In the Levant / Twenty Fifth Impression

by Charles Dudley Warner

We made our way across the stream and along aqueducts and over heaps of shattered walls and columns to the west end of the group of ruins. This end is defended by a battlemented wall some fifty feet high, which was built by the Saracens out of incongruous materials from older constructions. The northeast corner of this new wall rests upon the ancient Phoenician wall, which sustained the original platform of the sacred buildings; and at this corner are found the three famous stones which at one time gave a name, “The Three-Stoned,” to the great temple. As I do not intend to enter into the details of these often described ruins, I will say here, that this ancient Phoenician wall appears on the north side of the platform detached, showing that the most ancient temple occupied a larger area than the Greek and Roman buildings.

There are many stones in the old platform wall which are thirty feet long; but the three large ones, which are elevated twenty feet above the ground, and are in a line, are respectively 64 feet long, 63 feet 8 inches, and 63 feet, and about 13 feet in height and in depth. When I measured the first stone, I made it 128 feet long, which I knew was an error, but it was only by careful inspection that I discovered the joint of the two stones which I had taken for one. I thought this a practical test of the close fit of these blocks, which, laid without mortar, come together as if the ends had been polished. A stone larger than either of these lies in the neighboring quarry, hewn out but not detached.

These massive constructions, when first rediscovered, were the subject of a great deal of wonder and speculation, and were referred to a remote and misty if not fabulous period. I believe it is now agreed that they were the work of the Phoenicians, or Canaanites, and that they are to be referred to a period subsequent to the conquest of Egypt, or at least of the Delta of Egypt, by the Hittites, when the Egyptian influence was felt in Syria; and that this Temple of the Sun was at least suggested, as well as the worship of the Sun god here, by the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis on the Nile. There is, to be sure, no record of the great city of Ba'albek, but it may safely be referred to the period of the greatest prosperity of the Phoenician nation.

Much as we had read of the splendor of these ruins, and familiar as we were with photographs of them, we were struck with surprise when we climbed up into the great court, that is, to the platform of the temples. The platform extends over eight hundred feet from east to west, an elevated theatre for the display of some of the richest architecture in the world. The general view is broad, impressive, inspiring beyond anything else in Egypt or Syria; and when we look at details, the ruins charm us with their beauty. Round three sides of the great court runs a wall, the interior of which, recessed and niched, was once adorned with the most elaborate carving in designs more graceful than you would suppose stone could lend itself to, with a frieze of garlands of vines, flowers, and fruits. Of the so-called great Temple of Baal at the west end of the platform, only six splendid Corinthian columns remain. The so-called Temple of the Sun or Jupiter, to the south of the other and on a lower level, larger than the Parthenon, exists still in nearly its original form, although some of the exterior columns have fallen, and time and the art-hating Moslems have defaced some of its finest sculpture. The ceiling between the outer row of columns and the wall of this temple is, or was, one of the most exquisite pieces of stone-carving ever executed; the figures carved in the medallions seem to have anticipated the Gothic genius, and the exquisite patterns in stone to have suggested the subsequent Saracenic invention. The composite capitals of the columns offer an endless study; stone roses stand out upon their stems, fruit and flowers hang and bloom in the freedom of nature; the carving is all bold and spirited, and the invention endless. This is no doubt work of the Roman period after the Christian era, but it is pervaded by Greek feeling, and would seem to have been executed by Greek artists.

In the centre of the great court (there is a small six-sided court to the east of the larger one, which was once approached by a great flight of steps from below) are remains of a Christian basilica, referred to the reign of Theodosius. Underneath the platform are enormous vaults, which may have served the successive occupants for store-houses. The Saracens converted this position into a fortress, and this military impress the ruins still bear. We have therefore four ages in these ruins: the Phoenician, the Greek and Roman, the Christian, and the Saracenic. The remains of the first are most enduring. The old builders had no other method of perpetuating their memory except by these cyclopean constructions.

We saw the sunset on Ba'albek. The clouds broke away and lay in great rosy masses over Lebanon; the white snow ridge for forty miles sparkled under them. The peak of Lebanon, over ten thousand feet above us, was revealed in all its purity. There was a red light on the columns and on the walls, and the hills of Anti-Lebanon, red as a dull garnet, were speckled with snow patches. The imagination could conceive nothing more beautiful than the rose-color of the ruins, the flaming sky, and the immaculate snow peaks, apparently so close to us.

On our return we stopped at the beautiful circular temple of Venus, which would be a wonder in any other neighborhood. Dinner awaited us, and was marked by only one novelty,—what we at first took to be brown napkins, fantastically folded and laid at each plate, a touch of elegance for which we were not prepared. But the napkins proved to be bread. It is made of coarse dark wheat, baked in circular cakes as thin as brown paper, and when folded its resemblance to a napkin is complete. We found it tolerably palatable, if one could get rid of the notion that he was eating a limp rag. The people had been advertised of our arrival, and men, women, and boys swarmed about us to sell copper coins; most of them Roman, which they find in the ruins. Few are found of the Greeks'. the Romans literally sowed the ground with copper money wherever they went in the Orient. The inhabitants are Moslems, and rather decent in appearance, and the women incline to good looks, though not so modest in dress as Moslem women usually are; they are all persistent beggars, and bring babies in their arms, borrowing for that purpose all the infants in the neighborhood, to incite us to charity.

We yielded to the average sentiment of Christendom, and sallied out in the cold night to see the ruins under the light of a full moon; one of the party going simply that he might avoid the reproach of other travellers,—“It is a pity you did not see Ba'albek by moonlight.” And it must be confessed that these ruins stand the dim light of the moon better than most ruins; they are so broad and distinct that they show themselves even in this disadvantage, which those of Karnak do not. The six isolated columns seemed to float in the sky; between them snowy Lebanon showed itself.

The next morning was clear and sparkling; the sky was almost as blue as it is in Nubia. We were awakened by the drumming of a Moslem procession. It was the great annual fête day, upon which was to be performed the miracle of riding over the bodies of the devout. The ceremony took place a couple of miles away upon the hill, and we saw on all the paths leading thither files of men and women in white garments. The sheykh, mounted on horseback, rides over the prostrate bodies of all who throw themselves before him, and the number includes young men as well as darwishes. As they lie packed close together and the horse treads upon their spinal columns, their escape from death is called miraculous. The Christians tried the experiment here a year or two ago, several young fellows submitting to let a horseman trample over them, in order to show the Moslems that they also possessed a religion which could stand horses' hoofs.

The ruins, under the intense blue sky, and in the splendid sunlight, were more impressive than in the dull gray of the day before, or even in the rosy sunset; their imperial dignity is not impaired by the excessive wealth of ornamentation. When upon this platform there stood fifty-eight of these noble columns, instead of six, conspicuous from afar, and the sunlight poured into this superb court, adorned by the genius of Athens and the wealth of Rome, this must have been one of the most resplendent temples in existence, rivalling the group upon the Acropolis itself!