Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2). Charles Bucke
scarce regarded as he went along, whilst pity had fixed the eyes of the Romans upon the infants, and many of them could not forbear tears; all beheld the sight with a mixture of sorrow and joy, until the children were past. After his children and their attendants, came Perseus himself, clad all in black, and wearing slippers, after the fashion of his country. He looked like one altogether astonished and deprived of reason, through the greatness of his misfortunes. Next followed a great company of his friends and familiars, whose countenances were disfigured with grief, and who testified to all that beheld them by their tears, and their continual looking upon Perseus, that it was his hard fortune they so much lamented, that they were regardless of their own. After these were carried four hundred crowns all made of gold, and sent from the cities by their respective ambassadors to Æmilius, as a reward due to his valour. Then he himself came seated on a chariot magnificently adorned (a man worthy to be beheld, even without these ensigns of power): he was clad in a garment of purple interwoven with gold, and held out a laurel branch in his right hand. All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, and divided into bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander; some singing odes (according to the usual custom) mingled with raillery; others, songs of triumph, and the praises of Æmilius’s deeds, who was admired and accounted happy by all men; yet unenvied by every one that was good.”
“The ancient capital of the kings of Macedon,” says Monsieur de Pouqueville, “does not announce itself in its desolation to the eye of the stranger, as at Athens and Corinth, by the display of the remains of its ancient splendour. Its vestiges are found on an eminence sloping to the south-west, and surrounded by marshes. In vain, however, does the traveller look for the walls of the city, for the citadel, for the dykes constructed to defend from inundation the temples, buildings, and the monuments of its grandeur. The barbarians from the North, the Romans, and the succession of ages, have destroyed even the ruins. The once powerful city of Pella is now sunk down into fragments of tombs, masses of brick and tile, and about threescore huts, inhabited by Bulgarians, with a tower garrisoned by about a dozen Albanians. Such are the present edifices, population, and military establishment of Pella, once the powerful capital of Alexander and Perseus! A low Mahommedan now commands, whip in hand, in the city where Alexander first saw the light; and the paternal seat of that monarch, whose dominions extended from the Adriatic to the Indus, was, some years ago, the property of Achmet, son of Ismael, Bey of Serres77.”
NO. XIII. – PERGAMUS
This was a city of Great Mysia, in Asia Minor, the capital of the kingdom of Pergamus, which was founded by a eunuch, named Philatera, who had been a servant to Docima, a commander of the troops of Antigonus.
Pergamus was assaulted by Philip, king of Macedon, in his war against Attalus the First, who had taken part with the Romans. All his efforts, however, being unavailing, he turned his rage and fury against the gods; and, not satisfied with burning their temples, he demolished statues, broke to pieces their altars, and even pulled up the stones from their foundations, that not the least footsteps of them might remain.
At the death of Attalus, his son Eumenes the Second succeeded; and it was during his reign and under his inspiration, – if such an expression may be allowed – that the celebrated library was collected78, which makes such a figure in literary history.
The kingdom ceased to exist at the death of Attalus the Third; since that prince left it to the Roman people.
As this event was very important to the city as well as kingdom of Pergamus, we may, with propriety, enter a little into the character of the prince, who made so extraordinary a bequeathment. Historians relate, that he was scarcely on the throne before he stained it with the blood of his nearest relatives. He caused almost all those, who had served his father and his uncle with extreme fidelity, to have their throats cut; under pretence that some of them had killed his mother, who died of a disease in a very advanced age, and others his wife, who died of an incurable distemper. He caused the destruction also of wives, children, and whole families. Having committed all these enormities, he appeared no more in the city, and ate no longer in public. He put on old clothes, let his beard grow, and did every thing which persons, accused of capital crimes, used to do in those days; as if he intended thereby to acknowledge the extent of his own atrocity. From hence he proceeded to other species of folly and iniquity. He renounced the cares of state, and retired into his garden, and applied to digging the ground himself, and sowing all sorts of poisonous as well as wholesome herbs; then poisoning the good with the juice of the bad, he sent them in that manner as presents to his friends. At length he took it into his head to practise the trade of a brass-founder; and formed the model of a monument of brass to be erected to his mother. As he was casting the metal for this purpose, one hot summer’s day, he was seized with a fever, which in a few days carried him off. The principal clause in his will was expressed in these terms: – “Let the people of Rome inherit all my fortunes.” This will having been carried to Rome, the city and kingdom of Pergamus, as we have already stated, passed into a Roman province.
Pergamus gave birth to Apollodorus, the preceptor of Augustus; and Galen, next to Hippocrates the greatest physician that ever adorned the annals of medical science. It is also remarkable for having been alluded to by Tiberius, in one of his hypocritical speeches to the Roman senate, as reported in Tacitus. “I know very well,” said he, “that many men will condemn me for suffering Asia to build me a temple, as Spain at present would do: but I will give you a reason for what I have done, and declare my resolution for the future. The divine Augustus, whose actions and words are so many inviolable laws to me, having consented that the people of Pergamus should dedicate a temple to him and the city of Rome, I thought I might follow so great an example; so much the rather, since the honour, intended me, was joined with the veneration paid to the senate. But as on the one hand it might have been too great a piece of severity to have denied it for once; so on the other, doubtless, it would be too great a vanity and folly, to suffer one’s self to be adored as a God, through all the provinces of the empire. Besides, it cannot but be a great diminution to the glory of Augustus, to communicate it indifferently to all the world. For my own part, I am mortal, and subject to human infirmities; I am contented with being a prince here, without being raised to the throne of a God. I protest to you, I desire this testimony may be given of me to posterity. It will be glory enough for me to be thought worthy of my ancestors; a vigilant prince, one who is insensible of fear, when the commonwealth is in danger. These are the temples and monuments which I desire to erect in your breasts: for works of marble and brass, raised to the glory of princes, are contemned by posterity as so many naked sepulchres, when their memory is condemned. I entreat heaven to give me a serenity of mind, and a spirit to discern and judge uprightly of the laws of God and man; and after my decease, I confide, my fellow-citizens and allies will preserve my memory with their blessings and praises.”
Mr. Turner found several ancient inscriptions at Pergamus. He ascended the ancient Acropolis, which is built on a mount of about two hundred feet height, overhanging the town: on the top are extensive remains of the walls both of the Roman and Venetian city. Part of the walls are built with large fluted columns, laid length-ways. Among the Roman ruins are several immense arched caves under ground, about sixty feet deep. At the top of the hill lay a large Corinthian capital, and half way down the hill a small marble column, on which is a Greek inscription, now illegible.
In a valley west of the Acropolis are considerable remains of a large Roman amphitheatre; near which is a gate with part of a wall. The arch of the gate is curiously inclined, being unequal; the only instance of such an irregularity Mr. Turner ever saw in an ancient building. There are also ruins of several Roman baths; in one of which was found a vase, which has excited a great deal of admiration. Mr. Turner thus describes it: – “It is of fine marble, and in good preservation, being only a little broken round the rim. The shape of it is a flattened globe; on the outside round the circumference of the centre are fifteen equestrian figures in high-relief; nine of these have their heads much broken, nine have their arms extended; the horses are all at full speed, and a race is probably the subject represented, as none of the figures bear arms. Five of the figures are clinging to their horses, and one appears to be falling. Nothing,” continues Mr. Turner, “can exceed the spirit of the execution; the very horses seem to breathe; above and below
Plutarch; Rees; Pouqueville.
This library consisted of two hundred thousand volumes.