Ancient history from the monuments: Greek cities & islands of Asia Minor

by W. S. W. Vaux

DRUM OF PILLAR.

At length, in April, 1869, Mr. Wood came upon some massive walls, which were proved to have been those of the courtyard in which the Temple had once stood, by an inscription in Greek and Latin, stating that Augustus had rebuilt them; and, finally, in 1870, a marble pavement was lighted on, at the depth of nineteen feet below the alluvial soil of the present plain, together with drums of columns, quite six feet high, one base being still attached to its plinth. The site of the Temple of Diana had been reached, and its style was, at once, seen to have been similar to that of the Temple of Athene Polias at Priene, and of Apollo at Branchidæ. It is scarcely possible to speak too highly of Mr. Wood’s tact and sagacity. Thus, considering the accounts of ancient authors too vague as guides for excavation, his first diggings were essentially tentative, and with the view of meeting with some illustrative inscriptions. In the Great Theatre he was more likely to find them than anywhere else, and here, indeed, he discovered six large stones, originally from the cella of the Temple, and each bearing various decrees. Indeed, by the most important of these, to which we have already alluded, the real clue was afforded as to its whereabouts. The of finding this inscription confirmed Mr. Wood’s original idea of feeling his way to the Temple from one of the city gates, the result being the discovery of two roads,—one of them leading round the mountain Prion or Pion, the other towards the town of Magnesia. He wisely determined to trace the one which showed the greatest amount of wear or use, assuming that if either of them led to the Temple it would be the most used one. In the one round Mount Prion he found four distinct ruts, deeply cut in its pavement of huge blocks of marble, while the other road was worn scarcely at all. He then devoted all his energy, to use his own words, “in exploring the road round Mount Pion,[^[24]] which eventually led to the Temple.”

[24]. The spelling of the name of this little eminence does not seem to be quite certain. Pausanias and Pliny call it Pion; Strabo, on the other hand, Prion. There was a mountain so named in the island of Cos. Comp. Priene.

In this way, the peribolus, or courtyard wall of the Temple, was soon reached, and, not long after, as before stated, the drums of several of the columns were exhumed, lying in a confused mass as they had fallen, sixteen or seventeen centuries ago. The largest and best preserved of these drums, of which a sketch is given as the frontispiece for this volume, was found on February 3rd, 1871; it is somewhat more than 6 feet high and 18½ feet in circumference, and weighs 11¼ tons. From the figures carved on it, one of which represents Mercury, it may be fairly presumed that it was one of the thirty-six “columnæ cælatæ” recorded by Pliny. Mr. Wood states that though this splendid building was not only destroyed by earthquakes and the malice of man, all the stones, moreover, having been carried away that could be used for building purposes, enough still remained to enable him to draw out on paper an accurate plan of its original shape and contour. He adds that, in the course of his excavations, he “discovered the remains of three distinct temples, the last but two, the last but one, and the last. The former must have been that built 500 B.C., for which the solid foundations described by Pliny and Vitruvius were laid.... Between 5 and 6 feet below the pavement and under the foundations of the walls of the cella, I found the layer of charcoal, 4 inches thick, described by Pliny. This was laid between two layers of a composition about 3 inches thick, similar to, and of the consistency of, glazier’s putty.”

In conclusion, we may add that Mr. Wood found abundant instances of the use of colour, chiefly vermilion and blue, and one specimen of gold inserted, as a fillet; together with several pieces of friezes much shattered, but, evidently, of the same size and artistic character as the reliefs on the drum. The reliefs themselves do not exhibit any great artistic merit, though they fairly represent the characteristic style of the Macedonian period: their general effect must, however, have been very rich and gorgeous, and quite in character with what we know of rich and luxurious Ephesus. We have not, at present, any evidence that the columns, as well as the drums, were covered with sculpture. Mr. Wood, we believe, thinks they were, but a medallion in the Bibliothèque at Paris, which gives the front of the Temple, rather suggests the contrary.

Passing on from Ephesus we come to the scarcely less celebrated city of Miletus, the parent, according to Pliny, of more than 80 colonies.[^[25]] Situated at the mouth and, on the left bank, of the Mæander, Miletus more strictly belongs to Caria; but it was, also, one of the most conspicuous members of the Ionian confederacy. It is believed that it was originally founded by a colony from Crete, under the leadership of Sarpedon, the brother of Minos; an idea, in some degree, confirmed by a notice in Homer (Il. ii. 867). Herodotus (ix. 97) only mentions Sarpedon’s establishing himself in Lycia. The advantageous position of the town, with a harbour capable of holding a large fleet, naturally gave it, from the earliest times, the lead in maritime affairs. Its most important colonies were Abydus, Lampsacus, and Parium on the Hellespont; Proconnesus and Cyzicus on the Propontis; Sinope and Amisus on the Euxine; with several more on the coast of Thrace and Tauris, and on the Borysthenes. The period, however, of Miletus’s chief power was comprised between its Ionian colonization and its conquest by the Persians in 494 B.C. After that period, it did not maintain the same lead among the seaports of the Asiatic Greeks; indeed, during the time of its greatest fame, peace was practically unknown among its people, who were constantly distracted by factions aristocratic or democratic.

[25]. Rambach—De Mileto ejusque coloniis (Hal. Sax. 1790)—has attempted, not without success, to identify the larger number of them.

As was natural, the kings of Lydia made many attempts to possess themselves of Miletus. In the reign of Alyattes, however, the Lydian and Milesian quarrel was, for the time, made up, the Lydian king having been supposed to have incurred the wrath of the gods, as his troops had burnt a temple dedicated to Minerva at Assessos. Some of the rulers of the town were men of historic note, especially Thrasybulus, the friend of the Corinthian Periander. Somewhat later, the Milesians made a treaty with Crœsus, and, what was of more importance to them, secured its maintenance by Cyrus; hence, their town was spared much of the misery inflicted on the other Ionian states in the first war with the Persians (Herod. i. 141, 143). But if Miletus had been previously fortunate, this good luck deserted her during the great Græco-Persian war; nor could she indeed complain, as the chief promoter of this rebellion was her “tyrannus” Histiæus. As will be remembered, it was mainly through Histiæus and his kinsman Aristagoras, that Ionia revolted against the Persians; and, further, that, to the instigations of the latter, was due the needless burning of the great western capital of the Persians, Sardes. An immediate attack on Miletus by the Persian satraps was the natural reply to this treachery; and the city was eventually taken by storm, with all the horrors consequent thereon.[^[26]] It may be doubted, whether after this fall, Miletus ever again recovered her former glory.

[26]. Herodotus, vi. 18-21, states that the Athenians were so much distressed at the fall of Miletus, that they fined the poet Phrynichus 1,000 drachmæ for putting on the stage a drama entitled “The Capture of Miletus.”