The true origin of Smyrna is rather doubtful. One account is, that such of the Achaians as were descended from Æolus, and had hitherto inhabited Laconia, being driven thence by the Dorians, after some wandering, settled in that part of Asia Minor which, from them, was called Æolis; where they founded twelve cities, one of which was Smyrna. According to Herodotus, however, it owed its foundation to the CurmÆans, who were of Thessalian extraction; who, having built the city of Cuma, and finding it too small to contain their number, erected another city, which they named Smyrna, from the wife of their general, Theseus. According to some, it was built by Tantalus; and others insist, and perhaps with great truth, that it was founded by persons who inhabited a quarter of Ephesus called Smyrna. Some have ascribed it to an Amazon of that name: in respect to whom Sir George Wheler informs us, that they stamped their money with a figure of her head, and that he got several pieces of them very rare, and saw many more. One small one had her head crowned with towers, and a two-edged hatchet on her shoulder. On another her whole habit; thus—her head crowned with a tower, as before; a two-edged axe upon her shoulder, holding a temple in her right hand, with a short vest let down to her knees, and buskins half way up her legs. On another she was dressed in the habit of a Hercules. Whatever its origin might be, certain it is, that it was one of the richest and most powerful cities of Asia, and became one of the twelve cities of the Ionian confederacy.

Smyrna has been subject to many revolutions, and been severally in the possession of the Æolians, Ionians, and Macedonians.

The Lydians took possession under Ardys, son of Gyges; and having destroyed it, the inhabitants dispersed themselves into several districts.

Alexander, in compliance with the directions of a vision, he saw near the temple of the Furies, rebuilt it four hundred years after it had been destroyed by the Lydians. Strabo, however, attributes its re-establishment to Antigonus and Lysimachus. But as neither that author nor Arrian mention Alexander as having done so, it is not improbable that he only meditated the doing so; that Antigonus followed up his design; and that Lysimachus carried its completion into effect.

At Smyrna there were none of the tyrants, who oppressed many other cities of Asia. Even the Romans respected the happy state of this town, and left it the shadow of liberty. This is a fine panegyric upon the system of polity, that must have been adopted and invariably preserved.

There is another circumstance, highly to its honour: the inhabitants believed that Homer was born in their city, and they showed a place which bore the poet’s name. They also paid him divine honours. Of all the cities, which contended for the honour of having given birth to this transcendant poet, Smyrna has undoubtedly the most reason on her side. Herodotus absolutely decides in favour of Smyrna, assuring us, that he was born on the banks of the river Meles, whence he took the name of Melesigenes.

The inhabitants are said to have been much given to luxury and indolence; but they were universally esteemed for their valour and intrepidity when called into action. Anacharsis is made to speak of their city in the following manner:—“Our road, which was almost everywhere overshadowed by beautiful andrachnes, led us to the mouth of the Hermus; and thence our view extended over that superb bay, formed by a peninsula, on which are the cities of ErythrÆ and Teos. At the bottom of it are some small villages, the unfortunate remains of the ancient city of Smyrna, formerly destroyed by the Lydians. They still bear the same name; and, should circumstances one day permit the inhabitants to unite and form one town, defended by walls, their situation will doubtless attract an immense commerce.”

It was the first town of Asia Minor, according to Tacitus, which, even during the existence of Carthage, erected any temple to “Rome the Goddess.” Part of the city was destroyed by Dolabella, when he slew Trebonius, one of the conspirators against CÆsar. But it flourished greatly under the early emperors: Marcus Aurelius repaired it after it had been destroyed by an earthquake; and under Caracalla it took the name of the first city of Asia.

Smyrna was much celebrated for its stately buildings, magnificent temples, and marble porticoes. It had several grand porticoes of a square form, amongst which was one in which stood a temple of Homer, adorned with a statue of the bard. There was also a gymnasium, and a temple dedicated to the mother of the gods. Where the gymnasium was, however, is now past conjecture; but part of its theatre was still in existence in the time of Sir George Wheler. “The theatre,” says he, “is on the brow of the hill north of the course, built of white marble, but now is going to be destroyed, to build the new Kan and Bazar hard by the fort below, which they are now about; and in doing whereof there hath been lately found a pot of medals, all of the emperor Gallienus’ family, and the other tyrants that reigned in his time.” There were also there the remains of a circus, and a considerable number of ancient foundations and noble structures; but what they were Sir George considered uncertain. He found also many inscriptions and medals, on which the names of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero were to be read; on others, sepulchral monuments. Among these, was one with an inscription “to the emperor Adrian, Olympian, Saviour and Founder.”

In the Armenian church-yard he saw an inscription—“Good Fortune to the most splendid Metropolitan, and thrice Neocorus of the emperor, according to the judgment of the most holy senate of Smyrniotes239.”

Many writers do not seem to be aware, that the ancient Smyrna did not occupy the spot where modern Smyrna stands, but one about two miles and a half distant. It was built partly on the brow of a hill, and partly on a plain towards the port, and had a temple dedicated to Cybele. It was then the most beautiful of all the Asiatic cities. “But that which was, and ever will be, its true glory,” says Sir George Wheler, “was their early reception of the gospel of Jesus Christ—glorious in the testimony he has given of them, and happy in the faithful promises he made to them. Let us, therefore, consider what he writeth to them by the Evangelist St. John:—(Apoc. ii. 9.) ‘I know thy works and tribulation, and poverty; but thou art rich. And I know the blasphemy of them, that say they are Jews, and are not: but are the Synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things, which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the Devil shall cast some of ye in prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death; and I will give thee a crown of life.’”

