Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present ConditionBucke, Charles
History
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition
Bucke, Charles
Cities and towns, Ancient
"_Jerrash_," says our journalist, "is situated in an open and tolerably
fertile plain, through which a river runs. Before entering the town, I
found several sarcophagi, with very beautiful bas-reliefs, among which I
remarked one, on the edge of the road, with a Greek inscription. The
walls of the town are mouldered away, but one may yet trace their whole
extent, which may have been three-quarters of a league, or a whole one.
These walls were entirely built of hewn marble. The ground within it is
of unequal heights, and falls towards the river. Not a single private
house remains entire; but on the other hand, I observed several public
buildings which were distinguished by a very beautiful style of
architecture. I found two superb amphitheatres, solidly built of marble,
with columns, niches, &c. the whole in good preservation. I found also
some palaces, and three temples, one of which has a peristyle of twelve
grand columns of the Corinthian order, eleven of which are still
upright. In another of these temples, I saw a column on the ground, of
most beautiful polished Egyptian granite. I also found a handsome gate
of the city, well preserved, formed of three arcades, and ornamented
with pilasters.
"The most beautiful thing I discovered was a long street, crossed by
another, and ornamented on both sides with a row of marble columns of
the Corinthian order, and one of whose extremities terminated in a
semicircle, that was set round with sixty pillars, of the Ionic order.
At the points where the two streets cross, in each of the four angles, a
large pedestal of hewn stone is visible, on which probably statues were
formerly set. A part of the pavement remains, formed of hewn stones.
"To speak generally, I counted about two hundred columns, which yet
partly support their entablatures, but the number of those overthrown is
infinitely more considerable: I saw indeed but half the extent of the
town, and a person would probably still find in the other half, on the
opposite side of the river, a quantity of remarkable curiosities.
"Jerrash can be no other than the ancient Geresa, one of the Decapolitan
towns. It is difficult to conceive that so much ignorance of its real
situation should exist, as would allow Monsieur Paulus, in his map, to
have placed it to the _north_-east of the northern extremity of the Lake
of Tiberias. I do not know whether any ancient geographer has made the
same mistake. From a fragment of a Greek inscription, which I copied, I
am led to conclude, that several of the buildings of this town were
erected under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The Roman history
may, perhaps, furnish some data in corroboration of this conjecture. It
is, at all events, certain, that the edifices of this town are of the
age of the most beautiful Roman architecture."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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