Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/145

Rh A N T I C H 131 haps, to its fabulous history Originally it had been called Typhon, from the snake-legged giant of that name (Strabo, p. 750), who here struck by the thunderbolt of Jupiter, and seeking escape under the earth, formed the bed of the river by his trail, and its source by his descent. Orontes, it was said, was the name of a man who had built, a bridge over the river, and when iu Iloinau times the course of the stream was partly changed, a toinb (soros) was found in the old bed containing the bones of a man of colossal size, which the oracle declared to be those of Orontes (Pausanias, viii. 29, 3). On the coins of Antioch struck by Tigranes, and frequently on those of later times, the city is personified as a female figure seated on a high rock or hill, from under which issues the Oroutes in the form of a youth in the attitude of swimming. The same representation occurs in a marble statue in the Vatican, and in a silver statuette in the British Museum ; and in each case there can be little doubt that the original model was the celebrated statue of Antioch by Eutychides, a people of Lysippus. On the dismemberment of the Eastern empire founded by Alexander the Great, it fell to Seleucus to make him self master of that portion of it included in Syria. It was an age remarkable for the building of new towns more or less on the plan of Alexandria, and accordingly Seleucus, instead of establishing himself at Antigouia, the newly- built capital of his defeated rival, chose a site a little further down the Orontes, about 20 miles from its mouth, for the capital of his new kingdom, the task of laying out and building it being entrusted to the architect Xenreus. On Mount Silpius was placed the citadel, and on the slope towards the river the town. Seleucus destroyed Antigonia, transferred its inhabitants to Antioch, and perhaps, as has been said, utilized its building material In addition to this new population there were the old inhabitants of the village of lopolis or lone, which had before occupied the citadel, and which traced its origin to lone, an Argive fugitive from Egypt, in search of whom Triptolemus had been sent from Eleusis. Though this legend appears to Lave originated simply from the name lone, the people of Antioch yet boasted of a common descent with the inhabit ants of Attica, struck coins with the head of Pallas and an owl, precisely like coins of Athens, and maintained the traditions of Triptolemus as of a sort of ancestral hero. Besides lopolis, the villages of Meroe, afterwards a suburb, and Bottia, on the banks of the Orontes, where Alexander dedicated a temple to Jupiter Botticeus, claimed to have furnished the original inhabitants of Antioch. But the town founded by Seleucus, 300 B.C., soon became insuffi cient for the influx of population, and a new district had to be enclosed, the original walls being allowed to remain. For the same purpose a third addition was made in the time of Seleucus Callinicus (246-226 B.C.), and a fourth under Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.), to whom the city owed also many new buildings of great splendour. From its four parts, each separately walled, Antioch was now called a tetrapolis, and in point of situation, ^archi- tectural magnificence, and resources of enjoyment, ranked after Rome and Alexandria as the next city of its time. The chief retreat of pleasure was the cypress grove of Daphne, at a distance of between 4 and 5 miles, but con nected with the city by a suburb called Heraclea, the road passing among beautiful villas-, gardens with fountains, hot springs, medicinal wells, brooks, and, in short, if we may trust the ancient writers who speak from personal obser vation, every combination of salubrity and beauty. Seleu cus Nicator had laid out the grove of Daphne, and erected in it a temple of Apollo and Diana, to which deities an annual festival was held in August, attended by all the people of the neighbourhood. Round the temple was an enclosure or asylum within which refugees were safe. In the temple of Apollo was a colossal statue of that god, the work, it was said, of the sculptor Bryaxis, of which, appa rently, there is a copy on the coins of Antiochus Epiphanes. While the emperor Julian was at Antioch preparing for the Parthian Avar, this temple was burned, but whether the fire was due to the antipathy of the Christians, or to accident, was never ascertained. The city itself, abounding in fine buildings, seems to have been for nothing so remarkable in this direction as for its streets and porticoes, which were styled &quot;golden,&quot; with reference to the splendour &quot;of the columns, and perhaps, more literally, to the application of gold as a means of ornamentation. The principal street traversed the entire length of the city from east to west, a distance of about 4 miles, having four parallel rows of columns, forming a broad road in the middle open to the sky, and at each side a narrower covered way or portico. The road in the middle was laid with granite in the time of Antoninus Pius. From this main street others branched off at intervals up to the higher part of the town on the one hand, and down towards the river on the other. Where such junctures occurred, the porticoes of the main street were carried over in the form of arches. Among the buildings of which particular mention is made, are (1), a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, in imitation of the temple to the same deity in Eorne, situated probably on Mount Silpius ; (2), the theatre, begun by the Seleucidce kings, enlarged by Agrippa and Tiberius, and finished by Trajan ; and. (3), the&quot; great Christian church begun by Constantino and completed by Constantius, which stood until 526 A.D., when it was destroyed by an earthquake and fire. Its dome-shaped roof is said to have been of immense height, while many parts of the building glistened with precious stones and ornaments of gold. The altar within it faced the west. From the description it is thought to have resembled St Vitalis at Ravenna. The necropolis appears to have been situated on Mount Casius, above Antioch, where are still sepulchres cut in the rock, afterwards used as cells by anchorites, among them Zeno, who died about 420 A.D. With a plentiful supply of water for private pur poses from the wells and fountains in the city, it was yet necessary to maintain the public baths, which in Roman times became numerous, by aqueducts conveying water for some distance. The ruins of one of these aqueducts still remain, admired for the solidity of the masonry and the colossal scale of the structure (see AQUEDUCT). But with all its charms Antioch was beset by a danger which, often threatening, several times succeeded in laying its fairest aspect waste. The first recorded earthquake occurred 148 B.C., but the myths of the giants Pagres and Typhon there struck by the thunderbolts of Jupiter seem to refer to similar commotions at a remoter period. A. second earthquake, 37 A.D., in the reign of Caius CiBsar, caused so much damage that the emperor sent two senators to look to the affairs of the city. A third followed in the time of Claudius. One effect of these disturbances was to