# Travels and Discoveries in the Levant/Volume 1/Letter ΧI

Visit to Salonica and the Troad—The Incantadas—The Arch of Constantine—Relief of Pan and the Nymphs at Gallipoli—Inscriptions on Spoons found at Lampsacus—Inscription—Dardanelles—Mr. Calvert's House—Tour in the Troad—Hill near Bounarliashi—Chimenlai—Latin Inscriptions relating to the Emperors Claudius and Nero—Seven Granite Columns near Koushibashi—Hellenic Fortress at Chigri—Hot Springs at Lisgyar—Temple of Apollo Sminthius—Alexandria Troas—Kalifetli—Roman Mosaics—Ilium Novum—Mr. Calvert's Excavations on supposed site of Ophrynium; in Khani Tepe; in Necropolis near the Kemar—Discovery of Greek Vases—Singular Ordeal for the Discovery of a Thief
XI.
Mytilene, February 20, 1852.
Having occasion to go to Salonica last month on business, I took advantage of this opportunity of visiting the Troad and Gallipoh. I went straight by steamer from Mytilene to Salonica, where I passed three days very agreeably with Mr. C. Blimt. He has been for many years in European Turkey, and diu-mg the greater part of that time has been actively employed as British consul first at Hadrianople, and then at his present post at Salonica. I gathered much from his conversation as to the present condition and prospects of Turkey, respecting which he does not speak very hopefully.
Salonica is a dirty town, full of Jews, who emigrated to this place on their expulsion from Spain. Its commercial prospect has been steadily increasing of late years, in consequence of the large quantity of corn exported here.
The most interesting relic of classical antiquity is the 'Incantadas. This is the name given to part of a colonnade apparently erected in the time of Hadrian. The colonnade is supported by Corinthian columns half-buried in the ground, above which are square pilasters, each of which has on two faces a figure sculptured in relief.$^{52}$ Among these figures are Dionysos, Hermes, Ariadne, Ganymede, Leda, a Bacchante and a Victory. The name Incantadas ​("the enchanted figures") was given to this colonnade by the Spanish Jews of Salonica, in whose quarter it stands.
In a narrow, dirty street still stands an arch erected by Constantine the Great. It is ornamented with two friezes, in low relief, one above the other.
On the upper frieze is represented the Emperor in a triumphal car, attended by a troop of cavalry, passing from a gate on his left to another on his right, within which appear buildings and a temple with a figure in it placed on a rock, probably representing the Acropolis. At each corner is a Victory holding up a trophy.
The lower frieze represents a battle-scene, the conquered party being barbarians in the Dacian costume. In the centre is a figure on horseback, probably the Emperor, attacking the leader of the barbarians, who is falling backwards, as if he had received his death-blow. In the right-hand corner is a figure in a chariot rushing forward into the middle of the fray, probably a Victory. In the left-hand corner is a figure Avitli a shield, on which is represented in rehef a figure of Hercules, holding in his right hand a club, and on his left arm a lion's skin.
After leaving Salonica, we went to Gallipoli, where we were comfortably lodged in the house of M. Sitrides, the British consular agent, a very intelligent and obliging person. He showed me some interesting antiquities in his house and about the town. The most remarkable of these is a group sculptured in high relief, in white marble, which belongs to a relation of M. Sitrides. It ​represents the interior of a cavern, on the right- hand side of which is a small figure of Pan seated in a niche in the rock, and playing on the syrinæ. Below him is an altar, before which Hermes and three nymphs arc dancing.$^{53}$
The sculpture of this relief appears to be of a good period of art, execiited with a boldness and freedom which approaches to carelessness. Some of the hands and arms of the figures are broken off, but the scidpture is otherwise in good condition. M. Sitrides has m his possession a spoon, which I recognized as a rehc from the curious collection of silver objects found at Lampsacus some years ago, and of which a portion is now in the British Museum. These objects consist of spoons and other implements, which the inscriptions and marks on them show to have been originally used in a Pagan temple, and to have been afterwards reconsecrated and adapted for Christian worship. On one of these spoons in the British Museum is inscribed the saying of Solon, τέρμα δ' ὁρᾶν βιότοιο on another the saying of Bias of Priene. The spoon in the possession of M. Sitrides had on the inside of the bowl:—
ΟCΔΕΚΟΡΙΝΘΟΝΕΝΑΙΕΘΥΜΟΥΚΡΑΤΕ
On one side of the handle CΙΝΠΕΡΙΑΝΔΡΟC, on the other side ΟΤΑΝΜΙC.ΙCΕΗΦΙΛΗCΟΥ. Ος δὲ Κόρινθον ἔναιε, θυμοῦ κρατέειν Περίανδρος ὅταν μισ[ε]ῖσε ἡ ϕίλη σου. The saying θῦμου κρατεῖν, here ascribed to Periander, is elsewhere given to Cheilon.$^{54}$
With this collection of spoons was found a necklace composed of portions of gold chain, alternating ​with rows of pearls and other precious stones, linked together with hooks and eyes, which is also in the possession of M. Sitrides. He also showed me a brooch found in a tomb, formed of two hollow cylinders of gold, plaited into a loop, terminating at either end in two hons' heads. In the centre of the loop is a mask of Medusa, in a lozenge-shaped setting: this appears to be Greek.
