Greek and Roman Towns Ii

GREEK AND ROMAN TOWNS II. Town Planning in Syria Syria and tb.e Arabian border are sown more thickly with the visible .ruins of ancient towns and villages than any other part of the Roman Empire, except the African provinces. Their remains attest the extra ordinary prosperity which these lands enjoyed under Roman and .Byzantine rule. Caravan-trade with Arabia and Mesopotamia, India, and China provided some of the capital which constructed reservoirs and aqueducts and :made one great garden of regions which climatic change has given back to the desert. The people of the coast had the inbred commercial instincts of their Phoenician forefathers, and the industries which flourished in their towns-glass making, silk weaving, and purple dyeing-had a long tradition behind them. Syrian traders, cunning and clannish, were as ubiquitous and successful as the Jews who followed in their footsteps some centuries later; and fortunes made in Italy or Gaul account for many of the comfortable stone-vaulted houses which stand almost perfect in country towns of Lebanon and the Hauran, But in the main it was agriculture, with corn, wine, oil as its staple products, that maintained the dense population-agriculture based on native .skill in irrigation and backed by Roman engineering. The towns of Roman Syria form a grollp which it is convenient to .study separately. In the present paper I shall not attempt to reconstruct the appearance of Antioch and her neighbours in the Hellenistic period, when the Maced.onian dynasty of Seleucus and his successors laboured to impose Greek institutions and manners on their eastern subjects. Out wardly they succeeded so well that it was easy for Rome to consolidate and carryon their work. But even Antioch, the capital which Seleucus 'created in 300 B.C., was always Oriental at heart; "full of turbulent pride and caring nothing for things Hellenic " was the verdict of a Greek man of letters 500 years later; while the ancient capital, Damascus, stood aloof from the classical world, biding her time until Islam restored her to the primacy, Syrian religion. was strong enough not only to hold its own at horne, but to impose some of its native cults on the Empire at large; is it surprising that in Syrian temples we find the forms of classic architecture modified to suit local needs? The Hellenistic towns may have been thoroughly Greek at the outset, but of their original buildings .scarcely a vestige is left. The remains which we have to consider date from the Roman Empire, and exhibit a differentiated local style of architecture, the head-quarters of which was probably at Antioch; for

Antioch rather than Rome set the fashion in these regions. It is worth while, therefore, to examine what is known of the Town Planning of Antioch before dealing with the outlying towns which reflected something of her magnificence. Fortunately, Libanius gives a fairly clear account of his native. city in the oration" On Antioch," from which I quoted in a preVIOUS paper. Antioch in the Fourth Century After Christ The capital of Syria lay 16 miles from the sea on the river Orontes, which traverses a fertile plain some ten miles in length and five in breadth at the northern foot of Mount Casius. The Old Town stretched along the south bank; the New Town, built about 290 A.D., covered an island. At this time the population was at least 200,000, and presented an extraordinary medley of races. As Libanius puts it, anyone wishing to study manners and customs might spare himself the pains of travel and get all the material he needed by watching and conversing with the representatives of all nations who thronged the streets of Antioch. In the Old Town the main artery of traffic was an avenue 4 miles long, bordered by colonnades and running parallel with the river from east to west; it was smooth and level, paved throughout, lined in part with public buildings, in part with private houses. The side streets on the south extended to the lower slopes of the mountain and rose gently to, pleasant suburbs, where one might enjoy flowers and the song of birds in cool gardens. Those on the north ran level to another main avenue, without colonnades, but with private houses on both sides, and beyond it to the gardens on the river bank. Midway along the avenue first des cribed' another colonnaded street branched off northwards and extended to the river, the junction with the main colonnade being effected by a marble tetrapylon. Combined in some way with this, and "forming the starting-point of the porticoes leading to the river," was a lofty Nymphreum or fountain-front, "whose gleaming marble and variegated columns, brilliant paintings, and wealth of running water, drew to it every eye." From this avenue also cross-streets branched off at right angles; clearly the street-plan formed a regular gridiron. Adjoining the Old Town on the north and connected with it by five bridges was the New Town, built on a circular island formed by two arms of the river, It was girdled by its own wall and formed a kind of Imperial City, for one-quarter of its area was taken up by the Emperor's Palace. Four colonnaded streets, crossing under a central tetrapylon, divided it into quadrants; three of them ran to the circumference, but the fourth and most ornate stopped short before the Palace, a vast pile which ex tended to the northern river-front, so that its windows overlooked

