The usual reason for stripping cities is convenience:
nearby monuments are piled up on existing structures: for example, the
Byzantine fort at the top of the theatre at Miletus (a radical shrinking of the
city area), or the fortress built over the gymnasium at Stratonikeia (where not
enough is known about the wall circuit to form a judgment). In some
instances, brutality verging on violence is done to noble antiquities,
conspicuously at Limyra, where the Byzantine defences march over the corner of
the Hellenistic Ptolomeion (a cubic base with an Ionic tholos above), and reuse
some of its splendid cannellated columns and upper structure therein (together
with seats from the theatre nearby). If ever there were an opportunity for
conspicuous display, this was it; and it was ignored - so, clearly, not all
Byzantine wall builders were attuned to the aesthetics of ancient architecture,
or at least, wished to capitalise on them. Frequently, however, earthquakes
conveniently did the initial dismantling, both in Turkey and in North Africa.
Similarly, an earthquake may have been responsible for the abandonment of the
fortress built on the ruins of Baalbec[1].
Excellent examples of how antique cities were stripped
to provide for mediaeval fortresses and walls are Nicaea and Seljuk, Ankara and
Korykos. But there are plenty of others, such as around Byblos (Lebanon), where
the splendour of the mediaeval fortifications relies on their antique
materials.
The north facade of the castle at Byblos (Giblet)
followed the line of the Roman road by the acropolis, and incorporated a double
colonnade, no doubt the easy source of the column shafts used en boutisse in
its walls. There is no doubt about the extent of reuse here because, as
Longchamps remarks, the Crusaders built atop Phoenician, Persian, Graeco-Roman
and Fatimid walls.[2] The
fortifications to the town make great use of column shafts, which project some
three or four inches from the plane of the wall, almost like the bosses left on
some classical Greek structures, to milk yet more decorative effect from the
shadow of its profile thrown by the sun against the backing wall. The Crusader
Castle over the north entrance employs the same techniques, whilst the keep is
built of enormous conglomerate blocks in the lower courses, and all the blocks
have all their sides drafted back in the hellenistic fashion – a most
impressive effect. Similarly the south-facing glacis, looking onto the moat,
employs at least 44 shafts in an area of 600 square feet, in a diapered effect
that is repeated in the next curtain to the east, as well as in the north-east
corner tower, which has an enormous block at its base. The builders have left
several centimetres of each column protruding. These columns perhaps came from
the large and impressive Roman nymphaeum immediately to the north, for which
only the capitals and bases survive.
Outside the castle is a line of mediaeval walls, of
spolia limestone blocks for the towers, and petit appareil for the curtains;
the northernmost corner tower has carefully fitted spolia blocks, some very
large (8 x 3 x 2 feet), and column shafts in groups of four. The harbour was
flanked by twin towers, the northernmost one of which still stands to its full
height, with columns in the foundations. Inside the harbour is the town wall,
now only some ten feet in height, but in its existing 200 yards length are
column-shafts, in either two or three rows, some 300 or more on just this one
stretch. Any suggestion that these are not decorative is scotched by the fact
that in many cases the limestone course blocks have themselves been cut back, a
quarter of a circle each around a shaft, to allow the shaft to punctuate the
coursing. This was necessary because of the enormous size of some of the
columns: there are pink granite shafts some two feet in diameter. To the west
of the fortress, the excavators have collected together some 200 and more
column shafts, the ends of which are very worn, and presumably extracted from
the now collapsed (sea) walls.
Nicaea, once an important city,[3]
now a backwater, is still surrounded by its two sets of walls, five kilometres
in length, and punctured by imposing gates at the cardinal points (except
toward the lake, where the gate has disappeared). It was during the classical
and mediaeval periods an essential stage on the route from Constantinople into
Bithynia[4],
as well as sometimes the seat of the Emperor; hence the comparison with the
capital is the more pressing. This is reinforced by Nicomedia, of which little
now remains, but which had spolia walls similar to those of Nicaea. Nicomedia
declined as Constantinople grew, only sixty miles away. An earthquake in 358
destroyed the city, which never recovered, the more so since Justinian
abolished the postal service from Chalcedon to Dacibyza and had his courriers
go across the sea of Marmara to Helenopolis and Nicaea. What little digging was
done (and almost no publication) showed baths revetted with marble, a colonnaded
square paved with marble, and colonnaded streets meeting at right angles,
together with massive public buildings. Its walls were built by Diocletian,
just like those of Nicaea in alternating brick bands and rubble, and with
ashlar spoils from the Hellenistic walls. The Lascarids refaced some of the
earlier walls and towers rather than, as at Nicaea, building their own outer enceinte.