In the town I found an inscription, partly in Epic, and partly in Iambic verse, on the drum of a column set upright in the ground at the door of a mosque.$^{53}$ The Turks had carefidly placed the colmnn upside down. Piloted by the dragoman of the consular agent, I attempted to alter its position; but the first stroke of the pickaxe into the ground brought forth a fanatic in a green turban, who stamped and raged at us with all manner of maledictions; so I was forced to copy the inscription with my head between my knees, reading every letter upside down. I remained in this uncomfortable position for three days, during the greater part of which tune I was surrounded by a dirty rabble, who were only kept in check by the presence of a cavass from the Pasha. It is said that, some years ago, a statue was found here representing the ancient city, Kallipohs, with an inscription to that effect, and that the Turks have walled it up in one of their fountains as the people in the Middle Ages used to wall up naughty nuns.
The weather was too inclement for excursions in the Chersonese, as I had intended, so we went on to the Dardanelles, where we were hospitably ​received by Mr. James Calvert, the acting Consul, and his brother Frank.
We took up our quarters in their country-house at Renkoi, a village distant about three hours south of the Dardanelles, and very near the sea-coast. This house was built by Mr. Lander, the uncle of the present Consul. Here I found a few stray relics of European civilization; such as a grim picture of Sir Thomas Maitland, flanked by two family portraits of beauties of George III.'s time, a pianoforte, a bagatelle-table, some of the new books published last year in England, and various other little luxuries unknown to Mytilene.
The Calverts carry on a considerable trade in val- lonia. The vallonia oak (Quercus Ægilops) covers a very large district in the Troad, and is cultivated for the sake of the cup of the acorn, which is much used in preparing and dyeing leather in England. The acorns themselves are given to the pigs; but there are such quantities that they are even burnt as fuel. The Calverts have two farms, or chifliks, where they have introduced two or three English ploughs. The wooden implement of the Turkish peasant has been scratching the back of Asia Minor for many centuries, without ever disturbing the rich subsoil. The Troad has been a most neglected and wild region for ages; but the Greeks are beginning now to cultivate it. They are gaining ground, as they do in most places along the coasts of Asia Minor, and the Turks are gradually giving way before them, abandoning their estates for want of energy and of means to cultivate them.
​The country between the Dardanelles and Troy is covered with brushwood, without a village, and scarcely any cultivated land. Nothing breaks the monotony of the horizon but the vast tumuli which appear at intervals against the sky, marking the grave of some Homeric hero. In travelling through this country, we saw but few human beings. Instead of the paved roads of Mytilene thronged with fat and greasy citizens riding home on their mules, and with all manner of traffic between the populous villages, the roads in the plain of Troy have long strings of camels on their way to some far country, and an occasional horseman armed to the teeth. These are all the traces of humanity visible, except the Sclavonian herdsman, who, with pistols in his belt and accompanied by dogs more savage than hunself, tends his vast flocks of sheep and goats; for now, as in the time of Horace,—
Piriami Paridisque busto lusultat armentum.
We made an expedition to the site of Troy, near which we passed the night in a cluflik, or farmhouse, of the Calverts. Thence, we rode to Bounarbashi, and examined the rocky hill encircled by the Mendere, which Chevalier claims as the site of Troy. If this hill has ever been an acropolis, we might expect to find those fragments of very early pottery which, as was first remarked by the late Mr. Burgon, are so abundant on the Homeric sites of Mycenæ and Tiryus.$^{56}$ Of such pottery I saw not a vestige in the soil, nor could I ​cover anywhere on the surface of the rock those level beds cut to receive the foundations of the walls, which may be generally traced out on the sites of the early Greek citadels, and the marks of which are as imperishable as the rock in which they are cut."
