Subsequently, Miletus made many spasmodic efforts to regain her freedom, but with little avail, though it still existed till the decline of the Byzantine empire—its Church being under the direction of bishops who ranked as Metropolitans of Caria (Hierocl.).[[27]] A pestilential swamp now covers the birthplace of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.[[28]]
[27]. At Miletus, St. Luke tells us that St. Paul sent to his chief disciples at Ephesus (distant about thirty miles) to come to see him. This was their last opportunity, as he was then on his final journey to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 17).
[28]. A proverb cited by Athenæus from Aristotle may refer to the condition of the Milesians after the capture of their city by the Persians:—Πάλαι ποτ’ ἦσαν ἄλκιμοι Μιλήσιοι.
In the neighbourhood of Miletus stood, at Branchidæ or Didyma, the famous temple of Apollo Didymæus, the site, we feel pleased to say, of one of Mr. Newton’s most valuable researches. It was known in Greek history from the remotest times, as the site of a shrine and of an oracle second only in sanctity and importance to that of Delphi; as the spot where Pharaoh Necho dedicated the armour he had worn when he took the city of Cadytis (Herod, ii. 159), and as a place which received from Crœsus, before his war with Cyrus, golden offerings equal in weight to those he gave to Delphi. It was plundered and burnt by Darius I., and, a second time, by Xerxes, its sacred family of priests having been, on this occasion, swept off to Sogdiana by the conqueror; but it revived again, in renewed splendour, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, when rebuilt on a scale so vast that, according to Strabo, it could not be roofed over: it was memorable, especially, too, for a succession of oracles ascending to a period before the commencement of history, yet not wholly extinct even so late as the days of Julian. It was reasonable to expect that such a place would retain some relics of its past greatness, and of its pre-eminence among the sacred shrines of antiquity. Indeed, many travellers, before Mr. Newton, had spoken of the ruins of the Temple and of the Sacred Way leading to it, and, from the notices in Wheler (1685), Gell, Leake, the “Ionian Antiquities,” and Hamilton, much valuable information may be gathered.
It was left to Mr. Newton to complete what had been indeed, hardly done at all before, and to secure for England the most important sculptures still in situ. The Temple of Apollo Didymæus[[29]] was originally approached from the sea by a “Sacred Way,” on each side of which had once been a row of seated statues, sepulchral sori, tombs, &c. Along this “Way” Mr. Newton discovered eight seated statues, generally about 4 feet 6 inches high, by 2 feet 9 inches broad and deep; the character of their workmanship being, at the first glance, strikingly Egyptian, at least in this respect, that their drapery, extending from the shoulders to the feet, consists of one closely-fitting garment (chitōn), and of a light shawl (peplos). One only of the figures retains its head, the sculptured treatment of it being that usually recognized as the most archaic Greek, in that the hair is arranged in long parallel tresses, as in the earliest coins of Syracuse. With two exceptions, all these statues belong to the same period of art. Mr. Newton says, it is evident that no one of them occupied, when he discovered them, exactly its original position, and that they must, at some time or other, have been thrown down and partially removed—an opinion confirmed by a somewhat later discovery of about eighty feet of the original paving of the “Sacred Way,” together with some bases, not improbably those on which these statues had been originally placed. The “Sacred Way” can still be traced for about 580 yards.
[29]. Didyma was the ancient name of the site where the temple stood; hence the building was sometimes called the “Didymæum.” Strabo speaks of it as τοῦ ἐν Διδύμοις ναοῦ. On the pretence that the priests of Branchidæ voluntarily returned with Xerxes to Persia, their descendants were cruelly murdered by Alexander the Great (Strabo, xiv. 634, xi. 517; Quint. Curt., vii. 5).
INSCRIPTION OF CHARES.
In a wall extending along it are, here and there, masses of polygonal masonry, with individual stones of immense size, the remains, probably, of an original Hellenic wall. At a short distance from the last of the seated statues, Mr. Newton met with two remarkable monuments—a colossal lion and a female sphinx—both, unfortunately, much injured. The sphinx was completely buried under the earth, and had nothing in its form to recommend it, but the lion had, on its side, a very ancient inscription, which the barbarous Greeks of the neighbourhood had done all they could to obliterate. The important question is, to what period are these works to be assigned? Now, of direct evidence we have none; for, though history speaks of the two temples at this spot, we have no record of the statues themselves; the probability being that they were damaged nearly as much as at present before Herodotus visited the spot, and, probably, by the Persians. Yet, in spite of the silence of history, we have some indirect evidence from the monuments themselves; enough, at least, to determine their age within tolerably accurate limits. In the first place, we have the character of their art, which is, unquestionably, very archaic; secondly, on three of the chairs are inscriptions in the oldest Greek character; on the most important one written boustrophedon (i.e. backwards and forwards, as an ox ploughs); thirdly, a long inscription on the recumbent lion, and another, quite as old, on a detached block, the base, possibly, of a statue now lost. In order that the nature of the characters used may be comprehended, we annex a woodcut of the legend on one of the chairs of the seated figures, the translation of which is, “I am Chares, son of Clesis, ruler of Teichaoessa, a [dedicatory] monument of Apollo.”[[30]] On the block found near the chair, the inscription states that “the sons of Anaximander have [dedicated a statue?] of Andromachus,” and that “Terpsicles made it”: while that, on the side of the lion,—the most curious of them all,—declares that “the sons of Python, Archelaos, Thales, Pasikles, Hegesander, and Lysias, have dedicated the offerings, as a tenth, to Apollo.” Some years since, a still more perfect seated figure was in existence, on the chair of which was an inscription copied by Sir W. Gell and Mr. Cockerell, and published by Boeckh and Rose.[[31]]
[30]. This inscription was probably attached to a portrait statue. Teichioessa, or Teichiousa, we know from Thucydides (viii. 26, 28), was a strong place near Miletus. Athenæus (viii. 351) spells it Teichiûs. Mr. Newton suggests that Chares was probably one of the petty rulers on the western coast of Asia Minor in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., of whom Herodotus notices more than one. A bon-mot of Stratonicus the musician is recorded by Athenæus: “As Teichioessa was inhabited by a mixed population, he observed that most of the tombs were those of foreigners, on which he said to his lad, ‘Let us be off, since strangers seem to die here, but not one of the natives’” (viii. p. 351). Teichoessa was also famous for the excellence of its mullets (Ital. triglia),