[295] The lines in which Claudian (In Ruf. lib. ii. v. 45, &c.) describes the sufferings of the inhabitants of these lands (plaga Pannoniæ miserandaque mœnia Thracum, arvaque Mysorum) subject to the annual incursions of the barbarians, are hardly less applicable now than they were then! Claudian’s lines may, perhaps, be translated:—
The devastating course each year renews,
Each year his ravaged fields the peasant views,
Nor weeps he, now, the havoc of the foe—
Long use has stolen e’en the sense of woe!
[296] This movement of Dervish Pashà may, however, have been not such a matter of his own discretion as he wished to make out. Its announcement synchronizes suspiciously with his removal from the Governor-generalship of Bosnia by the Porte, and this account may have been devised to conceal his discomfiture from the consular body.
[297] Since writing this I observe that the derivation of Mt. Porim had also struck M. de St. Marie.
[298] Though authorities differ as to whether it is the ancient Andetrium (otherwise Mandertium), Saloniana or Sarsenterum. By the Sclaves it was originally called Vitrinica.
[299] The coins I saw were silver and brass. There were one or two Greek of Dyrrhachium, and besides Consular and Imperial Roman denarii, there were many third-brass coins dating from the time of Gallienus to that of Constantius II., but the series broke off so abruptly with Constantius, that one would think that the Roman settlement must have been destroyed about the middle of the fourth century. At Siscia, on the other hand, Roman coins were common till the time of Honorius.
[300] I take this measurement from Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who visited Mostar about thirty years ago, and then took accurate plans of the bridge. See Dalmatia, vol. ii. p. 58, &c. On the piers of the abutment at the east end of the bridge Sir Gardner deciphered two Turkish inscriptions, one of them bearing the date 1087 A.H. (1650 A.D.), the second year of Sultan Mahomet, probably referring to repairs made in his reign.