the Orontes and suburbs beyond. The interior of the Palace contained so many halls and porticoes and saloons that even persons familiar with it easily lost their way. The whole description recalls Diocletian's town and palace at Spalato, built-c-as the masons' marks show -by workmen from the Greek East. Outwardly Spalato is a square Roman fortress ; within it exhibits a scheme which may well have beeh suggested by the New Town of Antioch. Colonnaded streets .start from each of three gates and meet at a central crossing, whence a fourth and shorter street leads to the portals of the palace proper. The cool northern side of the palace at Antioch had a loggia built on the city wall which afforded, Libanius says, "a view worthy of a king." We have its counterpart at Spalato in a gallery which runs the whole length of the rear facade and overlooks the wide Adriatic. The resemblance was not accidental, for the palace at Antioch was begun by Gallienus, who died in 268, and completed by Diocletian himself. The :New Town was the work of the same generation. As to the colonnades and tetrapyla of the Old Town, they are said to have been built by Herod and Tiberius in the last generation before our era; the nympheeum ma,Y be identical with one built in Caligula's reign. Many of the features on which this description lays stress are found in other Syrian cities, and though it would be going too far to say that they were peculiar to Syria, I think it is plain that they constituted a Syrian type of town plan which gradually influenced the whole Eastern Empire. We nlay take them one by one. (1) Wide Colonnaded Streets are the centres of civic life and trade. The ranges- of shops which flank them correspond to the stoai found in Hellenistic market-places. Hence comes the increased breadth of the main avenues, 'which had to provide both for through traffic and for the market crowd; hence, too, the name Stoai, which is regularly used by Libanius and other late writers to denote these streets ot shops and seems to have passed with that sense into Syriac. The present article illustrates examples of such streets at Palmyra, Gerasa, Bostra, and Philippopolis. They are known to have existed also at Apamea, Damascus (the" street which is called Straight," of Acts ix, 11), Samaria, Jerusalem (according to the Medaba mosaic}, and in several other towns of Syria-s-which must be understood to include Palestine and the borders of Arabia. Th.ey are also found at Alexandria and Antinoe in Egypt, in a number of towns along the southern sea-board of Asia Minor, par ticularly in the south-eastern region where the influence of Antioch would be felt, and further north at Ephesus, Nicomedia, and Constanti nople. (2) As a corollary, the Agora or market-place loses its importance.

In typical Hellenic cities it is the central feature, to which the main streets are subordinate. Contrast with the Syrian towns Miletus, that elder Venice of western Asia Minor. There the main street, which runs straight for 1,100 yards from the south gate to the quays, has a roadway but little over 10 feet wide and sidewalks each 2 feet wide, without bordering colqnnades ; on the other hand, there are two market-places, one of huge extent, with porticoes and shops about them. The later plan of Ephesus, which rose to increased importance and was largely rebuilt under the Empire, combines the two systems. In the Syrian towns the boulevards really were the markets, the direct forerunners of the modern bazaars. Mukaddasi, the Arab geographer, grasped this when he described the mile-long Straight Street of Damascus as " a fine open market running the whole length of the town." (3) But the Syrian towns do not lack public places. The main avenue may expand into a piazza, circular as at Gerasa and Palmyra, or square as at Apamea and Constantinople. But the areas which really correspond to the vast enclosed market-places of Hellenic towns are the great colon naded courts of the Syrian temples. Good examples are found at Gerasa and Damascus; in each case the Propylrea close the vista at the end of a secondary colonnaded street. (4) Great attention is paid to this closing 01 vistas. At Antinoe and Palmyra a monumental tomb faces one end of the main boulevard, while an ornamental arch stands at the other end. At Gerasa the avenue starts from a city gate and is aligned on a conspicuous temple set on rising ground. The use of arches in street vistas is best illustrated at Palmyra. (Frontispiece and Plate 16.) (5) A kindred feature is the placing of Four-way Arches or Tetrapyla at the crossing point of the main streets, called at Antioch and probably also elsewhere the Omphalos or "navel" of the city. These, like the simpler forms of triumphal arch, probably served as pedestals for chariot groups or other monumental sculpture. Another type of monument used at cross-ways consisted of four piers each supporting a statue or group under a cupola borne by four columns; the name Tetrakionion or " Four-pillar-monument" has been coined to describe it. Both types are found at Gerasa ; there is a clear example of a Tetrapylon at Laodicea and of Tetrakionia at Palmyra, while at Philippopolis there are remains which can be interpreted in either way. (6) Skilful use is made of rivers and bridges. Gerasa, Philadelphia (Amman) and Petra were traversed by picturesque streams and had colonnaded streets running parallel with the watercourse. Probably, as at Antioch, part of the intervening space was devoted to gardens. (7) Running water, the most refreshing form of decoration in hot

