Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/252

 220 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part I. I CHAPTER VII. ASIA MINOR. 1 CONTENTS. Historical notice — Tombs at Smyrna — Doganlu — Lycian tombs. T is now perhaps in vain to expect that any moiinniGnts of the most ancient times, of great extent or of great architectural importance, remain to be discovered in Asia Minor ; still it is a store- house from Avhich ranch information may yet be gleaned, and whence we may expect the solivtion of many dark historical problems, if ever they are to be solved at all. Situated as that country is, in the very centre of the old world, surrounded on three sides by navigal)le seas o]iening all the regions of the world to her commerce, possessing splendid ];arbors, a rich soil, and the finest climate of the whole earth, it must not only have been inhabited at the earliest period of history, but must have risen to a pitch of civilization at a time preceding any written histories that we possess. We may recollect that, in the time of Psammet- icus, Phrygia contended with Egypt for the palm of antiquity, and fi-om the monuments of the 18th dynasty Ave know what rich spoil, what beautiful vases of gold, and other tributes of a rich and luxuri- ous peoi)le, the Pout and Roteno and other inhabitants of Asia Minor brought and laid at the feet of Thothmes and other early kings, eitihteen centuries at least before the Christian era. At a later ])eriod (71G to 547 b. c.) the Lydian empire was one of the richest and most powerful in Asia; and contemporai-y with this, and for a long period sul)sequent to it, the Ionian colonies of Greece surpassed the mother country in wealth and refinement, and almost rivalled her in literature and art. Few cities of the ancient, world sur])assed E])liesus, Sardis, or Ilalicarnassus in splendor; and Troy, Tarsus, and Trebizond mark three great epochs in the history of Asia If inor which are unsurjjassed in interest and political importance by the retros])ect of any cities of the world. Excepting, however, the remains of the Greek and Roman periods — the great temples of the first, and the great theatres of the latter period — little that is archi- tectural remains in this once favored land. It happens also, unfortu- nately, that there was no great capital city — no central point — where