four columns in depth, eight in width; a double row on the sides of the cella or interior edifice, which in all Grecian temples was the sanctum sanctorum. In all, there must have been eighty columns. There is one remarkable feature about this temple, which is, that none of the columns were fluted except those of the eastern end. About thirty paces from this ruin, which the Sicilians call the Pileri di Giganti, or Pillars of the Giants, are the remains of another temple which was about two hundred feet long: its entablature was supported by thirty-six fluted columns of seven feet in diameter and thirty-five feet long, each of a single piece of stone. Only a few fragments of the columns remain standing in their places. Treading another thirty paces, you come to a temple which is of rather larger dimensions than the one last mentioned. The columns of this were also fluted, but no part of the edifice is standing, except a solitary pilaster, which was probably a portion of the cella. These temples were built of a hard but porous stone, of a light color, and were probably covered with a thin coat of cement. They command an extensive view both of sea and land, and in their primal days must, with their tower-like columns, their sculptured entablatures and pediments, have risen above the scene in majestic grandeur.

Three quarters of a mile from these temples was the ancient port, now choked with sand, and near it are the remains of edifices supposed to have been the magazines. On an adjoining hill are remnants of three temples and two towers, in almost undistinguishable ruin. We left Selinunte with a lasting but melancholy impression, and were reminded of the lines:

‘Two or three columns and many a stone,
Marble and granite, with grass o’ergrown:

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Remnants of things which have passed away,
Fragments of stone rear’d by creatures of clay!’

Girgenti, anciently called Agragas and Agrigentum, is situated on the southern coast of Sicily, in a delicious country; the modern city was built by the Saracens on the summit of a hill upward of eleven hundred feet above the level of the sea. The site of the ancient city is lower, and about a mile distant. It was probably founded in the eighth century before Christ. In its flourishing state it contained two hundred thousand inhabitants, who were celebrated for their hospitality, their love of the arts and luxurious style of living. Plato was so much struck with the solidity of their buildings and the sumptuousness of their dinners, that he said they ‘built as though they thought themselves immortal, but ate as though they never expected to eat again.’ The horses of Agrigentum were celebrated; and one of the citizens returning from the Olympic games, on entering his native town, was followed by three hundred chariots, each drawn by four white horses sumptuously caparisoned. The government of this little state, whose inhabitants never amounted to more than eight hundred thousand, was at first monarchical, afterward democratic; but neither the forms of its institutions, nor its riches and grandeur, could save it from misfortune: it was besieged several times by the Carthaginians, and at length, after a siege of three years, was taken and sacked by Hannibal, the son of Giscon. In alluding to these misfortunes, the historian says: ‘Yet of all the Sicilian cities, the fate of Agrigentum seemed the most worthy to be deplored, from the striking contrast of its fallen state with its recent splendor and prosperity. The natural beauties of Agrigentum were secured by strength and adorned with elegance; and whoever considered either the innumerable advantages of the city itself, or the gay cultivation of the surrounding territory, which abounded in every luxury of the sea and land, was ready to pronounce the Agrigentines the most favored inhabitants of the earth. The exuberant fertility of the soil, particularly the rich luxuriance of the vines and olives, exceeded every thing that is related of the happiest climates, and furnished the means of lucrative commerce with the populous coast of Africa, which was sparingly provided with those valuable plants. The extraordinary wealth of the Agrigentines was displayed in the magnificence of public edifices and in the splendid enjoyment of private fortunes. They had begun and almost completed the celebrated Temple of Jupiter, built in the grandest style of architecture, employed by the Greeks on the greatest and most solemn occasions.’

The ancient city of Agragas stood on an elevated platform or table of land, three sides of which fell off in steep precipices; the fourth side was surmounted by the lofty hill on which the modern city stands. These steep precipices were the natural walls of the city, and were made more available for defence by excavation on the inside, so as to leave a solid wall of rock rising round the city. On the verge of this platform, which gradually sinks from east to west, and on the side next the sea, which is about a mile distant, are seen the remains of no fewer than six temples. They stood in a general line, but at irregular intervals, and must have formed one of the most magnificent spectacles that the art of man has ever presented to the eye. The remains of three other temples exist, but they lie at a distance from this grand range. On the eastern and highest part of the platform, where the natural wall of which I have spoken makes an angle, stood the Temple of Juno Lucina; next came the Temple of Concord; next the Temple of Hercules, near which was the Temple of Jupiter, called of the Giants; next came the Temple of Venus, and lastly that of Castor and Pollux. The approach to the ruins of these temples from the modern city is over the site of the ancient, now shaded by olive, almond, and carruba trees. The Temple of Juno is a picturesque ruin; all the columns on the northern side are standing, also several at the ends, and part of the entablature; the rest of the building, corroded by time or entirely prostrate, lies under an exuberant growth of flowers and shrubs.

Descending from this temple, we pass through a sort of wild garden, with here and there an olive-tree or dark carruba; on the left are the ruins of the ancient rock-wall, huge fragments of which in places have fallen down the precipice; other parts are perforated as with windows or loop-holes, or with deep cell-like excavations: these are the tombs of the ancient Agrigentines, now tenantless and void. Those window-like apertures were evidently made so by the action of the elements or the violence of man; and it is related that in consequence of the Agrigentines having made their tombs in the walls, they were so much weakened that the Carthaginians by means of their engines were enabled to batter them down and obtain an entrance. We now come to the Temple of Concord, one of the most beautiful specimens of Grecian Doric in existence. It is roofless, but otherwise almost perfect. It has twenty-four columns; it is, like the temple of Juno, raised on a platform of several steps, and about one hundred and fifty-four feet in length and fifty-five in breadth. It seems that this temple was used in times past for a Christian church, and the sides of its cella are perforated by arched openings. The next temple is near one of the ancient city gates, and is supposed to have been dedicated to Hercules: it was celebrated in ancient times for having in it a fine picture of Alcmena; but it is now a confused heap of ruin, with only one column standing, which proves it to have been of larger dimensions than the temples just mentioned.

Turning a little to the right, we come upon the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, commonly called of the Giants, the largest sacred edifice in Sicily, and one of the most stupendous works of the ancients. It was in length three hundred and sixty-eight feet, in breadth one hundred and eighty; the breadth or diameter of its columns at the base thirteen feet four inches; the height of the columns must have been seventy-five feet; above these rose a massive entablature, and the top of the pediments could not have been less than one hundred and twenty feet high! The grandeur of the door and vestibule corresponded to the simple majesty of the whole building, whose sculptured ornaments represented, with the finished elegance and laborious accuracy that distinguished each particular figure, the ‘Defeat of the Giants and the Taking of Troy.’ In the interior ranged twenty-four antæ, or square pillars, of fifty feet in height; on the top of each was a sculptured giant twenty-seven feet in height, which with his hands clasped over his head supported the lofty roof. One can scarcely conceive any thing more noble and majestic than this wonderful edifice, in comparison with which, though covering much more ground, St. Peter’s in Rome is a splendid gew-gaw. But what remains of this great temple? A wide heap of ruin; the interior of which, the columns and walls having fallen outward, is a flowery field, in which lie some fragments of those huge giants that once supported the roof. One of these is tolerably entire: the curls of his hair form a sort of garland: it lies with its face upward, and when I stood by it, my own head scarcely reached as high as the brow of the statue. It is composed of several pieces of stone, as are the columns of this temple, and most of the others of Agrigentum. On every side of this elevated field lie the walls, entablatures, and columns in enormous fragments: the capitals of the columns look like huge rocks that have been hurled there by some violent convulsion of nature.