Previous to the year 1675, it had been partially destroyed, and several times, by earthquakes; and it was predicted that a seventh convulsion would be fatal to the whole city. Such a calamity, attended by a dreadful fire, and the swallowing up of multitudes by the incursion of the sea, recurred in 1688, and did, indeed, very nearly fulfil the prophecy. “Repeated strokes,” says Sir John Hobhouse, “and almost annual pestilences, have since that period laid waste this devoted city; and yet the convenience of a most spacious and secure harbour, together with the luxuriant fertility of the surrounding country, and the prescriptive excellence allowed nearly two thousand years to this port, in preference to the other maritime stations of Asia Minor, still operate to collect and keep together a vast mass of inhabitants from every quarter of the globe.”
According to Pococke, the city might have been about four miles in compass; of a triangular form. It seems to have extended about a mile on the sea, and three miles on the north, south, and east sides, taking in the compass of the castle. This stands on the remains of the ancient castle, the walls of which were of the same kind of architecture as the city walls on the hill. It is all in ruins, except a small part of the west end, which is always kept shut up.
One of the gateways of white marble has been brought from another place; and in the architrave round the arch there is a Greek inscription of the middle ages. At another gate there is a colossal head, said to be that of the Amazon Smyrna. It is of fine workmanship, and the tresses particularly flow in a very natural manner. “Smyrna,” says Pococke, “was one of the finest cities in these parts, and the streets were beautifully laid out, well-paved, and adorned with porticoes, both above and below. There was also a temple of Mars, a circus, and a theatre; and yet there is now very little to be seen of all these things.”
Upon a survey of the castle, Dr. Chandler collected, that, after being re-edified by John Angelus Comnenus, its condition, though less ruinous than before, was far more mean and ignoble. The old wall, of which many remnants may be discovered, is of a solid massive construction, worthy of Alexander and his captains. All the repairs are mere patchwork. On the arch of a gateway, which is of marble, is inscribed a copy of verses, giving an elegant and poetical description of the extreme misery from which the above-mentioned emperor raised the city; concluding with an address to the Omnipotent Ruler of heaven and earth, that he would grant him and his queen, whose beauty it celebrates, a reign of many years. On each side is an eagle, rudely cut.
Near the sea is the ground-work of a stadium, stripped of its marble seats and decorations. Below the theatre is part of a slight wall. The city walls have long since been demolished. Even its ruins are removed. Beyond the deep valley, however, in which the Meles winds, behind the castle, are several portions of the wall of the Pomœrium, which encompassed the city at a distance, but broken. The facings are gone, and masses left only of rubble and cement.
The ancient city has supplied materials for those public edifices, which have been erected by the Turks. The Bezestan and the Vizir khan were both raised with the white marble of the theatre. The very ruins of the stones and temples are vanished. “We saw,” says Dr. Chandler, “remains of one only; some shafts of columns of variegated marble, much injured, in the way ascending through the town to the castle. Many pedestals, statues, inscriptions, and medals have been, and are still, discovered in digging. Perhaps,” continues our author, “no place has contributed more to enrich the cabinets and collections of Europe.”
“Smyrna,” says a celebrated French writer, “the queen of the cities of Anatolia, and extolled by the ancients under the title of ‘the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the ornament of Asia,’ braves the reiterated efforts of conflagrations and earthquakes. Ten times destroyed, she has ten times risen from her ruins with new splendour. According to a very common Grecian system, the principal buildings were erected on the face of a hill fronting the sea. The hill supplied marble, while its slope afforded a place for the seats rising gradually above each other in the stadium, or the great theatre for the exhibition of games. Almost every trace of the ancient city, however, has been obliterated during the contests between the Greek empire and the Ottomans, and afterwards by the ravages of Timour, in 1402. The foundation of the stadium remains; but the area is sown with grain. There are only a few vestiges of the theatre; and the castle, which crowns the hill, is chiefly patchwork, executed by John Comnenus on the ruins of the old one, the walls of which, of immense strength and thickness, may still be discovered.”
This city was visited a short time since by the celebrated French poet and traveller Lamartine. He has thus spoken of its environs:—“The view from the top of the hill over the gulf and city is beautiful. On descending the hill to the margin of the river, which I like to believe is the Meles, we were delighted with the situation of the bridge of the caravans, very near one of the gates of the town. The river is limpid, slumbering under a peaceful arch of sycamores and cypresses; we seated ourselves on its bank. If this stream heard the first notes of Homer, I love to hear its gentle murmurings amidst the roots of the palm-trees; I raise its waters to my lips. Oh! might that man appear from the Western world, who should weave its history, its dreams, and its heaven, into an epic! Such a poem is the sepulchre of times gone by, to which posterity comes to venerate traditions, and eternalise by its worship the great actions and sublime thoughts of human nature. Its author engraves his name on the pedestal of the statue which he erects to man, and he lives in all the ideas with which he enriches the world of imagination.”
According to the same author, Smyrna in no respect resembles an Eastern town; it is a large and elegant factory, where the European consuls and merchants lead the life of Paris and London.
Though frequently and severely visited by the plague, it contains one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants; and may be considered as the great emporium of the Levant[240].