Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

* This poem, though it still shews the author's tendency to fly to a rude nature from cultivated society, is of a more gentle character than most of Freiligrath's. The subject is the death of the eldest of a number of German emigrants, who have left their country for America, and it is one that was familiar to the poet; as from 1831 to 1836, he was in a mercantile house, in Amsterdam, and had an opportunity of seeing many such expeditions. For a very full illustration of the life and characteristics of Freiligrath, I cannot do better than refer the reader to a work now coming out in numbers, called "Deutsche Dichter der Gegenwont," by M. Nodnagel. Before concluding this note I would observe, that the very primitive and almost ludicrous expression, "him of Boston," is exactly given from the original.-J. O.

↑ This morn is most expressly put in the west, to shew that it is a moral and not a physical morn that the poor old leader contemplates.-J. O.

THAPSACUS, THE FATAL PASS.

BY W. FRANCIS AINSWORTH.

THE alternate contractions and expansions of a great river, as its waters are narrowed by some bold, rocky channel, or spread over a lower and more level territory, constitute, in the absence of the more stirring incidents of inhabited towns and ports, objects of lively interest in a first navigation. The Euphrates, in its long course, presents many points of view of this description, each having its own peculiarities, as if in rivalship of beauty. The expansions of the Southern Euphrates, with their rich palm-groves, backed by a clear, light, green sky, are softer and mellower than anything in the northern parts of the same river; but the crumbling ruins of ancient times, the historical associations of every step of its banks, and even of its onward flood, lend to the more naked districts a charm peculiarly their own.

The points at which the river is fordable are very few; from its narrowness and other circumstances, there were zeugmas, or bridges of boats, in ancient times, at the northerly points of Rum-Kaleh, "the Roman Castle," and at Birijik (Birtha), where there are ferries in the present day; but in its central portion there is only one ford, now designated as that of the Anaidi, or Bedwins, and it is only available at certain seasons, and that not every year.

This ford, the steamers Euphrates and Tigris passed over on a first navigation, in the month of May, without difficulty, but the two steamers Nimrod and Nitocris struck on it, when there was only twenty inches of water, from the months of October, 1841, till February of the ensuing year.

The Euphrates is at this spot full of beauty and majesty. Its stream is wide, and its waters clear and blue. Its banks are low and level on the left, but undulate gently to the right. Previous to

arriving at this point, the course of the river is southerly, but here it turns to the east, expanding more like an inland lake than a river, and quitting, as Pliny has previously described it, the Palmyrean solitudes for the fertile Mygdonia.

Taking a boat and native pilot with us, Colonel Chesney and myself went in advance of the steamers to examine this ford. We landed on the right bank, where were the remains of a paved causeway, leading to the very banks of the river, and continued on the opposite side. This causeway is of great antiquity. It is marked on the Augustan and Theodosian tables, and was carried from Auranitis, by Palmyra, to Babylonia; and from Palmyra, by Resapha and Sura, to Carrhæ,*

According to Gosselin, the merchants of Syria and Egypt passed, in ancient times, the Euphrates at Thapsacus, from whence they proceeded, by Ecbatana, to the Caspian gates. The trending of the river Euphrates to the south-east renders the passage at a higher point south of the parallel of Birijik, as at Hierapolis, Balis, or Giaber, of little or no advantage in proceeding eastward; and a barren country extends between the Euphrates and Carrhæ or Harran, Batnæ, or Serug, and Anthemusia and Ischines; but these districts may be reached in safety by Thapsacus and the fertile valley of the Belicha. Hence it will be understood why

Edessa, and more remote countries. When Al Mundar, Christian Prince of Hira, on the Euphrates, was restored by Nurshivan, after his deposition by Kei Kobad, the Gassanite Prince, Arethas, appealed to the Latin name, strata, of this paved causeway, as an unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labours of the Romans.

A long line of mounds, disposed something like those of Nineveh, nearly in the form of a parallelogram, lay below us to the left, and appeared to be all that remained of the Thiphsach, from whence Solomon had dominion over all the regions on this side the river, even to Gazzah, (1 Kings, iv. 24.) This Tiphsach, or Thapsakhi, "a pass, a passing over, or a ford," of the Hebrews, became the Thapsacus of the Greeks and Romans.

