A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2)Beckmann, Johann
History
A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2)
Beckmann, Johann
Inventions -- History
In another passage, in the oration to Ellebichus[436], the same author
tells us, that the ropes from which the lamps that ornamented the
city were suspended, had been cut by some riotous soldiers, not far
from a bath. “Proceeding,” says he, “to a bath not far off, they cut
with their swords the ropes from which were suspended the lamps that
afforded light in the night-time, to show that the ornaments of the
city ought to give way to them.” This quotation indicates, at any rate,
that there were lamps suspended from ropes near the baths and places
of greatest resort. The following passage of Jerome, however, seems
to make it probable, or rather certain, that the streets of Antioch
were lighted. In the altercation between a Luciferan and an Orthodox,
he relates that an adherent of the schismatic Lucifer disputed in the
street with a true believer till the streets were lighted, when the
listening crowd departed; and that they then spat in each other’s face,
and retired.
In the elegant edition of the works of that father, by Dominicus
Vallarsius, we have a short dissertation on the time when this
unmannerly dispute took place; and the editor shows that it happened at
Antioch in the year 378[437].
Basilius the Great, in a letter to Martinianus, giving an account of
the miserable situation of his native city Cæsarea, in Cappadocia,
in the year 371, says they had nights without lights (_noctes non
illustratas_). Most commentators explain this passage as if it meant
that the lamps in the streets had not been lighted[438].
That the streets, not only of Antioch, but also of Edessa, in Syria,
were lighted in the fifth century, seems proved by a passage in the
History of Jesue Stylites. It is there expressly said, that Eulogius,
governor of Edessa, about the year 505, ordered lamps to be kept
burning in the streets during the night; and that he employed for that
purpose a part of the oil which was before given to the churches and
monasteries[439].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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