T he fite of this once noble city was now green and flowery.
Coming from the eaft, we had the ground-plat of the theatre on
our left hand, with a fmall brook near us, running before it.
This ftrudture was in a brow, which unites with the hill of the
Acropolis, and was called Prion. Some pieces of the vault, which
fupported feats, and completed the femicircle, remain.
I t was on this fide the effort was made, which gave Antio-
chus poffeffion of Sardes. An officer had obferved that vulturs
and birds of prey gathered there about the offals and dead
bodies thrown into the hollow by the befieged, and inferred that
the wall, {landing on the edge of the precipices, was negledled
as fecure from any attempt. He fcaled it with a refolute party,
while Antiochus called off the attention both of his own army
and of the enemy by a feint; marching as if he intended to attack
the Perfian gate. Two thoufand foldiers rufhed in at the gate
opened for them, and took their poll at the theatre, when the
town was plundered and burned.
•Going on, we paffed by remnants of mafiy buildings; marble
piers fuflaining heavy fragments of arches of brick; and
more indiftindl ruins. Thefe are in the plain before the hill of
the Acropolis. On oar right hand, near the road, was a portion
of a large edifice, with a heap of ponderous materials before and
behind it. The walls are {landing of two large, lofty, and very
long rooms, with a fpace between them, as of a paffage. This
remain, it has been conjectured, was the houfe of Croefus ',
once appropriated by the Sardians, as a place of retirement, to
fuperannuated citizens. It was called the Gerufia, and in it, as
fome Roman authors have remarked, was exemplified the extreme
durability of the antient brick. The walls in this ruin
have double arches beneath, and confifi: chiefly of brick, with
layers of (tone, The bricks are exceedingly fine and good,,of 1
1 -See PeyfonelL
various
e
various fizes, lome flat, and broad. We employed a man to procure
one, entire, but the cement proved fo very hard and tenacious,
it was next to impoffible. Both Croefus and Maufolus,
neither of whom could be fufpedted of parfimony, had ufed this
material in the walls of their palaces. It was infenfible of decay
; and, it is afferted, if the walls were eredted true to their
perpendicular, would, without violence, laft for ever.
T he hill of the Acropolis appears from the plain to be tri-
angular. It is fandy, and the fides rough. The fortrefs is abandoned,
but has a double wall, as in 1304, fronting the plain,
befides out-works, in ruins. The eminence affords a fine propped
of the country, and in the walls are two or three fragments
with inferiptions. Not far from the well end is the celebrated
river Padtolus, which rifes in mount Tmolus, and once flowed
through the middle of the Agora or market-place of Sardes
in its way to the Hermus, bringing down from the mountain
bits of gold. The treafures of Croefus and of his anceftors
were collected chiefly from the river, but in time that fource
failed. The Padtolus, after fnow or rain is a torrent. The
Itream was now (hallow, the bed fandy, in colour inclining to a
reddilh yellow.
Beyond the fuppofed Gerufia, we turned from the road to
the left, and paffing the miferable village Sart, which {lands,
with a ruinous mofque, above the river, on a root or fpur of the
hill of the Acropolis, eroded the Padtolus, and pitched our tent
in a flowery meadow. Not far from us were booths of the
Turcomans, with their cattle feeding. Some of them joined us,
and one or two wanted rakx or brandy, but were told we had'
none. A fmall gratuity was required for the Aga of the village,
which was oppofite to our tent.
After refting awhile, we were condudted toward the mountain,
and fuddenly {truck with the view of a ruin of a temple,
near us, in a mod retired fituation, beyond the Padtolus, and
between