"I had not expected to see Ecbatana," says Sir Robert Ker Porter, "as Alexander found it; neither in the superb ruin, in which Timour had left it; but, almost unconsciously to myself, some indistinct ideas of what it had been floated before me; and when I actually beheld its remains, it was with the appalled shock of seeing a prostrate dead body, where I had anticipated a living man, though drooping to decay. Orontes, indeed, was there, magnificent and hoary-headed; the funeral remnant of the poor corpse beneath." The extensive plain of Hameden stretched below, and the scene there was delightful. Numberless castellated villages, rising amidst groves of the noblest trees. The whole tract appeared as a carpet of luxuriant verdure, studded by hamlets and watered by rivulets. "If the aspect of this part of the country," thought the traveller, "now presents so rich a picture, when its palaces are no more, what must it have been when Astyages held his court here; and Cyrus, in his yearly courses from Persepolis, Susa, and Babylon, stretched his golden sceptre over this delicious plain? Well might such a garden of nature's bounties be the favourite seat of kings, the nursery of the arts, and all the graceful courtesies of life."
The site of the modern town, Sir Robert goes on to observe, like that of the ancient, is on a gradual ascent, terminating near the foot of the eastern side of the mountain. It bears many vestiges of having been strongly fortified. The sides and summits are covered with large remnants of great thickness, and also of towers, the materials of which were bricks, dried in the sun.
When it lost the name of Ecbatana in that of Hameden, it seems to have lost its honours too; for while it preserved the old appellation of the capital, whence the great kings of the Kaianian race had dictated their decrees; and where "Cyrus, the king, had placed, in the house of the rolls of its palace, the record wherein was written his order for the rebuilding of Jerusalem," it seems, with the retention of its name, to have preserved some memory of its consequence, even so far into modern times as three centuries of "the Christian era." "It was then," continues our accomplished traveller, "that Tiridates attempted to transfer its glories to his own capital; and, according to Ebn Haukel, the gradual progress of six hundred years mouldered away the architectural superiority of the ancient city. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Tamerlane sacked, pillaged, and destroyed its proudest buildings, ruined the inhabitants, and reduced the whole, from being one of the most extensive cities of the East, to hardly a parsang in length and breadth[221]. In that dismantled and dismembered state, though dwindled to a mere day-built suburb of what it was, it possessed iron gates, till within these fifty years; when Aga Mahomed Khan, not satisfied with the depth of so great a capital's degradation, ordered every remain of past consequence to be destroyed." The result? "His commands were obeyed to a tittle. The mud alleys, which now occupy the site of ancient streets or squares, are narrow, interrupted by large holes or hollows, in the way, and heaps of the fallen crumbled walls of deserted dwellings. A miserable bazaar or two are passed through in traversing the town; and large lonely spots are met with, marked by broken low mounds over older ruins; with here and there a few poplars or willow trees, shadowing the border of a dirty stream, abandoned to the meanest uses; which, probably, flowed pellucid and admired, when these places were gardens, and the grass-grown heap some stately dwelling of Ecbatana."
In one or two spots may be observed square platforms of large stones, many of which are chiselled over with the finest Arabic characters. These, however, are evidently tomb-stones of the inhabitants during the caliphs' rule; the register of yesterday. "As I passed through the wretched hovelled streets, and saw the once lofty city of Astyages, shrunk like a shrivelled gourd, the contemplation of such a spectacle called forth more saddening reflections than any that had awakened in me on any former ground of departed greatness. In some I had seen mouldering pomp, or sublime desolation; in this, every object spoke of neglect, and hopeless poverty. Not majesty in stately ruin, pining to find dissolution on the spot where it was first blasted; but beggary, seated on the place which kings had occupied, squalid with rags, and stupid with misery. It was impossible to look on it and not exclaim, "O Ecbatana, seat of princes! How is the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!"
Sir Robert saw, not far from the remains of a fortress to the south, the broken base and shaft of a column; which, on examination, proved to him that the architecture of Persepolis and Ecbatana had been the same.
Hameden is to be seen for several miles before reaching Surkhahed, for several stages. Mr. Morier saw nothing in Persia that wore such an appearance of prosperity; for the plain, about nine miles in breadth and fifteen in length, was one continued series of fields and orchards. Hameden itself is one of the best watered places in Persia. All the habitations are interspersed with trees. The most conspicuous building is a large mosque, called Mesjed Jumah, now falling into decay; and there was to be seen, every morning, before the sun rises, a numerous body of peasants, with spades in their hands, waiting to be hired for the day, to work in the surrounding fields.[222] Near the Mosque, in a court, filled with tents, stands a building, called the sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai. It is of an architecture of the earliest ages of Mohammedism. It was erected in the year of the Creation 4474, by two devout Jews of Kasham.
Translation of the inscription on the marble slab in the sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai.
"Mordecai, beloved and honoured by a king, was great and good. His garments were those of a sovereign. Ahasuerus covered him with this rich dress, and also placed a golden chain around his neck. The city of Susa rejoiced at his honours, and his high fortune became the glory of the Jews."
On a steep declivity of the Orontes are to be seen two tablets, each of which is divided into three longitudinal compartments, inscribed by the arrow-headed character of Persepolis. In the northern skirts of the city, Mr. Morier found another monument of antiquity. This is the base of the column, which we noticed just now; and this, Mr. Morier is equally certain with Sir Robert, is of the identical order of the columns of Persepolis, and of the same sort of stone. This, says Mr. Morier, led to a discovery of some importance; for, adjacent to this fragment is a large but irregular terrace, evidently the work of art, and perhaps the ground-plan of some great building; of the remains of which its soil must be the repository. Mr. Morier is induced to believe, that the situation of this spot agrees with that Polybius[223] would assign to the palace of the kings of Persia, which, he says, was below the citadel.
Besides these, there are many other antiquities; but as they all belong to Mohammedan times, they do not come within the sphere of our subject. There are some hopes that this city may, one day, assume a far different rank than what it now holds;[224] for, within a few years, it has been created a royal government, and committed to the care of Mohammed Ali Mirza. Palaces, therefore, have been erected, and mansions for his ministers, new bazaars and mercantile caravanserais.