Copyright (c) 2004 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Liverpool University Press Copyright (c) 2004 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Liverpool University Press Plate 17

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Plan (after Schumechers showing rectangular planning and skilful use of vistas on a hilly site

GERASA (Syria)

climates, was displayed in Nymphma or architectural fountain-fronts. Sometimes, as at Antioch and Side in Pamphylia, they face the end of a street; or they are set across the angle formed by the meeting of two avenues, as at Bostra, or inserted in one side of an avenue so as to vary its monotony, as at Gerasa and Ephesus. (8) Public buildings such as minor temples and baths are placed in the avenues among shops and private houses, so that their porticoes range with the front of the colonnade, and their doors open on the covered way. Libanius mentions that this was the case at Antioch, and we have instances at Gerasa, Palmyra, and elsewhere. (9) Statues and busts are not allowed to obstruct the thoroughfare, as in Hellenic and Roman market-places, where honorary portraits in stone and bronze jostled the living at every turn; they are "skied" half-way up a column on a console or bracket carved in one piece with one of its drums. The main avenue at Palmyra (Plate 16) was a regular gallery of local worthies, long ago thrown down. This ugly but convenient fashion was widespread in Syria, appearing even on temple fronts, and spread to the towns of Cilicia. One suspects that it prevailed, perhaps originated, in Antioch. Gerasa. (Plates 17-19) Ancient Antioch was so large and lies so deeply buried that it can never be excavated as a whole, and it may be long before we can compare any part of it with the ancient descriptions. We turn to other cities whose skeletons lie bare, so that the understanding traveller can clothe them with the forms of life. Such a city is Gerasa, now called Jerash, whose ruins stand some 35 miles east of Jordan and 1,900 feet above sea level, on the ancient high way which ran south from Damascus to Philadelphia (Amman). Gerasa, like Philadelphia, is set astride of a mountain stream, a tributary of the Jabbok. The town walls, 11~ feet thick, are built of massive rusticated masonry, and enclose an area of 170 acres. The girdle of distant mountains, the steep rocky slopes on either side of the ravine, the torrent with its foaming rapids half-buried in thickets of oleander, make up a singularly picturesque landscape, but it is not a situation where one would look lor typical rectangular planning. Yet the designer was able to keep the essential characteristics of a Grceco-Syrian plan, while turning the natural features to account. The main street and public buildings were laid out on the western side of the stream, and two hills which dominate this area were chosen as sites for the principal temples. From the north gate A the main street points straight at the temple crowning the lower hill Q; thus the

