One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet of silk, 60 cubits in length, and as many in breadth; a paradise, or garden, was depicted on the ground; the flowers, fruits, and shrubs, were imitated by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the colours of the precious stones; and the ample square was encircled by a verdant and variegated border. The conqueror (Omar) divided the prize among his brethren of Medina. The picture was destroyed; but such was the value of the material, that the share of Ali was sold for 20,000 drachms. The sack was followed by the desertion and gradual decay of the city. In little more than a century after this it was finally supplanted by Bagdad under the Caliph Almanzor.
"The imperial legions," says Porter, "of Rome and Constantinople, with many a barbaric phalanx besides, made successive dilapidation on the walls of Seleucia and Ctesiphon; but it was reserved for Omar and his military fanatics to complete the final overthrow. That victorious caliph founded the city of Kufa on the western shore of the Euphrates; whilst the defeat, which the Persians sustained from one of his best generals in the battle of Cadesia, led to the storming of Al-Maidan, and an indiscriminate massacre of all its Guebre inhabitants. In after times the caliph Almanzor, taking a dislike to Kufa, removed the seat of his government to Bagdad; the materials for the erection of which he brought from the battered walls of the Greek and Parthian city; so as Babylon was ravaged and carried away for the building of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, in the same manner did they moulder into ruin before the rising foundations of Bagdad." Little more remains of Seleucia but the ground on which it stood; showing, by its unequal surface, the low moundy traces of its former inhabitants. Small as these vestiges may seem, they are daily wasting away, and soon nothing would be left to mark the site of Seleucia, were it not for the apparently imperishable canal of Nebuchadnezzar, the Nahar Malcha, whose capacious bosom, noble in ruins, open to the Tigris, north of where the city stood."
What remains of the palace of Chosroes is thus described by the same hand. "Having passed the Diala, a river which flows into the Tigris, the lofty palace of Chosroes, at Modain, upon the site of the ancient Ctesiphon, became visible to us; looking exceedingly large through the refracting atmosphere of the southern horizon, above the even line of which it towered as the most conspicuous object any where to be seen around us. It looked from hence much larger than Westminster Abbey, when seen from a similar distance; and in its general outline it resembled that building very much, excepting only in its having no towers. The great cathedral of the Crusaders, still standing on the ancient Orthosia, on the coast of Syria, is a perfect model of it in general appearance; as that building is seen when approaching from the southward, although there is no one feature of resemblance between those edifices in detail."
On the northern bank of the Diala, Mr. Buckingham saw nothing but some grass huts, inhabited by a few families, who earned their living by transporting travellers across the river; and to the westward, near the Tigris, a few scattered tents of Arab shepherds. On the south bank a few date-trees were seen; but, besides these, no other signs of fertility or cultivation appeared.
When Mr. Buckingham reached the mounds of Ctesiphon, he found them to be of a moderate height, of a light colour, and strewed over with fragments of those invariable remarks of former population, broken pottery. The outer surface of the mounds made them appear as mere heaps of earth, long exposed to the atmosphere; but he was assured by several well acquainted with the true features of the place, that on digging into the mounds, a masonry of unburnt bricks was found, with layers of reed between them, as in the ruins at Akkerhoof and the mounds of Meklooba at Babylon. The extent of the semicircle formed by these heaps, appears to be nearly two miles. The area of the city, however, had but few mounds throughout its whole extent, and those were small and isolated; the space was chiefly covered with thick heath, sending forth, as in the days of Xenophon, a highly aromatic odour, which formed a cover for partridges, hares, and gazelles, of each of which the traveller saw considerable numbers.
After traversing a space within the walls, strewed with fragments of burnt bricks and pottery, he came to the tomb of Selman Pauk. "This Selman Pauk[210]," says Mr. Buckingham, "was a Persian barber, who, from the fire-worship of his ancestors, became a convert to Islam, under the persuasive eloquence of the great prophet of Modain himself; and, after a life of fidelity to the cause he had embraced, was buried here in his native city of Modain. The memory of this beloved companion of the great head of their faith is held in great respect by all the Mahometans of the country; for, besides the annual feast of the barbers of Bagdad, who in the month of April visit his tomb as that of a patron saint, there are others who come to it on pilgrimage at all seasons of the year."
The large ruin, which forms the principal attraction of this place, is situated about seven hundred paces to the south of this tomb. It is called by the natives Tauk Kesra (the Arch of Kesra). It is composed of two wings and one large central hall, extending all the depth of the building. Its front is nearly perfect; being two hundred and sixty feet in length, and upwards of one hundred feet in height. Of this front the great arched hall occupies the centre; its entrance being of an equal height and breadth with the hall itself. The arch is thus about ninety feet in breadth, and rising above the general line of the front, is at least one hundred and twenty feet high, while its depth is at least equal to its height. "The wings leading out on each side of the central arch," continues Mr. Buckingham, "to extend to the front of the building, are now merely thick walls; but these had originally apartments behind them, as may be seen from undoubted marks that remain, as well as two side doors leading from them into the great central hall." The walls which form these wings in the line of the front were built on the inclined slope, being in thickness about twenty feet at the base; but only ten at the summit. The masonry is altogether of burnt bricks, of the size, form, and composition of those seen in the ruins of Babylon; but none of them have any writing or impression of any kind. The cement is white lime, and the layers are much thicker than is seen in any of the burnt brick edifices at Babylon; approaching nearer to the style of the Greek and Roman masonry found among the ruins of Alexandria, where the layers of lime are almost as thick as the bricks themselves. At Babylon the cement is scarcely perceptible. The symmetry of the work bears considerable resemblance, however, both to the Birs and the fine fragments of brick-masonry of the age of the Caliphs, still remaining at Bagdad.
The wings, though not perfectly uniform, are similar in their general construction; "but the great extent of the whole front," says our accomplished traveller, "with the broad and lofty arch of its centre, and the profusion of recesses and pilasters on each side, must have produced an imposing appearance, when the edifice was perfect; more particularly if the front was once coated, as tradition states it to have been, with white marble; a material of too much value to remain long in its place after the desertion of the city." The arches of the building are described to be all of a Roman form, and the architecture of the Roman style, though with less purity of taste; the pilasters having neither capital nor pedestal, and a pyramidal termination is given to some of the long narrow niches of the front.
There is a circumstance, in regard to the position of this pile, very remarkable. The front of it, though immediately facing the Tigris, lies due east by compass; the stream winding here so exceedingly, that this edifice, though standing on the west of that portion of the river flowing before it, and facing the east, is yet on the eastern side of the Tigris, in its general course. Another curiosity of the same kind is exhibited; that in regard to the sailing of boats, the stream being so serpentine, that those which are going up by it to Bagdad are seen steering south-south-west through one reach, and north-west through another above it. Nor ought we to close here. Sir R. K. Porter furnishes a beautiful anecdote. "The history of Persia, from the Royut-ul-Suffa," says he, "gives an interesting anecdote of this palace. A Roman ambassador, who had been sent to Chosroes with rich presents, was admiring the noble prospect from the window of the royal palace, when he remarked a rough piece of ground; and making inquiry why it was not rendered uniform with the rest, the person to whom he spoke replied, 'It is the property of an old woman, who, though often requested to sell it to the king, has constantly refused; and our monarch is more willing to have his prospect spoiled, than to perfect it by an act of violence.' 'That rough spot,' cried the Roman, 'consecrated by justice, now appears to me more beautiful than all the surrounding scene'."[211]