Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/358

 ^6 IIlxTORY OF ART IN PlIcKNICIA AND ITS ni' to that great siege of Rhodes in vhich Demetrius Poliorcetes won his surname. In order to find a stronghold whose ramparts were not recon- structed by the Franks established in Syria at the time of the Crusades, we must quit those parts of the country in which life has always been most active and, as a consequence, most fatal to the relics of the past ; ve must travel northwards, into the district of the Arvadites. It was a little outside the path of invasion ; the neighbourhoods of the ancient sites were free from modern cities, like Beyrout and Saida, Sour and Acre, and, as we have seen from the tombs, the antique remains are there in better condition than in the districts south and west of the Lebanon. Towards the northern boundary of the region which formerly depended upon Arvad, there is, near a small village called Banias, a city rampart still standing for almost its whole length. 1 Situated out of the beaten track, it had never drawn attention until quite lately ; we borrow a map of the site, as well as a partial view of the wall, from M. Camillc Favrc the first traveller to notice it.' 2 Banias is about twenty-five miles north of Arvad, it is the ancient Balanca, the Valauia of the Crusades. The ruins of the Grrcco-Roman city are not of much importance ; little is to be seen but a few substructures, which, being in the neighbourhood of abundant springs, represent most likely the baths from which the village took its name. 5 A short distance westward of these springs and higher up the river, about a mile and a half from the sea, there stands a rampart which still rises many feet above the plain for the whole of its length (Fig. 237). The space it embraces is, roughly speaking, an elongated triangle, one of its long sides being formed by the wall in question, and the other two by a ravine whose northern face is an inaccessible precipice ; it will be seen therefore, that the site was well chosen for defence. Not counting its bastions the wall is about 670 yards in total length. At its two extremities it ends close to the precipice in a sort of returning angle, which is particularly well marked on the eastern face. The rampart is 1 STRAI-.O places TJnlaneum on what he calls "the coast subject to the Arvadites." 2 C. FAVRE, fianias {Balance) ft son enceinte cyclopeenne (Reruc archeologique, 2nd series, vol. xxxvii. pp. 223-232, and plate viii.). 3 Tiu/Vu'etoj' means public />a//i, bathing establishment.