temple was visible along the greater part of the main thoroughfare, with all the more effect because its oblique position brought two sides of the peristyle into the view. On the higher hill F was built the much larger Temple of Artemis, which is sometimes but with less reason called the. Temple of the Sun. It stood in a spacious court enclosed by a portico of 260 columns, and approached from the main street by a stairway 16 feet wide and 85 yards long, which mounted through the richly decorated Propylrea at G. Opposite to the propylsea a small piazza H, now obscured by a church which was built upon it and appropriated its columns, was traversed by a street which continued the line of the temple-stairway to a bridge at I. There are two other cross streets. One on the north passes the covered theatre or "Odeum " (B), crosses the main avenue, and descends to the stream by a block of baths, E; it was probably carried over the ravine by a bridge at D. Near this point is an important spring on the east bank, the waters of which were conveyed by an aqueduct, XX X, along the high ground on the west bank to the great reservoir (" Nau machia" of many writers) at T outside the south gate. A second cross street V M N is carried across the stream by a handsome bridge of five arches, much of which is still standing. Both these streets have colonnades and are somewhat narrower than the main avenue, which measures 41 feet between column-centres. Plate 18 shows two stretches of the main street; the colonnades are Ionic at the north end, Corinthian at the south. The columns are not all of one height, and where the change of level takes place the archi trave of the lower section is taken by a bracket projecting from the side of the higher column (Plate 18 below). Following the street southwards from the north gate we come at the first cross-way, C, to the remains of a Tetrapylon, thus described by Buckingham, who saw it in 1821: "The four pedestals being raised"to the height of walls support a flattened dome of a circular form, and the inside of the building is made circular also, though the outside is square. A kind of open porch is thus formed, with a free passage on each of the open sides." Some better-preserved monu ments of this kind are illustrated on Plate 20. Continuing southwards and passing the Propylrea (G) we come to a semi-circular recess (J) over 30 feet wide, which was once a Nympheeum. It is much ruined, but a photograph shows the remains of decoration in two tiers: seven niches in each, alternately square-headed and arched, once flanked by advanced columns supporting miniature pediments. The entablature was continued to right and left by straight wings in line with the back wall of the covered way. The Nymphreum had a facade of four columns which formed part of the front of the colonnade. Buck-

Ionic Colonnades near the North Gate

Corinthian Colonnades near the Oval Place

MAIN STREET GERASA

Looking towards the Main Street and the Great Temple

Part of the Ionic Colonnade, looking south.

OVAL PLACE GERASA

ingham's observa:nt eye noted richly painted stucco in the niches, and some columns of yellow marble and red granite-details which recall Libanius' account of a similar structure at Antioch (p. 102 above). Puchstein dug down in the apse and found the basin which received the water and a lower pool, a great laver on the floor of the colonnade, into which it overflowed'. At the next cross-way, M, we have an example of the Tetrakionia described above (p. 104). Some travellers have taken the four piers for the remains of all arch, but Buclcingham's evidence seems decisive. After describing the four large pedestals of smooth masonry, he continues : " These had ill each of their fronts a niche for a statue, which was concave at the back, arched at the top, and crowned by a beautiful fan or shell. ... On top of the pedestals appeared to have once stood small Corinthian columns, the shafts and capitals of which now lay scattered below, so that they might have been bases of peristyles"; and elsewhere 11e expresses t.he 'view t.hat t.hey had supported statues (Travels in Palestine, I)P. 346, 379). The best-known example of such a group of four bases, support.ing each a statue within an open peristyle, is at Palmyra, half-way along the great avenue, \Vood's drawing shows them in detail; each podium is 14 feet 8 inches square a11(1 about 9 feet high, and there is a clear passage bet\Veell them of 34 feet ill each direction (Ruins of Palmyra, Plate XXXII). From this point the main street descends gently between Corinthian colonnades to the Oval Place, which is about 250 feet in diameter. Plate 19 shows its relation to the main street, with the great Temple of Artemis on its hill to the north. Much nearer, to the south-west, the temple Q stood on a height 50 feet above the piazza; an inscription shows that it was built in 162 A.D., but beneath the great stairway that led up to it Puchstein Iound remains of all older temple precinct. The theatre lies on the north-west slope of this hill (P), and was no doubt reached by a street issuing from the west side of the Oval Place; another issued from the south-east and led to the South Gate (R), which was standing at the time of Buckingham's visit. He describes it as a triple arch closely resembling the triumphal arch which spans the road 500 yards beyond the walls; it is just visible in t.he lower vie\v on Plate 19, to the extreme right. Beside this road are the circus (8) and the great reservoir (1'), fed by the aqueduct already mentioned. It is clear that G-erasa was rebuilt in the course of the second century. TIle propyleea a:nd porticoes of tho Temple of Artemis were completed in 150 A.D., the Nymphrcum S0011 after 184. In the dedication inscription of the latter building the town is given tile sonorous name " Antioch on the Chrysoroas, formerly Gerasa." Although it does not appear in

