At Corinth, too, the art of portrait painting is said to have been first practised.
"Blest be the pencil! whose consoling power,
Soothing soft Friendship in her pensive hour,
Dispels the cloud, with melancholy fraught,
That absence throws upon her tender thought.
Blest be the pencil! whose enchantment gives
To wounded Love the food on which he lives.
Rich in this gift, though cruel ocean bear
The youth to exile from his faithful fair,
He in fond dreams hangs o'er her glowing cheek,
Still owns her present, and still hears her speak.
Oh! Love, it was thy glory to impart
Its infant being to this sweetest art!
Inspired by thee, the soft Corinthian maid,
Her graceful lover's sleeping form portray'd;
Her boding heart his near departure knew,
Yet long'd to keep his image in her view.
Pleased she beheld the steady shadow fall,
By the clear lamp upon the even wall.
The line she traced, with fond precision true,
And, drawing, doted on the form she drew:
Nor, as she glow'd with no forbidden fire,
Conceal'd the simple picture from her sire.
His kindred fancy, still to nature just,
Copied her line, and form'd the mimic bust.
Thus from thy inspiration, Love, we trace
The modell'd image, and the pencill'd face!"[205]
NO. XXX. CTESIPHON.
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].