In allusion to this, Wheler, who visited Sart towards the latter part of the seventeenth century, says:—“Now see how it fareth with this miserable church, marked out by God; who, being reduced to a very inconsiderable number, live by the sweat of their brows in digging and planting the gardens of the Turks they live amongst and serve; having neither church nor priest among them. Nor are the Turks themselves there very considerable, either for number or riches; being only herdsmen to cattle feeding on those spacious plains; dwelling in a few pitiful earthen huts; having one mosque, perverted to that use from a Christian church. Thus is that once glorious city of the rich king Crœsus now reduced to a nest of worse than beggars. Their Pactolus hath long since ceased to yield them gold,[208] and the treasures to recover them their dying glories. Yet there are some remains of noble structures, remembrances of their prosperous state, long since destroyed. For there are the remains of an old castle, of a great church, palaces, and other proud buildings, humbled to the earth.” Several inscriptions have been found here; and, amongst these, one recording the good will of the council and senate of Sardis towards the emperor Antoninus Pius. Medals, too, have been found; amongst which, two very rare ones; viz. one of the Empress Tranquillina, and another of Caracalla, with an urn on the reverse, containing a branch of olives; under which is an inscription, which translated, is, “_The sport Chysanthina of the Sardians twice Nercorus_.” Another, stamped by the common assembly of Asia there, in honour of Drusus and Germanicus. Also one with the Emperor Commodus, seated in the midst of a zodiac, with celestial signs engraved on it: on the reverse, “_Sardis, the first metropolis of Asia, Greece, Lydia_.”[209] NO. XXVII.—SELEUCIA. There were no less than thirteen cities, which were called Seleucia, and which received their name from Seleucus Nicanor. These were situated in Syria, in Cilicia, and near the Euphrates. “It must be acknowledged,” says Dr. Prideaux, “that there is mention made of Babylon, as of a city standing long after the time I have placed its dissolution, as in Lucan[210], Philostratus[211], and others. But in all those authors, and wherever also we find Babylon mentioned as a city in being, after the time of Seleucus Nicanor, it must be understood, not of old Babylon, on the Euphrates, but of Seleucia, on the Tigris. For as that succeeded to the dignity and grandeur of old Babylon, so also did it in its name.”