history until 78 B.C., Gerasa may have been one of the many minor Antiochs founded by the Macedonian kings of Syria. But it is more likely that the new name was assumed., or conferred as a privilege, to commemorate the rebuilding; it implied that Gerasa had acquired something of Metropolitan splendour, just as the name given to the stream challenged comparison with Damascus, for the Chrysoroas is the river to which Damascus owes its fertility. The photographs of Gerasa, reproduced here with the kind permission of the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, are some of those made by Sir Charles Warren's expedition in 1865-7. They show the site in the desolate condition in which all the early travellers saw it. When Buckingham came here in 1821 the natives regarded the ruins with superstitious awe. They believed that immense treasures lay buried there and that a guardian genius, in the form of a monstrous bird, kept watch over them. But in 1878 a party of Circassian emigrants from the Caucasus decided to end their wanderings at Jerash. These dour and efficient colonists have transformed the face of the country, laying out fields and orchards, felling the famous oaks of Gilead and. blowing up the columns of Jerash with gunpowder. Their substantial stone houses were built out of the ruins, and while that work was in pro gress the finding of a jarful of coins-in spite of the guardian bird-turned them to treasure-hunting. Hitherto their village has been confined to the east bank, thanks to their chief having reserved the west side for a branch of his clan which has never come to take possession. There are excellent photographs in a Russian book, Prince Abamalech Lazareff's Gerasa (Petrograd, 1897).* Older views, lithographs, may be found in the books of the French travellers, Laborde, the Due de Luynes, and C. G. Rey. My plan (Plate 17) is based on that of Schumacher, published with a useful descriptive article in the" Journal of the German Palestine Society" for 1902. It could not incorporate the results of the work done by Puchstein's expedition, which stayed at Jerash for a month in the summer of 1902, making an architectural survey and SUCll excavations as were necessary to clear up doubtful points. It is to be hoped that his untimely death may not unduly delay the publication of the new material relating to this and other Syrian sites, Baalbek in particular. The Tetrapyla of Latakia and Tripoli. In illustration of the Tetrapylon at C on the plan of Gerasa (Plate 17) I add two examples of four-way arches which are still in fair preservation * Other photographs will be found in Libbey and Hoskins, The Jordan Valley and Petra (New York and London, 19(5), and in N. P. Kondakoff's book on Syria and Palestine (Petro grad Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1904), which I have not seen.

LATAKIA (SYRIA)

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TETRAPYLA OR FOUR-WAY ARCHES

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Plan of Homen streets (after Butler) to illustrate the remodelling of an old Eastern city

,BOSTRA (Arabia)

