RHODES. 



thev fided with C<el'ar, which drew upon them the diipleafure 

 of C. Caflius, who advanced to their illand with i powerful 

 fleet, and demanded the furrender of their fleet, with which 

 demand they refufed to comply. The confequcnce was a 

 fea-engagement, in which the Rhodians were defeated ; and 

 it lias been obferved, that this was the hilt time in which 

 they were fairly overcome in a fea-fight. Caflius proceeded 

 to take poffeflion of Rhodes and to plunder it. He alfo 

 ordered fifty of the chief citizens to be put to death, -nd 

 others were profcribed. He dripped them of all their money, 

 and even the temples of all their valuable furniture, veflels 

 and Itatues. He announced, by a public cryer, that any per- 

 fon who fhould difcover any hidden treafures fhould receive 

 a tenth part by way of recompence ; and the refult was, 

 that he thus extorted from private perfons above 8000 

 talents. He then lined the city in 500 more, aid leaving 

 L.. Varus, with a ftrong garrilon to exact the fine, without 

 any abatement, he returned to the continent. 



After the death of Caflius, Marc Antony reltored the 

 Rhodians to their ancient rights and privileges, bellowing 

 upon them the iflands of Andros, Naxos, Tenos, and the 

 city of Myndus. But thefe the Rhodians to opprelled and 

 loaded with taxes, that Antony, though a great friend to 

 the Rhodian republic, was obliged to divert her of the fove- 

 reignty over thofe places, which he had, a little before, io 

 liberally bertowed upon her. From this time to the reign 

 of the emperor Claudius, we find no mention made of the 

 Rhodians. That prince deprived them of their liberty for 

 having crucified fome Roman citizens. However, he foon 

 reftored them to their former condition, as we read in Sue- 

 tonius and Tacitus. The latter adds, that they had been as 

 often deprived of, as reftored to, their liberty, by way of 

 punifhment or reward for their different behaviour, as they 

 had obliged the Romans with their afliftance in foreign wars, 

 or provoked them with their feditions at home. Pliny, who 

 wrote in the beginning of Vefpafian's reign, ftyles Rhodes a 

 beautiful and free town. But this liberty they did not long 

 enjoy, the ifland being fuon after reduced, by the fame 

 Vefpafian, to a Roman province, and obliged to pay a yearly 

 tribute to their new mailers. This province was called the 

 province of the iflands. The Roman prattor, who go- 

 verned it, refided at Rhodes, as the chief city under his 

 jurifdiction ; and Rome, notwithllanding the eminent fer- 

 vices rendered her by this republic,' thenceforth treated the 

 Rhodians not as allies but vaflals. 



Under Conltantine this ifland remained part of the Eaftern 

 empire ; but the pufillaniiuity and vices of the princes who 

 fucceeded, (hook it to its foundation. In the twelfth year 

 of the reign of Conilans, Moawiah, Othman's lieutenant, 

 made himfelf mailer of Rhodes. At length the Greek em- 

 perors expelled the Mahometans, and kept polfeflion till the 

 time of Baldwin, who, having made himlelf fovereign of 

 Conftantinople, fent a prefect to Rhodes. Some time after 

 it was conquered by Ducas. Then the brave warriors, 

 known by the name of the knights of St. .John, attacked, 

 and, after a bloody battle, took it ; in which heroifm 

 triumphed over numbers and valour. Mahomet II. tar- 

 nifhed the luftre of his laurels, by befieging this place, de- 

 fended by a fmall band of heroes. In the year 1525, Soli- 

 man faw a numerous army perifliing under its walls ; and if 

 this redoubtable conqueror of Hungary and Perfia did at 

 length fubdue Rhodes, attacked on all fides by the forces 

 of the Turks, the greater was the fhame of the Chrillian 

 princes, who did not fend a fingle veflel to the aid of its 

 intrepid defenders. Deftroyed, rather than vanquifhed, they 

 were almoil buried under the ruin of their forts. Seliman 

 could not enter the town without wading through the blood 

 of his foldiers ; and in it he found nothing but heaps of 



ruins, defended by a fmall company of knights, covered with 

 wounds, who afterwards removed to Malta. | See Malta). 

