Oh! if thou art on some such errand sent, Forth from the throne of Him we love, May not thy homeward path be bent By our poor earth, to bear our souls above? _Prince Edward_. EPIMANES. BY E. A. POE. Chacun a ses vertus.--_Crebillon's Xerxes_. Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ--his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus--his implacable hostility to the Jews--his pollution of the Holy of Holies, and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and reputation. * * * * * Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that name besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But _ours_ is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman empire, it was the ordinary station of the Prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the queen city, among whom may be mentioned, most especially, Verus and Valens, spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes around upon the town and neighboring country. What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way with innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through the wilderness of buildings?