There were no less than thirteen cities, which were called Seleucia, and which received their name from Seleucus Nicanor. These were situated in Syria, in Cilicia, and near the Euphrates. “It must be acknowledged,” says Dr. Prideaux, “that there is mention made of Babylon, as of a city standing long after the time I have placed its dissolution, as in Lucan “Since the days of Alexander,” says Sir R. Porter, “we find four capitals, at least, built out of the remains of Babylon; Seleucia by the Greeks; Ctesiphon by the Parthians; Al Maidan by the Persians; Kufa by the Caliphs; with towns, villages, and caravanserais, without number. That the fragments of one city Seleucus built many cities; of which far the greater part was raised from superstitious motives; many were peopled from the ruins of places in their neighbourhood, whose sites were equally convenient; and only a very few were erected in conformity with those great military and commercial views, by which, in this particular, his master (Alexander) had uniformly been guided. He named nine after himself; and four in honour of four of his wives; three Apameas; and one Stratonice; in all thirty-five. Sixteen were named Antioch; five Laodicea, after his mother. Many foundations were laid of other cities. Some, after favourite scenes in Greece or Macedon; some in memory of glorious exploits; and not a few after his master Alexander. This Seleucia was built of the ruins of Babylon; and Pliny, the naturalist, gives the following account:—“Seleucia was built by Seleucus Nicanor, forty miles from Babylon, at a point of the confluence of the Euphrates with the Tigris, by a canal. There were 600,000 citizens here at one time; and all the commerce and wealth of Babylon had flowed into it. The territory in which it stood was called Babylonia; but it was itself a free state, and the people lived after the laws and manners of the Macedonians. In a country, destitute of wood and stone, whose edifices were hastily erected with bricks baked in the sun, and cemented with the native bitumen, Seleucia speedily eclipsed the ancient capital of the East. Many ages after the fall of the Macedonian empire, Seleucia retained the genuine character of a Greek colony; arts, military virtue, and a love of freedom: and while the republic remained independent, it was governed by a senate consisting of three hundred nobles. The walls were strong; and as long as concord prevailed among the several orders of the state, the power of the Parthians was regarded with indifference, if not with contempt. The madness of faction, however, was sometimes so great, that the common enemy was occasionally implored; and the Parthians Trajan left Rome A. D. 112, and after subduing several cities in the East, laid siege to Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Chosroes, the king, being absent quelling a revolt in some part of his more eastern dominions, these cities soon surrendered to the Roman hero, and all the neighbouring country. “The degenerate Parthians,” says the Roman historian, “broken by internal discord, fled before his arms. He descended the Tigris in triumph from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian gulf. He enjoyed the honour of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals who ever navigated that remote sea.” At his death, which occurred soon after his return to Rome, most of the cities of Asia, that he had conquered, threw off the Roman yoke; and among these were Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Under the reign of Marcus, A. D. 165, the Roman generals penetrated as far as these celebrated cities. They were received as friends by the Greek colony; they attacked, as enemies, the seat of the Parthian kings; and yet both experienced the same treatment. Seleucia was sacked by the friends they had invited—though it has been alleged in their favour, that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith. More than 300,000 of the inhabitants were put to the sword; and the city itself nearly destroyed by conflagration. Seleucia never recovered this blow: but Ctesiphon, in about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. It was at last, nevertheless, taken by assault; and the king, who defended it in person, “Below Bagdad,” says a celebrated French writer, on geography, (Malte-Brun), “the ruins of Al-Modain, or the two cities, have attracted the attention of every traveller. One of them is unquestionably the ancient Ctesiphon; but the other, which lies on the western bank of the Tigris, is not Seleucia, as all the travellers affirm Of the ruins of Seleucia, near Antioch, Mr. Robinson speaks thus:—“Being desirous of visiting the ruins of the ancient Seleucia PieriÆ, I rode over to the village of Kepse, occupying the site of the ancient city. We were apprised of our approach to it, by seeing a number of sepulchral grots excavated in the rock by the road-side, at present tenanted by shepherds and their flocks. Some were arched like those I had seen at Delphi; others were larger, with apartments, one within the other. We entered the inclosure of the ancient city by the gate at the south-east side; probably the one that led to Antioch. It is defended by round towers, at present in ruins. Of the magnificent temples and buildings mentioned by Polybius, some remains of pillars are alone standing to gratify the curiosity of the antiquarian traveller. |