Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/296

 HELIOPOLIS. HELIOPOLIS. 1037 Uished there by Augustus, on the coins of whose reign it is entitled ** Col. Julia Auousta Feux Hbuopous.** In the second century a. d. its oracle was in such repute that it was consulted by the eu- peror Trajan previous to his second campaign with Parthia. The emperor at firat tested the science of the oracle by sending a blank sheet of paper inclosed in a sealed envelope (^(pfoma) ; and on receiving a airailar blank reply, he conceived a high opinion of the prescience of the god, and again consulted him in enmet. The second time the response was symbo- lically conveyed by the dead twigs of an ancient vine wrapped in a cloth. The interpretation was fixind in the decease of Triyan, and in the transmission of his bones or remains to Rome in a coffin. From John Malala {Ckrotucoriy L c.) we learn that Anto- ninus Pins built, or more probably repaired and en- larged, the great temple of Zeus, which became a wonder of the world then, and of many generations of travellere afterwards (e. g. Maundrell, Pococke, Volney, Duke of Ragusa, &c). From Septimius Severus Heliopolis received the Jm /ta/ictM?i (Ulpian, de CensibtUy 9), and its temple appears for the first time upon the reveree of the coins of that reign (Akerman, Rom. Coins, vol. L p. 339). The moneyers of Julia Domna and Caracalla inscribe the legend Heliopolis upon thdr coins, and vows in honour of that emperor and his mother are still partially l^ible on tlio pedestals of the portico of the great temple. Its name occurs also on the money of Philip the Arabian, and of his wife Otacilia. The great temple contained, according to Macrobius, a gddcn statue of Apollo or Zeus, represented as a beaidkss youth, in the garb of a charioteer, hold- ing in his right liand a scourge, and in his left thnnderbolto and ears of com. On certain annual festivals this statue was borne on the shouldere of the principal citizens of Heliopolis, who pre- pared themselves for such solemniUes by a species of Nazarene discipline, by shaving the head, and by vows of abstinence and chastity. Macrobins com- pares these ceremonies with the rites practised in the worahip of Diva Fortuna at Antium. At Heliopolis a](»o were reverenced the Baetylia, or black conical atones sacred to the sun, one of which was brought to Rome by the emperor £lag»balus, and pkced in a temple erected upon the Palatine Mount. (Comp. ^ Bekker ; and Gibbon, vol. i. ch. 6.) Heliopolis is menti<med by the church historians Sozomen {ffitL EccUs, v. 10) and Theodoret (//*•«. Ecclet. iii. 7, iv. 22), but little is known of its fortunes under the Byzantine emperors, beyond the names of some Heliopolitan martyrs and bishops. Abulpharagius indeed (Hw«. CompetuL DjftuuL p. 75) says that Coostantine I. erected a church at Heliopolis, and abolished a custom which had ob- tained there of plurality of wives. According to the Chronicon Paschale (cclxxxix. p. 303, ed. Bonn), the emperor Theodosius converted the Temple of the Sun into a Christian cburch, at the same time that be proscribed Paganism, and destroyed the inferior chapels and shrines of the city. Under the Caliphs .f the Omroiad House, Baalbec gradually declined, iilthongh its natural and commercial advantages long retained their influence. (D*Herbelot, Bib- Uoiheqne Orient ». v. Baalbec.) Whatever may have fbccn its origin, or the circumstances which favoured its growth, there is no doubt that Heliopolis was for ' many centuries the moet conspicuous city in the region of Libanus, and second to Damascus and Antioch alone in the whole kingdom or province of Syria, whether under Greek or Roman sovereigns. The walls of Heliopolis, so far as they have been traced, occupy a space of somewhat less than four miles in compas. But this cirouit will hardly afford an accurate measure of the population or greatness Heliopotis. For it is probable that the greater por- tion of it was occupied by public edifices and gardens alone, and that the private dwellings of the city w^re either extemporary, or made of very light and perishable materials. Such at least was the case with many of the great Eastern emporia. At certain seasons of the year, when the caravans passed through on their route to the East, or on their return, the cities resembled a great fair, and were filled with streets and squares of booths, which were taken down as soon as the caravans moved onward. The religious structures alone were permanent, and around them were grouped the Fora, the Basilicae, and the corridors, in which, under the sultry sun of Syria, the business of the fair was carried on. The population ol HeliopoliM, therefore, may have varied much at difierent seasons of the year. In the autumn it would be filled with merchants making up their cargoes for the Eastern markets: in the spring it would again overflow with purchasers of Indian wares : in the winter and summer seasons thip city was probably little more than a colony of priests with their numerous assistants in the temple-worship. The ruins of Heliopolis favour this supposition. They consist of the great Temple; of a smaller temple, or perhaps a Basilica; and of a circular temple of singuUr form and style. On the highest elevation within the walls, and in the SW. portion of the city, stood a column which may possibly have served for a clepsydra or water-dial. The great Temple consisted, so far as we can ascertain, of the Propylaea or portioo; of an Hexa- gonal court or Forum ; of an inner quadrangular court; and finally of the Shrine of the Sun itself. The courts were probably the exchange of Heliopolis: the PropyUea was its custom-house, and so to speak its whaif, where the caravans received their ladings. No ruins of antiquity have attracted more at- tention than those of Heliopolis, or been more frequently or accurately measured and described. They were visited by Thevet in 1550; by Pococke in 1739-40; by Maundrell in 1745; by Wood and Dawkins in 1751; by Volney in 1785; and by many subsequent travellers, including the Duke of Ragusa, in 1834. That more recently they have attracted less notice is owing to the more important discoveries of much higher antiquity on the banks of the Nile and the Tigris. Heliopolis, indeed, so far as it has been known to modem travellers, is a Roman city, of the second century a. d. The Corinthian order of architecture — the iavourite order with the Romans — prevails, with few exceptions, in its edifices. A Doric column, the supposed clepsydra, is, indeed, mentioned by Wood and Dawkins; and the Ionic style is found in the interior of the circular temple. For the particular descriptions, measure- ment, and plans of the structures of Heliopolis, we must reftpr to the works already cited, as without diagiams they would lie unintelligible. The walls of Heliopolis, however, require and deserve a short notice. As they at present exist they cannot have been the original walls of the city ; and would seem to have been constructed in hute under the pressure of some danger, and, like the long-walls between Athens and ita havens, to have been built of tho
 * Damascius, ap. Phot, Biblioth, p. 342, B., ed.