After leaang Bournabashi, we went south to Chimenlai, a small village marked in the Admiralty chart No. 1608, where we were most kindly and hospitably entertained by a Turkish lady whose husband sells vallonia to the Calverts. It was the first time I had ever lodged in a Turkish house. Everything was excessively clean and comfortable. We were waited upon by a gentleman in the black livery which nature gave him. Turkish servants, more especially negroes, are good waiters, from the ease and noiselessness of their movements. Notwithstanding the superior wealth of Europeans in the Levant, they are not so well served as the Turks, because no one but a Greek or Latin Christian will condescend to be their menial. In the morning, the lady of the house, who had been invisible till the moment of our parting, appeared at the window, and throwing back her veil, expressed her great regret that we could not stay another day. Such a want of reserve is very unusual and utterly forbidden by the general laws of Turkish etiquette; but the lady was neither young nor pretty, and the Calverts are friends of the family, and buy their vallonia; and so we were treated as 'enfants de la maison.
The mosque in this village is built of large squared blocks, evidently from some ancient building. At ​this mosque was a Latin inscription containing a dedication to the Emperor Claudius, as a "Sodalis Augustalis." On the lintel of a window was the fragment of another Latin inscription, containing part of the name and titles of Nero."$^{58}$ In front of the mosque was the capital of a large Doric column and a plain marble chair.
We rode on, the next morning, to a village called Koushibashi in the mountains, half an hour south of Chimenlai and about three hours east of Alexandria Troas. Near this are seven immense granite columns, lying just as they were left rough-hewn in the quarry, from which they have been cut as neatly as if their material was cheese or soap. They vary from 37 to 38 feet in length, and are about 5 feet 6 inches in their greatest diameter. They appear to be Roman, and to have been left rough-hewn to be conveyed to some distant temple, and then polished. This accounts for their not being all exactly the same length. The quarry from which they were taken lies to the north-east of the row. The marks of the chisel remain on the vertical face of the granite in parallel horizontal grooves.
On the road from this quarry to Alexandria Troas is another of these columns, abandoned on its way to the sea. There is something very grand in the aspect of these seven sleepers lying so silently on the granite bed out of which they were hewn.
To the south of Koushibashi, our road began to ascend through a rocky and barren district, till we reached Chigri, a most curious acropolis crowning a mountain, which, according to the Admiralty chart, ​is 1,648 feet above the sea. It is about two hours south of the village of Koushibashi, and is laid down in the Admiralty chart, but has, I think, been very little noticed by travellers. The walls, built of blocks of granite in polygonal courses, are nearly perfect all round. The fortress is of a rhomboidal form, and may be compared to a kite. Its greatest length is from S.E. to N.W. It took us twenty minutes to walk right through it lengthways, so that it is more than a mile long. It has a number of gates flanked by towers.
On the N.E. side is a gateway which seems to have been rather more accessible than the others, and to which an ancient causeway still leads. This gateway is 16 feet wide. The doorway stands back about 7 feet 7 inches behind the gateway. The jambs of this doorway are still in position. The width between them is 9 feet. One of them has a deep horizontal groove for the bolt. This gateway is flanked on one side by a tower, on the other by an abutment. Within the walls are traces of foundations of many houses. A spring still flows within
the ruins, and there is an old well filled up.
The extent and the preservation of the defences make this fortress a most interesting example of early military architecture, the work probably of Hellenic settlers. The walls terminate in natural precipices at either end, and great judgment has been shown in taking advantage of every natural barrier to add to the strength of the fortifications. Thus the precipices at either end are surmounted by vast masses of rock which rise far above the walls, and ​must have served the purpose of watch-towers for the garrison.
Leake and other travellers have supposed Chigiri to be the Cenchreæ of Stephanus Byzantius.
The mountains round this place have rather a bad reputation for robbers; and it was here that Captain Spratt, R.N., while engaged with a brother officer in making the Hydrographical Survey, was suprised by three armed ruffians, from whom, by great presence of mind, however, he succeeded in escaping.
