Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/161

ANTIOGHEIA. dw a ib o It as richly oraamented iritli Mosaic and FtatooL The roof was domical (0*001^01 iScs), and of great bei^t; and in its octagonal plan it was fkbniiar to the church of St. Yitalls at Bayenna. (2^ep Eoaeb. ViL CmuL iii. 50.) From the preva- knre of esrij cbtorches of this form in the East, we mart snpfKue cither that this edifice set the example, or that t^ mode of church-bnilding was already in iB«. Among other buildings, Antioch owed to Ctostantiiw a heutUcOy a praeioriwn for the resi- dence of the Goont of the East, built of the ma- toials of the ancient Mnsenm, and a xenon or bospiee near the great church for the reception of tnreUers. Constantius spent much time at An- tioch, 90 that the place recdved the temporaiy name of Cimtlantia. His great works were at the har- bmrof Sckuceia, and the traces of them still remain. JoEaa took much pains to ingratiate himself with the peopio of Antioch. His disappointment is ez- |EUiad in the Misopogon. Valens undertook great ga |awHu epta at the time of his peace with the Per- atss, and opposite the ravine Parmenius he bnilt a msptaoos /brwH, which was paved with marble, ■si decanted with Illyrian columns. Theodosius WM compeOed to adopt stringent measures against the citixeos, in consequence of the sedition and the licakii^ of the statues (a.d. 387, 388), and An- taod) was deprived of the rank of a metropolis. We aie DOW hniaght to the time of libanins, from whom we have ao often quoted, and of Chrysostom, whose aoaMOs ^f**'" so many incidental notices of his Esdve dty. ChijBOstom gives the population at 200,000, of which 100,000 were Christians. In these nmnben it is doubtful whether we are to in- clude the children and the slaves. (See Gibbon, ch.rv. and ]filman*8 note, vol. u. p. 363.) For the detailed d e s uipti fln of the public and private buildings of tbe dty, vre nraat refer the reader to Libanius. The iacnaae of the sobuib towards Daphne at this period ndaced Tbeododns to build a new wall on this nde. (See the Plan.) Passmg over the reigns of Theo- dosios the Yonnger, who added new decorati(H)s to the city, and of Leo the Great, in whose time it was (inwhird by an earthquake, we come to a period which was made disastrous by quarrels in the Hippo- dPGBM^ maasacies of the Jews, internal factions and wv from without, Afler an earthquake in the m^ of Justin, A. D. 526, the city was restored by Ejjgem, who was Count of the East, and aiter- vaids Patriarch. The reign of Justinian is one of the meet important eras in the history of Antioch. It was ri»ing under him into fresh splendour, when h was again injured by an earthquake, and soon afterwnda (a. d. 538) utterly desolated by the in- TMian q€ the Persians under Chosroes. The ruin of the dty was oumptete. The citizens could scarcely &id the sites of thdr own houses. Thus an entirely ■nr dty (which received the new name of Theu- foUt) rose under Justinian. In dimensions it was cooBi^rBbly less than the former, the wall retiring fnxn the river on the east, and touching it only at eoe pointy and also including a smaller portion of the cfiffii of Mount Silplus. This wall evidently oarrB^poDds with the notices of the fortifications in tbe times of the crusaders, if we make allo^'ance for the inflated language of Prooopius, who is our au- thority far the pabHc works of Justinian. The faistocy of Antioch during the medieval period wna one cf varied fortunes, but, on the whole, of gradual decay. It was first lost to the Roman em- fife in the time of Heradius (a. d. 635), and taken. ANTIOCHEIA. 145 with the whole of Syria, by the Saracens in the first burst of their military enthusiasm. It was recovered in the 10th century under Nicephorus Phocas, by a surprise similar to that by which the Persians bo- came masters of it; and its strength, population, and magiuficence are celebrated by a writer of the period (Leo Diac. p. 73), though its appearance had doubtless undergone considerable changes during four centuries of Mahomedan occupation. It re- mained subject to the emperor of Constantinople till the time of the first Comneni, when it was ti^en by the Seljnks (a. d. 1084). Fourteen years later (a. d. 1098) it was besi^ed by the Latins in the first Crusade. Godfiey pitched his camp by the ditch which had been dug under Justinian, and Tancred erected a fort near the western wall. (See the Plan.) The dty was taken on the 3d of June, 1098. Boemond L, the son of Robert Guiscard, became prince of Antioch; and its history was again Christian for nearly two centuries, till the time of Boemond VI., when it fell under the power of the Sultan of Egypt and his Mamelukes (a. d. 1268). From this time its dedension seems to have been rapid and ccmtinuous: whereas, under the Franks, it appears to have been still a strong and splendid dty. So it is described by Phocas (Acta Sand. Mai. vol. V. p. 299), and by William of Tyro, who is the great Latin authority for its history during this period. (See espedaOy iv. 9—14, v. 23, vi. 1, 15; and compare xvi. 26, 27.) It is unnecessary for our purpose to describe the various fortunes of the fiunilies through which the Prankish prindpality of Antioch was transmitted from the first to the seventh Boemond. A full account of them, and of the coins by which they are iUnstrated, will be found in De Saulcy, Numismatique des CroisadeSy pp. 1 — 27. We may connder the modem history of Antioch as coincident with that of European travdlers in the Levant. Beginning with Dc la Brocqui^, in the 15th century, we find the city already sunk into a state of insignificance. He says that it contained only 300 houses, inhabited by a few Turks and Arabs. The modem ArUakieh is a poor town, situated in the north-western quarter of the andent city, by the river, which is crossed by a substantial bridge. No accurate statement can be given of its poptidatiorL On^traveller states it at 4000, another at 10,000. In the census taken by Ibrahim Pasha in 1835, when he thought of making it again the capital of Syria, it was said to l^ 5600. The Christians have no church. The town occupies only a small portion (some say ^, some |, some ^) of the ancient enclosure; and a wide space of unoccupied ground intervenes between it and the eastern or Aleppo gate (called, after St. Paul, Bab-Boulotui), near which are the remains of ancient pavement. The walls (doubtless those of Justinian) may bo traced through a circuit of four miles. They are bmlt partly of stone, and partly of Roman tiles, and were fianked by strong towers; and till the earth- quake of 1822 some of them presented a magni- ficent appearance on the clifis of Mount Silpius. The height of the wall difiers in different places, and tra- vellers are not agreed on the dimensions assigned to them. Among the recent travellers who have de- scribed Antioch, we may make particular mention uf Pococke, Kinneir, Nicbuhr, Buckingham, Riditcr {WaUfahrten im MorgenUmde)^ and Michaud ct Poujoulat (^Correspotidanc6 cTOrietUy &c.). Since the earthquake which has just been mentioned, the most important events at Antioch have been its L