10 TURKEY IN ASIA. 



or less perfect, according to the air, soil, or climate, in which they 

 stand, and all of them bear deplorable marks of neglect.. Many of 

 the finest temples are converted into Turkish mosques, or Greek 

 churches, and are more disfigured than those which remain in ruins. 

 Amidst such a vast variety of curiosities, we shall select some of the 

 most striking. 



The neighbourhood of Smyrna (now called Ismir) contains many 

 noble and beautiful antiquities. The same may be said of Aleppo, and 

 a number of other places celebrated in ancient times. The site of 

 old Troy cannot be distinguished by the smallest vestige, and is 

 known only by its being opposite to the isle of Tenedos, and the name 

 of a brook which the poets magnified into a wonderful river. A tem- 

 ple of marble, built in honour of Augustus Caesar, at Milasso, in Caria, 

 and a few structures of the salme kind in the neighbourhood, are among 

 the antiquities that are still entire. Three theatres of white marble, 

 and a noble circus near Laodicea, near Latakia, have suffered very 

 little from time or barbarism ; and some travellers think they discern 

 the ruins of the celebrated temple of Diana, near Ephesus. 



Balbec is situated on a rising plain, between Tripoli, in Syria, and 

 Damascus, at the foot of Mount Libanus, and is the Hcliopolis of 

 Coelo-Syria. Its remains of antiquity display, according to the best 

 judges, the boldest plan that ever was attempted in architecture. The 

 portico of the temple of Heliopolis is inexpressibly superb, though 

 disfigured by two Turkish towers. The hexagonal court behind is 

 now known only by the magnificence of its ruins. The walls were 

 adorned with Corinthian pilasters and statues, and it opens into a 

 quadrangular court of the same taste and grandeur. The great tem- 

 ple to which this leads is now so ruined, that it is known only by an 

 entablature, supported by nine lofty columns, each consisting of three, 

 pieces, joined together by iron pins, without cement. Some of those 

 pins are a foot long, and a foot in diameter ; and the sorded Turks 

 are daily at work to destroy the columns for the sake of the iron. A 

 small temple is still standing, with a pedestal of eight columns in 

 front, and fifteen in flank, and every where richly ornamented with 

 figures in alto relievo, and the heads of gods, heroes, and emperors. 

 To the west of this temple is another, of a circular form, of the 

 Corinthian and Ionic orders, but disfigured with Turkish mosques 

 and houses. The other parts of this ancient city are proportionably 

 beautiful and stupendous. 



Various have been the conjectures concerning the founders of these 

 immense buildings. The inhabitants of Asia ascribe them to Solo- 

 mon, but some make them so modern as the time of Antoninus Pius, 

 Perhaps they are of different seras; and though that prince and his 

 successors may have rebuilt some part of them, yet the boldness of 

 their architecture, the beauty of their ornaments, and the stupendous 

 execution of the whole, seem to fix their foundation to a period be- 

 fore the Christian sera, though we cannot refer them to the ancient 

 times of the Jews, or Phoenicians, who probably knew little of the 

 Greek style in building and ornamenting. Balbec is at present a lit- 

 tle city encompassed with a wall. The inhabitants, who are about 

 500") in number, chiefly Greeks, live in, or near the circular temple, 

 in houses built out of the ancient ruins. A free-stone quarry in the 

 neighbourhood furnished the stones for the body of the temple; and 

 one of the stones, not quite detached from the bottom of the quarry, 

 is 70 feet long, 14 broad, and 14 feet five inches deep; its weight 