From Chigri we went to Alexandria Troas, passing by a place called Lisgyar, where are hot springs. Here are ruins of some baths built of grouted masonry, and probably of the late Roman period. A small bronze mouse, now in the collection of Mr. Frank Calvert, was found here. From the nearness of this spot to the Sminthium, the seat of the worship of Apollo Sminthius, there can hardly be a doubt that this mouse was dedicated to that deity, who on a coin of Alexandria Troas is represented holding a mouse in his hand. This place is marked on the Admiralty chart, No. 1608, "Hot Springs," but without a name. Pococke notices the spot, and says that the baths are sulphuric. Here he saw a colossal draped female figure in white marble, the head broken off.$^{59}$
On our arrival at Alexandria Troas, the weather was so bad that we did not dismount, and could only take a passing glance at the stately Roman remains. I could hear of no inscriptions or sculpture here. The principal ruin is a large edifice with many arches, in a very noble style. It is built of large ​blocks of isodomoiis masonry. Chandler considers this a Gymnasium.
The marble has been carried away from this site by travellers, or by peasants from the neighbouring villages, and nothing is left but the solid Roman masonry, the shell of the buildings. Near it we saw a subterraneous vaulted passage, which, from its curved form, must have passed under the seats of an amphitheatre. Towards the sea the shore is strewn with the ruins of houses for about a mile.
We passed northward through the ruins in the direction of Gaikli; and on getting beyond the precincts of the walls, came upon many sarcophagi which must have been placed on each side of the ancient road.
On our way home from Alexandria Troas, we halted at Kahfatli, near the Mendere. Here has been recently discovered a coarse tesselated pavement, with the usual common patterns. As we passed, we found the Greek villagers cutting it up into squares to pave their church with, as if it had been so much oilcloth. For several acres round this spot the ground is strewn with fragments of marble and of coarse Roman pottery. East of the pavement are traces of walls with foundations of grouted rubble.
One of these walls runs for a length of 60 paces, with another at right angles to it, 50 feet in length. Three or four large squared blocks were lying on the surface of the ground, near these walls. North of the pavement is a small mound, the top of which ​forms a level area; its north side is a steep bank running down to the plain below. Here fragments of black Hellenic pottery are found.
From Kalifatli we proceeded to the site of Ilium Novum, where the remains visible above ground are very trifling; though the irregularities of the ground led me to suppose that extensive ruins were hidden under the soil. Thence we returned to Renköi by Hahl Eli, where I copied some inscriptions.
After our return to Renköi, I visited a place about half a mile to the N.N.E. of that village, and thought by Mr. Calvert to be the site of the ancient Ophrynium. This site, now called It Ghelmez, may be described as a platform boimded by deep ravines, which surroimd it on the land side, except on the east, where a narrow isthmus connects it with higher ground above. On the S.W. side of the platform, Mr. Calvert found a quantity of pipes of thick red pottery in the steep bank of the ravine. They appear to have been anciently laid down as a watercourse. Upon the surface of the platform are foundations of walls, pieces of marble, and fragments of pottery. Two copper coins of Neandria and one of Ilium have been found here. To the S.E. of this platform the ground on the other side of the ravine rises in a series of terraces partially covered with pine. Above these terraces is a sloping platform, on the surface of which are many fragments of Hellenic pottery. On this upper platform the foundation of a wall may be traced 107 feet from N.W. to S.E., when it makes a turn, and runs 146 feet in an E.S.E. direction. ​This is built of a casing of travertine blocks, filled in with rubble. Here have been found, at different periods, fourteen coins of Ophrynium, two of Sigeum, three of Ilium Novum, and a fine silver coin of Megiste (Castel Rosso), a small island near Rhodes. It is singular how this last coin, which is of great rarity, could have found its way to a spot so distant from its place of mintage. The form of the ground on this slope seems to have been much altered by landslips, which occur frequently on the sides of the deep ravines. On the shore below these platforms are remains of an ancient mole.
It is evident that a Greek city must have occupied this site: the situation corresponds with that of Ophrynium, as described by Strabo; and the finding of so large a number of coins of this city on the platform renders this all the more probable.$^{60}$
Continuing to explore the shore southward from Renköi, I noticed at a fountain distant about fifty minutes from that place fragments of red pottery and building-stones.