(Plate 20). Latakia, a seaport of Northern Syria, represents one of the ancient Laodiceas, once famous for its wine as the modern town and the surrounding district are for their fragrant tobacco. In the south-east part of the town stands (or stood) a Tetrapylon which has been turned into a dwelling by building up the arches. The openings on north and south were higher and wider than the others, and these fronts were more richly decorated with columns and a pediment. Alexander Drummond, in his Travels (1754), p. 189, mentions numerous granite pillars " which as near as I can judge stand in a line with the side-front of the triumphal arch and may be supposed to have been an avenue to it." Pococke, in his Description of the East (1743-5), thought they were " the remains of a grand street that might have led from the arch to the harbour." His sketch (Vol. II., Pi. 28) shows sculptured ornaments on the attic, shields, helmets, and so on, which are omitted in de Vogue's drawing. The beautiful arch of Tripoli in North Africa, the ancient CEa, covers an area of 42 feet by 33 feet. An inscription records that it was built under Antoninus Pius, and dedicated to his successor in 163 A.D. The interior is coverecl by a flat cupola rising from an octagonal cornice. The arches are equal in size, although the fronts differ in breadth. Nothing seems to be known of the topography of the town, but it may be assumed that the arch stood at t.hc intersection of two principal streets. Now that Tripoli is in Italian hands, we may hope that this noble monument n1ay be freed Irom the modern constructions which obscure it, and that its surroundings IIlay be ascertained. The drawing by Graef is based on one made by .Iarnes Bruce about 1765, and reproduced in Sir R. L. Play fair's Travels in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis (1877). 'I'he third notable example of such an arch, at Tebessa in South Eastern Algeria, is about 46 feet square, less richly sculptured, but adorned with a screen of attached columns and a corresponding order of smaller columns in the attic. Its incorporation as a gateway in the Byzantine town wall has destroyed much of its architectural effect. Bostra (Plates 21, 22) Forty miles to t.he north-east of Gerasa lies a greater and more famous city, Bostra, once capital of the Roman province of Arabia and the starting-point of caravan routes to the East. Roman highways radiated from it to Damascus, the Mediterranean ports, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, and much merchandise passed through its warehouses. It had been a stronghold of the Nabatmans, whose kingdom once stretched from Petra to Darnascus. Trajan conquered it in 106, and its importance gre\v apace. It became the head-quarters of a legion; early in the

following century it received the status of a colony; and in 245 when Philip the Arabian became Emperor of Rome, Bostra, his native city, received the honorary title of "metropolis." In the Christian period its Archbishop had 30 bishops in his province, and the cathedral built in 512 was a stately building worthy of such a primate. It was studied by de Vogue, though little of it now remains. Square in plan externally, it had a circular nave. Under the Moslems Bostra retained its importance, for it lay on the Pilgrim road to Mecca, but since the route was changed it has shrunk to a somewhat squalid village. Bostra lacks the magical charm of Gerasa and Palmyra, not only because later ages have obscured the lines of the classic city, but because it was not built like them of white limestone, which flushes pink at sunset and fills travellers with emotion, but of dull, black basalt. Mr. Butler has drawn the silhouette of the dead town seen against the blue sky and the bright green or gold of the plain. " The prospect gives the illusion of a surging sea of broken basalt, with column shafts and capitals of the same material borne, like flotsam, llpon its surface, or half-concealed beneath its waves. The forbidding and sombre walls of the Arabic fortress appear to guard a promontory to the south-east, and a poor village of basalt and mud, clinging about the bases of a few ancient columns, and pressing close to the grim black walls and tall, square minarets of half-a-dozen mosques, seems to rise from a low lying shore."* The American expedition led by Mr. Butler has produced the first accurate survey of these highly stratified ruins. It is the work of Mr. F. A. Norris, C.E., and is reproduced with some simplifications and omissions in Plate 21. It is very different from Porter's sketch-plan, which was evidently influenced by the unconscious assumption that the town where a legion had so long been stationed must have been laid out with military regularity. What we have, however, is an old Nabatrean town, with queer semi-Hellenistic architectural forms, the central part of which was gradually remodelled in Greeco-Roman fashion. The "Nabatroan half-columns" which still rear their uncouth capitals above the debris, survive from that epoch of prosperous independence; even in the East Arch, which forms a transition to the new Roman boulevards, Mr. Butler sees a native work of about 100 A.D., which had no original relation to the colonnaded street. The desire to include an existing arch in the vista may account for the peculiar orientation of the main street. On the other hand, the Central Arch, which stands on the south

• Howard Crosby Butler, Princeton Univ. Archceol, Expeditions to Syria. II. A. 4, p. 223. This work is being published by Messrs. Brill, of Leyden, in folio parts.