Out of the plain on the opposite side rose the ruins of a castle of more recent times, and the view was terminated by the more distant double ramparts of Rakkah, the ancient Nicephorum and Callinicus, situated where the Euphrates again resumes its southerly course.

I sat upon the greensward above this causeway as the Colonel was making some examinations around, and a feeling of melancholy and deep emotion crept over my mind as I inwardly contemplated the different fortunes of those who had crossed, as invaders, conquerors, or in flight, this celebrated ford of the Euphrates. As each passed in review, the fatality attached to them appeared to become more striking, and so characteristic as really to appear, by a strange superstition, to belong to the place.

First came the hosts of Xerxes, speeding their onward way to overthrow a young and rising civilization. The combustion of Athens, and the engagements of Salamis, Platea, and Mycale, stand among the list of fatalities produced by this invasion from across the Euphrates. The misled Greeks and barbarians collected by Cyrus the younger, for the purpose of overthrowing his brother Artaxerxes, followed in the van. Cyrus, in his march in Asia Minor, by Sardis and Celænæ, followed the footsteps of his predecessor, and crossed the Euphrates at the same point. Thapsacus is described by Xenophon as being then a large and flourishing city. It was here that the troops were first informed that they were going against the Great King. Xerxes, who, according to Herodotus, crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats, in which one was tied to the other, had constructed a similar one at Thapsacus, but this was destroyed by Abrocomas on the approach of Cyrus. Anxious to shew his allegiance, Menon first led his gallant Thessalians across the stream, the waters of which did not reach above the men's breasts. The whole army followed the example thus set to them, and the flattering Israelites declared that the river was never fordable before, and that it visibly submitted to Cyrus as to its future king. And

Crassus and Galerius, who were going east, took the same road as the armies bound to Babylonia. Hence, Ammianus describes Nicephorum, as in the time of Julian, a strongly-fortified and commercial city, and hence its importance under the Khalifate and the early Turks. Gibbon must have had Xenophon's description of the country south of the Chaboras in his mind, when he describes the district intervening between Nicephorum and Carrhæ as" a smooth and barren surface of sandy desert, without trees, and without fresh water." Nothing can be farther from the truth. The districts of Carrhæ and of Batnæ are everywhere fertile and productive, and constitute the richest rice-granaries of Mesopotamia. They were the first territories seized by Ibrahim Pasha after the defeat of the Turks at Nizib.

what was the result?-the death of Cyrus on the plain of Cunaxa, killed probably by his brother whom he had just wounded, and the disastrous but memorable retreat of the ten thousand Greeks!

The favourite mistress of Cyrus, Milto by name, but whom, in honour of her wit and beauty, he designated his Aspasia, crossed the Euphrates with the army, and was left behind as an apple of discord. Beloved by Artaxerxes, she was asked of him by his son Darius, on the occasion of his being declared successor to the throne, and when it was customary to ask a favour which was never refused. The king told his son, that, if she consented to be his, he should not oppose it; and Milto declared in favour of the son, which so displeased Artaxerxes that he doomed her to perpetual chastity in the Temple of Anaïtis, the Diana of the Romans. This exasperated Darius to such a degree that he conspired to put his father to death; but his design being discovered, it ended in his own destruction, and he became the second princely victim of the passage of the Euphrates.

The unfortunate Darius, surnamed Codoman, advanced by Thapsacus, to resist the invading legions of Alexander; but defeated at Issus, he was allowed to retreat leisurely and destroy the bridge, while the Macedonian hero besieged Tyre and advanced into Egypt. Alexander arrived at Thapsacus on his way to subject the Oriental world. He crossed the river, according to some, by means of a double bridge, attached at the opposite side of the river; but according to Arrian, by a succession of boats, slung crosswise, and retained in that position by great osier panniers, full of heavy stones, sunk in the stream. The connexion between the boats was then established by means of two planks carefully tied together. It appears that he afterwards crossed the Indus by a bridge of contiguous boats, after the Persian fashion. Darius was miserably murdered by Bessus, and Alexander himself died, subsequently, in a sadder manner, at Babylon. This event changed the fate of the existing world. The foundation of an empire, with that ancient city for its centre, was-by an intervention of Providence, somewhat similar to that which ensured the first dispersion of nations-frustrated, and its different territories broken up among his rival generals.