Previous to the year 1675, it had been partially destroyed, and several times, by earthquakes; and it was predicted that a seventh convulsion would be fatal to the whole city. Such a calamity, attended by a dreadful fire, and the swallowing up of multitudes by the incursion of the sea, recurred in 1688, and did, indeed, very nearly fulfil the prophecy. “Repeated strokes,” says Sir John Hobhouse, “and almost annual pestilences, have since that period laid waste this devoted city; and yet the convenience of a most spacious and secure harbour, together with the luxuriant fertility of the surrounding country, and the prescriptive excellence allowed nearly two thousand years to this port, in preference to the other maritime stations of Asia Minor, still operate to collect and keep together a vast mass of inhabitants from every quarter of the globe.”

According to Pococke, the city might have been about four miles in compass; of a triangular form. It seems to have extended about a mile on the sea, and three miles on the north, south, and east sides, taking in the compass of the castle. This stands on the remains of the ancient castle, the walls of which were of the same kind of architecture as the city walls on the hill. It is all in ruins, except a small part of the west end, which is always kept shut up.

One of the gateways of white marble has been brought from another place; and in the architrave round the arch there is a Greek inscription of the middle ages. At another gate there is a colossal head, said to be that of the Amazon Smyrna. It is of fine workmanship, and the tresses particularly flow in a very natural manner. “Smyrna,” says Pococke, “was one of the finest cities in these parts, and the streets were beautifully laid out, well-paved, and adorned with porticoes, both above and below. There was also a temple of Mars, a circus, and a theatre; and yet there is now very little to be seen of all these things.”

Upon a survey of the castle, Dr. Chandler collected, that, after being re-edified by John Angelus Comnenus, its condition, though less ruinous than before, was far more mean and ignoble. The old wall, of which many remnants may be discovered, is of a solid massive construction, worthy of Alexander and his captains. All the repairs are mere patchwork. On the arch of a gateway, which is of marble, is inscribed a copy of verses, giving an elegant and poetical description of the extreme misery from which the above-mentioned emperor raised the city; concluding with an address to the Omnipotent Ruler of heaven and earth, that he would grant him and his queen, whose beauty it celebrates, a reign of many years. On each side is an eagle, rudely cut.

Near the sea is the ground-work of a stadium, stripped of its marble seats and decorations. Below the theatre is part of a slight wall. The city walls have long since been demolished. Even its ruins are removed. Beyond the deep valley, however, in which the Meles winds, behind the castle, are several portions of the wall of the Pomoerium, which encompassed the city at a distance, but broken. The facings are gone, and masses left only of rubble and cement.

The ancient city has supplied materials for those public edifices, which have been erected by the Turks. The Bezestan and the Vizir khan were both raised with the white marble of the theatre. The very ruins of the stones and temples are vanished. “We saw,” says Dr. Chandler, “remains of one only; some shafts of columns of variegated marble, much injured, in the way ascending through the town to the castle. Many pedestals, statues, inscriptions, and medals have been, and are still, discovered in digging. Perhaps,” continues our author, “no place has contributed more to enrich the cabinets and collections of Europe.”

“Smyrna,” says a celebrated French writer, “the queen of the cities of Anatolia, and extolled by the ancients under the title of ‘the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the ornament of Asia,’ braves the reiterated efforts of conflagrations and earthquakes. Ten times destroyed, she has ten times risen from her ruins with new splendour. According to a very common Grecian system, the principal buildings were erected on the face of a hill fronting the sea. The hill supplied marble, while its slope afforded a place for the seats rising gradually above each other in the stadium, or the great theatre for the exhibition of games. Almost every trace of the ancient city, however, has been obliterated during the contests between the Greek empire and the Ottomans, and afterwards by the ravages of Timour, in 1402. The foundation of the stadium remains; but the area is sown with grain. There are only a few vestiges of the theatre; and the castle, which crowns the hill, is chiefly patchwork, executed by John Comnenus on the ruins of the old one, the walls of which, of immense strength and thickness, may still be discovered.”

This city was visited a short time since by the celebrated French poet and traveller Lamartine. He has thus spoken of its environs:—“The view from the top of the hill over the gulf and city is beautiful. On descending the hill to the margin of the river, which I like to believe is the Meles, we were delighted with the situation of the bridge of the caravans, very near one of the gates of the town. The river is limpid, slumbering under a peaceful arch of sycamores and cypresses; we seated ourselves on its bank. If this stream heard the first notes of Homer, I love to hear its gentle murmurings amidst the roots of the palm-trees; I raise its waters to my lips. Oh! might that man appear from the Western world, who should weave its history, its dreams, and its heaven, into an epic! Such a poem is the sepulchre of times gone by, to which posterity comes to venerate traditions, and eternalise by its worship the great actions and sublime thoughts of human nature. Its author engraves his name on the pedestal of the statue which he erects to man, and he lives in all the ideas with which he enriches the world of imagination.”

According to the same author, Smyrna in no respect resembles an Eastern town; it is a large and elegant factory, where the European consuls and merchants lead the life of Paris and London.

Though frequently and severely visited by the plague, it contains one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants; and may be considered as the great emporium of the Levant240.