Restored plan of central streets (after Butler), sho wing position of street-arches, which close vistas, and of a fountain-house (Nymphaeum) used to cut off an acute angle

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.BOSTRA

side of the main thoroughfare and masks a side street leading, to the theatre, was planned in' connection with the adjacent colonnades. Contrasting tho colonnaded streets with those of Palmyra, Ger

Copyright (c) 2004 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Liverpool University Press 1t2 THE TOWN PLANNING REVIEW north-and-south avenue with the second [northern] east-and-west street, and new lies hidden in a maze of poor modern constructions." Parts of these shops were seen by previous travellers, who expressed varying opinions about them, but failed to realise their true character and extent. It is now plain that the colonnaded streets in the central region of Bostra resembled the porticoes (stoai) in the market-places of Hellenistic towns; behind the covered walk, here about 18 feet wide, lie a series of shops, entered and lit by wide doorways, and provided with upper chambers. The main roadway varies in width from about 26 feet to 29 feet. \Ve shall not go far wrong if we suppose that the commercial quarters of Antioch and other Syrian cities were planned in this way, and that shops and warehouses of this kind once stood on either side of the great avenue at Palmyra. Philippopolis (Plate 23) Special interest attaches to Philippopolis, modern Shehba, a walled city which lies 40 miles north of Bostra just off the great highway to Damascus, " Philip's Town" commemorates the brief space 244-249 A.D., during which an Arab soldier was Emperor of Rome. Unlike its neighbour-towns, which bear in their rambling streets marks of gradual growth, Philippopolis is compact and nearly symmetrical, square and strongly walled, its gates flanked by those solid half-octagon towers which allover the empire characterise military work of the third century. The usual main avenues run from gate to gate, once bordered by colon nades which are now so completely demolished that their dimensions are doubtful; but it seems that the roadway was about 30 feet wide. The basalt paving is well preserved; Lord Lindsay, in 1837, " entering by the southern gate, rode for 10 minutes up a broad handsome street, better paved and the pavement in better preservation than any in London." Where the main streets cross are four huge piers 18 feet square, 8 feet high, and 25 feet apart. It will be remembered that at Gerasa the northern crossway was covered by a Tetrapylon, the southern decorated by four piers supporting four different canopied monuments. Butler thinks that the piers at Philippopolis are the remains of a Tetrapylon; Puchstein would restore on them four separate cediculce. The extreme severity of the piers, which have plain chamfers in -place of mouldings, is, perhaps, in favour of the former view. Such a four-way arch, over 60 feet square, would be exceptionally large; the largest one .known to me, at Tebessa in Algeria, is 46 feet square. But so gigantic a structure would not have been out of keeping with the other buildings of the town. It may have served like many of the triumphal arches as the pedestal for a chariot group. It is becoming plain that this crossing-point of the

a. South gate f. Part of street art'heel oV<:1' i.. Aqrteduct g. Large paved court c. Baths 11. Exec1ra d. Piers at cross-ways 1. 'I'cumlo of Phili p H11

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Plan (after BlJtler) showing main streets and position of a Teirepylon at their crossing

A ROMAN TOWN OF THE THIRD CENTURY AFTER CHRIST PH ILl PPOPOllS (Syria)

main avenues was a spot. of unique significance in ancient cities. At Antioch it was called the Omphalos or navel of the town ; an inscription recently found at Timgad uses the Latin equivalent umbilicus in the same sense. It would be natural enough for Philip to place a great commemora tive group here, where it would be visible from the four city gates. On the other hand, it must be admitted that these piers are not very different in dimensions from those at Palmyra, which are known to have supported four separate asliculce. .A few words will suffice to explain the rest of the plan. The street running west from this" Navel" passes a temple (e) and then reaches an important building (g h) through which the street is carried as a vaulted passage, with indications that it could be closed by gates; (g) is a court surround.ed by rooms, (h) a magnificent apsidal exedra facing on an open square. Butler regards it as a temple, Puchstein as a nym phreum, South of and also facing on this square is another temple (i) built in honour of Philip's father Marinus, and behind it an Odeum. Further west a secondary avenue crosses the town from north to south; in the south-west quarter its course is deflected by rocky ground, the spur of a volcanic peak which overlooks the site. R. C. BOSANQUET.