Alexander, as was his custom, celebrated his successful passage of the Euphrates by founding a town, which he called Nicephorum, the "City of Victory." And under the Seleucida, Thapsacus was embellished and adorned, and became Amphipolis. Four centuries afterwards, Trajan offered oblations at the grave of Alexander; and a century later, Severus sealed up his desecrated tomb.

The next who came to pass the fatal bridge was Crassus, the haughty representative of the Roman republic in the east. Ominous events had foretold evil on his quitting the despoliated Hierapolis. His son had fallen; and he stumbled over him at the gateway of the rich and sacred city of the Syrians; and this event, combined with other ill omens, had filled his mind with melancholy. Dion Cassius relates that Crassus crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma; "thus the place was called from the expedition of Alexander the Great, who crossed here." Plutarch says he began his march along the side of the river, hence he no doubt went to Nicephorum, from whence he could follow the Bilecha, the ancient Carrhæ, or river of Anthemusia, and the "royal river" of Strabo, to the city of first name, and which is the same as

THAPSACUS, THE FATAL PASS.

the Harran of Scriptures. But after quitting the river, he was led astray by the wiles of Abgarus, the Armenian chief of Edessa: and the events of Carrhæ (Carrhæ clade Crassi nobiles) determined that the fate of the next trans-Euphratic invader should not differ from the others.

66

by his miserable death, Crassus
Stained with his Latian blood the Assyrian Carras."
Lucanus, lib. i., ver. 104.

His death was effected by the treachery of Surenas, a short time after the battle in which the unfortunate father had seen his gallant son's head carried on the victorious spears of the Parthians. "This misfortune is entirely mine," said he to his dismayed troops; "the loss of one person cannot affect the victory. Let us charge-let us fight like Romans: if you feel for a father who has just lost a son whose valour you admired, let it appear in your rage and resentment against those insulting barbarians!" But it was too late.

Dion Cassius, in his account of the wars of Trajan, will admit of no other interpretation than that the Emperor, after sending for his materials for boat-building to the woods of Nisibis, constructed his fleet on the Tigris, and sailed down that river. But this narrative is positively contradicted, by Trajan's visiting the bituminous pits of Hit and the ruins of Babylon on his way, as related by the same authority; of his having also intended to make a canal from the Euphrates to the Tigris; and still more particularly, by his having dragged over his vessel from the former river to the latter; all these transactions having occurred previously to his construction of a bridge across the Tigris for the purpose of attacking Ctesiphon.

Many considerations point out the Chaboras-the modern Khabur -as the river which would alone present the combined advantages of a recipient for his boats, as a branch flows past Nisibis, and a means to convey them down its waters to Creusium.

It appears from Xiphilinus, that Severus invaded Babylon and Seleucia from the same points. He went to Nisibis, which had been a short time previously besieged by the Parthians, and vigorously and successfully defended by Letus. He then sailed upon the Euphrates, which he must have joined, like Trajan, who was his example, at Chaboras, with all expedition, attended by a great number of vessels. The circumstances of Nisibis, on the one hand, and Creusium on the other, being so long limitrophal towns of the Roman empire, is strongly presumptive of their being made the points of departure in incursions carried into the neighbouring countries. Trajan and Severus thus escaped the fatal passage; and appear also to have avoided the oft-inflicted penalties.

The unfortunate young Antonius Gordianus passed the river at the same point, in successful pursuit of the Persians, only to be assassinated by Julius Phillipus, surnamed the Arab. The tomb of the emperor was still visible in the time of Julian, in an olive grove a little south of the Chaboras.

In the third year of the reign of Diocletian, Tiridates, son of Chosroes, was invested by the Romans with the kingdom of Armenia. Notwithstanding the valour of the Armenian, who had received his education among Roman legions, he was ultimately overcome, and expelled the

Narses. Galerius was sent by Diocletian to

« FöregåendeFortsätt »