stately, solitary columns of Baalbec. Their countenance was "as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars," and naturally so, for the Syrians assert that Baalbec is the house of the forest of Lebanon built by Solomon.

The sun was setting, and its last light flashed far along the snowy peaks of the Lebanon, which rose sublime from the purple evening silence of the valley. At the lower end of the range which we had just descended, the tawny Hermon crouched over the vale. Birds wheeled and darted around the exquisite portico of the Temple. No triumph of art in my experience was profounder than that of Baalbec in that moment, for the melancholy ruins imparted human grandeur to the sunset splendor of nature.

IX.

Baalbec.

BAALBEC is the ecstacy of Corinthian architecture, and impressed by its grandeur and beauty, you remember with a blessing, the Roman Emperor, Theodosius, I think, who forbade the Christian Bishop to destroy the Pagan Temple, the gem of the Antoninian period.

It is Roman, indeed, dating, that is, from a time when the prime of Greek art was long, long past, and when the East was Roman. Therefore it is not of the purest art. It has not the supreme excellence of the Parthenon, or of the early Egyptian temples, each the perfection of their kind.

But whether the inherent inspiration of the East forbade the erection of temples at the very foot of Lebanon, which had not some lingering spirit of the true Greek grace, or whether, as is most probable, they were reared by Grecian artists, in whom flickered yet some flame of the old Greek fire, yet the ruins of Baalbec are among the most perfect remains in the world. There is nothing in Rome itself so imposing, nothing which so nearly attains that spiritual elegance of impression which marks Greek architecture.

The Roman character is impressed upon Baalbec, in the massiveness, not quite relieved into grace, of which it yet has the imperfect form, and wherein lies, as in all technical Roman architecture, the chief fault. The intrinsic success of the Egyptian architecture is in this, that it completely attains the massiveness at which it aims, and it implies and seeks nothing farther. The Greek, on the other hand, softens that strength, without losing it, into beauty. The Roman, attaining neither, like plated ware grown old, is neither genuine silver nor respectable copper. Its strength is clumsy, not sublime, its beauty is artificial, not sincere.

The eclecticism of Rome pervaded every part of its development. The empire, like a vapor, spread over the earth, and like a vapor, it was variously tinged by the colored soils on which it rested. Rome was great only in overpowering might, in what, as characteristic of single men, we call physical strength. Its intellectual, and artistic, and religious aspect was but an imitation of the Greek. It was not a development, as was Greek culture of the Egyptian; but, like all imitation, it was a decline. Rome was a Gladiator, Greece was a Poet. And in that difference lies the difference of their influence upon history.

But here in Baalbec is a softer strain. The statue of the Gladiator wins the eye, although the Apollo is unrivalled. And adding to the picturesque variety and intrinsic beauty of Baalbec, its superb landscape setting at the head of the valley of Bekaa, and to these the romantic associations which cling around it and deepen its impres

N*

sion, even as clustering and waving vines wreathe with grace more delicate, the grace of Sculpture, Baalbec stands forever in memory as one of the truly imposing relics of the world.

The six solitary columns are its marked and rememberable features. The temple in which are the niches for the idols is yet elegant, and still suggests the Syrian Baal, under which name our ever divine Apollo was worshipped. And well worshipped was he in this spacious valley, along whose floor he struck his glory, making perfect summer, whose mountain walls he made his lyre, striking their snow-streaks with quivering light, like chords swept with trembling fingers, until all the loveliness of the plains and the loftiness of the hills flashed a symphony of splendor to the God of Day.

We stroll musing among the ruins. We have no compass or yardstick. We neither measure the columns nor calculate the weight of the stones. Wood and Hawkins have exhausted that department, and Wood, the best authority on Baalbec, wonders that the Roman authors are so silent about it, and can find only in John of Antioch any mention of the temples. An image of the great temple appears upon medals of Septimius Severus, but Antoninus Pius is supposed to have built it. Saracens, Persians, Earthquakes, and Christians have raged against it. In the time of Heraclius, the Saracens captured it, and incredible riches rewarded them, and in the year 1401 Timour the Tartar smote the beauty of Baalbec. When he thundered against it, it was called by the Greeks, Heliopolis, City of the Sun. And its vague

fame shines through history, as I dreamed of beholding Jerusalem glitter among the Judean Mountains.

Listen for the last time in Syria for the sounds which have long died away into the dumbness of antiquity, and you shall hear the hum of this city of Solomon, the great point of the highway from Tyre to India, when Zenobia's Palmyra was but a watering-station in the desert. Then nearer, the clang of Roman arms and trumpets, the scream of the eagles of Augustus, and the peal of religious pomp around a temple dedicate to Jupiter, and ranking among the wonders of the world. Nearer still, the hushed cry of desert hordes of Bedoueen, of Persians, the muttering of Christian priests, shreds and fragments all of its old pæan, one more death-struggle of another memorable life.

The oriental authors praise Baalbec as the most splendid of Syrian cities, proud with palaces, graceful with gardens; and with the triumphant mien of imperial remembrance, it looks after you as you ride slowly down the valley of the Bekaa, and its glance leaves in your mind a finer strain in your respect for Rome.

All

All day it watches you: all day you turn in your saddle as you advance through the valley which has Egyptian warmth of climate, and in which water never stagnates, and look back upon the six stately columns. the men in the valley salute you. Even the women are less chary of their charms, and when the tent is pitched at evening, and Leisurlie begins to sketch, the children crowd around and look wonderingly upon his work and its results. But if he attempts to draw