The headland, which stands a little in advance of the supposed site of the ancient Rhæteum, must have served as an Hellenic burial-ground; for on examining the side of the cliff about 8 feet below the surface of the ground, a vein may be traced which contains fragments of small vases, pieces of bone, and cinerary remains. It appears that the dead here were interred in large jars of coarse red earthenware. On the surface of the field above are many fragments of pottery. The ground swells out gradually from the middle of the field towards the edge of the ​cliff, and from its form suggests the probability that a tumulus, since levelled, once stood here.
At the distance of an hour to S.W. of Renköi, and within a few minutes' walk of the sea, are the ruins of an old Byzantine church, called Agios Athanasi. The foundations of this church are 66 feet in length by 57 feet in breadth. Among the ruins are fragments of columns and capitals of the Roman period. Coins of Sigeum have been found here.
Near the confluence of the small river Kemar with the Mendere, at the distance of five hours to the south of the Dardanelles, is a chiflik, or farm, of the Calverts, situated at the village of Atshik-koi. Here are two ancient tumuli, marked in the Admiralty chart as Herman Tepe and Khani Tepe. During our visit to Renköi, Mr. Frank Calvert drove a gallery and shaft through Khani Tepe. Nothing was found in the interior except a layer of ashes near the bottom, but the excavation was not carried low enough to obtain a conclusive result; for it is well known that the most important remains have been found in Greek tumuli below their apparent base.$^{61}$
Between these two tumuli is a spot on the banks of the river Kemar, which, on examination, proved to be an Hellenic cemetery. I was present at an excavation made here by Mr. Calvert. The dead were here buried in large crocks or jars of coarse red pottery. These jars were called by the ancients pithoi. It was in such a pithos, and not, as is vulgarly supposed, in a tub, that Diogenes dwelt. Jars similar in shape and scale are used by the Greeks at the present day to hold water. They are ​sunk in the ground up to the mouth, at the door of their houses, and are called cupas,-which seems to be a corruption of the Arabic koub, a vault. In our excavation, the pithoi were found only a few inches below the surface, the plough having worked down nearly to their level. They varied in size, the largest being about 4 feet 6 inches in height. We found them lying on their sides, the mouth generally looking to the south-east.
The mouth of each pithos was closed by a flat stone. Each contained one or more skeletons, doubled up, and in several were painted vases. One jar contained eight small vases mixed with the bones.$^{62}$ The figures painted on some of the vases were in black on a red ground; others red, on a black ground: all seemed of a very late period.
The pithoi have been anciently mended with leaden rivets, numbers of which were found among the bones. Some of these were nearly a foot long.$^{63}$
Immediately below these jars we came to the native rock of the field, a proof that no earlier interments had taken place in this cemetery.$^{64}$
I took advantage of a little lesiure at Renköi to read the Iliad over again in the presence of the great national features of the scene. No one who has not seen the magnificent outline which bounds the horizon of the plain of Troy can bring home to his mind the stirring and marvellous narrative of the poet as Homer meant it to affect his readers or rather hearers. We supply the scenery of the Iliad from our imagination, or, rather, we do not supply it at all; we do not think of the Homeric landscape, ​on which the Homeric battle-scenes were relieved. The background is blank, like the plane surface on which a Greek frieze was relieved. But to the audience of Homer the names of the rivers and mountains in the poem recalled an actual landscape ; and all through the ancient poets there is a Greek landscape implied rather than described, of which the untravelled scholar can form no conception.
While we were at the Dardanelles, I observed a curious trait of Greek manners. The agent of the Calverts had lost 40,000 piasters by a robbery in his house. The robbery was traced home to the people of this village, and after some days the priest of the place declared in church that he had a charm which would infallibly discover the thief. This charm is the leg-bone of a wolf, which, if boiled in milk with a ploughshare, and then burnt, has the extraordinary property of rendering the thief lame: the moment the bone is put in the fire, one of the legs of the thief is forthwith paralyzed. The priest announced this in the morning, adding that he would not burn the wolf's bone till the next day. That same night the whole of the stolen property was thrown into the garden of its rightful owner in a bag, and so the thief did not incur the punishment prepared for him. I suspect that behind this exhibition of priestcraft there was a more real and tangible threat on the part of the Pasha of the Dardanelles, that he wovdd make the village responsible for the amount stolen; and so the priest, now as ever, was made the instrument of the Government.