 The governor-general of this ifland is a pacha, who has 

 abfolute power. The Greeks and Jews have a chief, named 

 the Moutevali, who is their intendant-gencral, and has the 

 regulation of the tax, called carach, — a capitation tax im- 

 pofed by the grand ieignior on all his fubjects who are not 

 Mahometans, but is paid only by the men. 



The foil of the illand is dry and fandy, but watered by its 

 numerous fprings. It is very fertile : corn thrives well ; 

 and its yellow and heavy grain affords flour as white as fnow, 

 which makes excellent bread. It needs only cultivation to 

 raife an ample fupply, not only for its own coniumption, but 

 for a large exportation. The number of families in the 

 whole ifland is etlimated at 4700 Turks, 2500 Greeks, and 

 100 Jews, in all 7300, or about 36,000 inhabitants. N. lat. 

 36° 26'. E. long. 27 3 32'. 



Rhodes, the capital city of the ifland above defcribed, as 

 well as the chief feat of its government, is fituated to the 

 N.E. of the ifland, at the foot of a hill of gentle afcent, 

 and in an agreeable plain, environed at fome diftance with 

 feveral hills full of fprings, and covered with all kinds of fruit- 

 trees. This {lately city was built by the fame architect 

 whom the Athenians had employed in building the Pineus, 

 or part of Athens ; vix. Hippodamus, a native of Miletus, 

 and elteemed one of the beil architects Greece ever pro- 

 duced. It was built, according to Strabo and Ariftides, in 

 the form of an amphitheatre, furrounded with walls like 

 thofe of Munichia, embellifhed with mod ftately buildings, 

 itraight and broad ftrcets, pleafant avenues, line groves, 

 large fquares, &c. Dio Chryfoftom fays, that moll of the 

 Pagan deities had temples in this city ; among which that of 

 the Sun, called by the Dorians Halcium, wa3 one of the 

 moll noble ftructures of antiquity. Strabo meHtions the 

 temple of Bacchus, enriched with a great number of pic- 

 tures by Protogenes. . Hefychius, Appian, and Suetonius, 

 fpeak of the temples of Ifis, of Ocridian, and Diana, as 

 mailer-pieces of art. Each of thefe temples contained im- 

 menfe treafures, the offerings of votaries from all parts of 

 Greece, Afia, and Italy. In the Dionyfium, or temple of 

 Bacchus, was a llatue of Pluto of mafl'y gold, and an incre- 

 dible number of other Itatues and pictures. Pliny informs 

 us, that, in his time, there were in the city of Rhodes above 

 3000 flatues, moll of them executed with great tafte ; and 

 Ariltides fays, that there were more valuable Itatues and 

 pictures in this fingle city than in all the other cities of 

 Greece. The pictures of Menander, king of Caria, and of 

 Anxus, the fon of Neptune, by Apclles, and thofe of Per- 

 feus, Hercules, and Meleager, by Xeuxis, are highly ex- 

 tolled by Pliny, and other ancient writers. That of Melea- 

 ger was there fcorched by lightning, as Pliny tell: us, but 

 that accident did not in the lealt deaden the luftre and 

 brightnefs of its colour. 



In the Roman times this city was famous for the fl.udy of 

 all fciences, and reforted to by fuch of the Romans as were 

 defirous of improving themfelves in literature ; fome of the 

 ancients reprefenting it as equal to Athens itfelf. It had a 

 very convenient harbour, at the entrance of which were two 

 rocks ; and on thefe rocks, though 50 feet afunder, the famous 

 coloflus is fuppofed to have rtood. See Coi.osii v. 



The city of Rhodes is (till a place of confiderable note ; 

 being pleafantly fituated on the fide of a hill, three miles in 

 compafs, and fortified with a treble wall ; but i*s ramparts 

 partake of the fame neglect and decay of every .hing that, 

 is in the pofleflion of the Turks. The ftreets are wide, 

 ftraight, and well paved ; and the houfe-. built after the 

 Italian tafte. The chief haven is now very different from 

 what it is faid to have been in its ancient ltate. It is no 



longer 



