The investigation of the ruins of Ephesus was doubtless interesting at the time, but the visit produced no such impression on the mind of Byron as might have been expected. He never directly refers to it in his works: indeed, after Athens, the relics of Ephesus are things but of small import, especially to an imagination which, like that of the poet, required the action of living characters to awaken its dormant sympathies.
CHAPTER XXII
Embarks for Constantinople—Touches at Tenedos—Visits Alexandria—Trees—The Trojan Plain—Swims the Hellespont—Arrival at Constantinople
On the 11th of April Lord Byron embarked at Smyrna, in the Salsette frigate for Constantinople. The wind was fair during the night, and at half past six next morning, the ship was off the Sygean promontory, the north end of the ancient Lesbos or Mitylene. Having passed the headland, north of the little town of Baba, she came in sight of Tenedos, where she anchored, and the poet went on shore to view the island.
The port was full of small craft, which in their voyage to the Archipelago had put in to wait for a change of wind, and a crowd of Turks belonging to these vessels were lounging about on the shore. The town was then in ruins, having been burned to the ground by a Russian squadron in the year 1807.
Next morning, Byron, with a party of officers, left the ship to visit the ruins of Alexandria Troas, and landed at an open port, about six or seven miles to the south of where the Salsette was at anchor. The spot near to where they disembarked was marked by several large cannon-balls of granite; for the ruins of Alexandria have long supplied the fortresses of the Dardanelles with these gigantic missiles.
They rambled some time through the shaggy woods, with which the country is covered, and the first vestiges of antiquity which attracted their attention were two large granite sarcophagi; a little beyond they found two or three fragments of granite pillars, one of them about twenty-five feet in length, and at least five in diameter. Near these they saw arches of brick-work, and on the east of them those magnificent remains, to which early travellers have given the name of the palace of Priam, but which are, in fact, the ruins of ancient baths. An earthquake in the course of the preceding winter had thrown down large portions of them, and the internal divisions of the edifice were, in consequence, choked with huge masses of mural wrecks and marbles.
The visitors entered the interior through a gap, and found themselves in the midst of enormous ruins, enclosed on two sides by walls, raised on arches, and by piles of ponderous fragments. The fallen blocks were of vast dimensions, and showed that no cement had been used in the construction—an evidence of their great antiquity. In the midst of this crushed magnificence stood several lofty portals and arches, pedestals of gigantic columns and broken steps and marble cornices, heaped in desolate confusion.
From these baths the distance to the sea is between two and three miles—a gentle declivity covered with low woods, and partially interspersed with spots of cultivated ground. On this slope the ancient city of Alexandria Troas was built. On the north-west, part of the walls, to the extent of a mile, may yet be traced; the remains of a theatre are also still to be seen on the side of the hill fronting the sea, commanding a view of Tenedos, Lemnos, and the whole expanse of the Ægean.
Having been conducted by the guide, whom they had brought with them from Tenedos, to the principal antiquities of Alexandria Troas, the visitors returned to the frigate, which immediately after got under way. On the 14th of April she came to anchor about a mile and a half from Cape Janissary, the Sygean promontory, where she remained about a fortnight; during which ample opportunity was afforded to inspect the plain of Troy, that scene of heroism, which, for three thousand years, has attracted the attention and interested the feelings and fancy of the civilized world.