GREEK PRIEST’S HOUSE NEAR YENI KUEY.
ON THE BOSPHORUS.
The various nations that compose the population of Turkey are all distinguished in the metropolis by peculiarities which are not left to their option, but are strictly prescribed to them, that there may be no amalgamation, and the Osmanli may be marked everywhere by separate and distinct characters from their Rayas. Not only the manner of their turban and the colour of their slippers distinguish them from their masters, but the hue of their houses; and while the Turk indulges in every gay and gaudy tint, the mansions of the Jew, Greek, and Armenian are confined to dark and leaden colours, and are at once known by their dull and dismal aspect This is particularly distinguished in sailing along the Bosphorus; and so rigid are the Turks in exacting this distinction, that those who violate it are punished with death. During the progress of the Greek revolution, it set a fatal mark on the devoted inhabitants. The troops, in passing up and down the strait, selected these houses as targets, at which to direct their tophees. Wherever a person appeared at an open window, a volley was discharged at him in very wantonness, till the house was riddled with shot. Nothing could be more dismal than the appearance they presented−their dark and dingy fronts torn and ragged, and the inhabitants frequently hanging out of the windows or against the tattered walls. The rage at one time was particularly directed against the priests. After the execution of their venerable patriarch, all sense of sanctity, which the Turks are willing to allow to the sacred character, whatever be the profession, was converted into hatred and insult. The bishop of Derkon was hung against his own church at Therapia; his clergy were executed whenever they were taken, like common felons, on the shores of the Bosphorus; and the beauty of this fair region was deformed by the most appalling sights. The waters, too, bore frightful testimony of these enormities. The bodies thrown into the current were sometimes carried by the eddies into the little bays and harbours, where they remained putrifying in the still water, tainting the air, and exhibiting to the terrified survivors the decaying remains of their pastors, still wrapped in the vestments in which they died.
Happily this dismal period is passed away, and the constitutional gaiety of the Greeks now evinces its usual hilarity, and their music and dancing again enlivens the shores and villages of the Bosphorus. Their social dispositions, evinced in the structure of their houses, is strongly contrasted with those of the Turks. While the windows of the latter are shut up by impenetrable lattice-work, which is always kept jealously closed, and a human being is never seen in the solitary house, those of the former are distinguished by open casements, at which is generally observed some gay groups of laughing female faces, holding a cheerful and unrestrained communication with any passenger. Nor are the houses of their ecclesiastics prohibited from this social enjoyment. The Greek secular priests are allowed to marry: their religion does not inhibit gaiety, though it prescribes many fasts: they have often a numerous family, and the “priest’s house” has nothing of that ascetic and austere observance that marks the celibacy of the Latin church.
| T. Allom. | W. G. Watkins. |
| 1. Palace of Crœsus, 2. Church Of Panayia, 3. Theatre, 4. Acropolis, 5. The Pactolus, 6. Mount Tmolus. | |
THE ACROPOLIS AT SARDIS.
ASIA MINOR.
Sardis, one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse, was anciently the capital of the rich kingdom of Lydia. Here was the court of the splendid Crœsus, the contemporary of Cyrus the Great, to which were invited men distinguished by worth and learning. Here it was that Æsop composed those apologues, which at this day form the rudiments of our education; and here Solon gave that instructive lesson to the monarch on his throne, that riches and prosperity are no protection against the instability of fortune−a truth which the unhappy prince had soon reason bitterly to remember. This city, like others, underwent many vicissitudes. It fell into the hands of Cyrus and the Persians, five hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. It was burnt by the Athenians half a century afterwards; was the occasion of drawing down the resentment of the “Great King” led the Persians to invade Europe; and was the cause of all the celebrated events that followed. It was totally destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Tiberius, and about the time of the crucifixion of our Lord. Immediately after, the renovated city became distinguished among the seven Christian lights of the world. Sardis was one of those which the prophet, in the Apocalypse, reproves for declension from the Christian faith, and who thus exhorts them: “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God:” They despised the admonition; and when Julian attempted to restore paganism, he re-erected in this town all the pagan altars that had been prostrated; and when the Mohammedans invaded Asia Minor, Sardis, like the rest, fell into the power of the inveterate enemies of Christianity.
Sardis, now called Sart by the Turks, has not any collection of human habitations. The only temporary occupants are the hordes of marauding Turcomans, who, with their camels and their flocks, sometimes pitch their tents on the plains, and, when the herbage is exhausted, pass to other places. Ruins scattered over an extensive surface, intimate the existence of a former city, whose name would not be recognized and ascertained, but for the permanent characters of nature which surround it, and still remain unchanged. As Diana was the great deity, and chief object of adoration to the Ephesians, so Cybele was to the Lydians, among whom she was said to be born. Her great temple stood at Sardis. On the plain is still seen the remnant of a noble edifice of which the five columns still standing supported a vast mass of marble, exciting the wonder of the ancients by what power it could be raised so high. It now lies a prostrate fragment, serving only as an indication of the structure to which it belonged. The remains of the Gerusia, or House of Crœsus, are considerable, and consist of brick-work remarkable for its durability. But the objects of greatest interest to the Christian visiter are the ruins of two Churches, those of the Panayia and St. John. Among “the Seven Churches,” these are perhaps the only actual edifices of early Christian worship, that can be distinguished at the present day.