Foss quotes Odo of Deuil, on the Second Crusade that By its lofty ruins
overgrown with thorns and brambles, Nicomedia first showed us its ancient glory
and the inertia of the present rulers – presumably the ruins were
impressive because his contemporaries only occupied acropoleis, as he points
out. [5]
It is not by chance that, at Nicaea, it is the walls
and towers between towers 69 and 73 that get the gorgeous marble revetement, in
order to impress anyone approaching from the Istanbul road, whereas immediately
east of Istanbul-Kapi the walls swing quite sharply away from the gate. If
proof were needed of conscious beautification, there is also tower 94, erected
on the south side of the southwest
sea gate. Schneider
dates these particular
beautifications around 727,[6]
which might also be the date of the insertion of dark marble blocks as
tie-bars, especially on the long eastern section. The first wall was erected in
268 by Claudius Gothicus, the second (separated from it by a fosse) by the
Lascarids, who may not have been the first to restore the earlier wall. With
the exception of the stretch facing the lake (west), the walls of Nicea,
although they cannot compete with those of Constantinople for height or length,
both sets, the lower outer walls and the higher main set - are marvellously
complete, gates and all. Ogier de Busbecq found Nicaea a mournful place because
of its relative depopulation, the more so because of the Turks digging spolia
for use in Constantinople, and battering with their hammers a cuirassed statue
they found.[7] Nor was such
a jaundiced opinion solely that of Western, classically educated sophisticates,
as the quotation from Jalal al-Din Rumi, the 13th century dervish,
in the Mamaqib al-Arifim, at the beginning of this paper, makes clear.[8]
This was a common theme of visitors to Turkey in later centuries.
Nicaea’s walls are well decorated with reliefs, with
large heads, and also with column-shafts, both as horizontal wall-ties and as
decoration: in the central one of the three square towers of the north wall,
some 37 columns are used to decorate the upper storeys and, at the same time,
to act as floor-joists. The East Gate has reliefs, still visible, which
impressed Kinnear, as did the reliefs and heads on the North (Constantinople)
Gate. The south gate, for Bursa, has marble blocks and an inscription [9].
The walls and towers on the north side are noticeably of creamy-white marble
(in contrast with the much darker blocks used elsewhere: it is far from
fanciful to perceive the desire to create an effect on the side of the city
facing Constantinople, since we find exactly the same attention given to marble
display in the more important parts of other citadels, such as Seljuk. Thus the
antique monuments of Nicaea have been reused in the construction of the first
set of mediaeval walls, in a direct echo of the marble prestige of the finest
of Constantinople's set pieces, the Porta Aurea itself.
At Ephesus, as might be expected, the Byzantine walls
took in much less ground than Lysimachus’ Hellenistic defences, and made great
use of spolia from adjacent monuments, some of which might have been
conveniently demolished by earthquake. At some later date, the (surely small)
population moved about 2km to the north, to the settlement now called Seljuk.
This was still strictly within the purlieu of Ephesus even if outside the
walls, the most conspicuous monument being a Byzantine fortress containing the
7th century Basilica of St. John. The entrance to this fortress,
perhaps of the mid-seventh century with a mid-eight century rebuild,[10]
is liberally decorated with spolia, as are walls adjacent to the basilica with columnae
caelatae from the archaic and late classical builds of the Temple of Diana,
in what is arguably an evocation of the grandeur of the past, while sculptures
from the same location have been found in the fortress walls' backfill[11].
On even higher ground is the citadel. At Ephesus and Seljuk, then, the newer
settlement is built with spolia from the old. Fellows[12]
notes that the town of Seljuk is entirely composed of materials from
Ephesus, and these old castle and mosque walls have become in their turn our
quarry for relics of antiquity. For Foss, the walls of Seljuk are seventh
century, like those of Pergamum and Sardis, which he ascribes to time of Constans II (641-668).
At Seljuk, the lie of the land dictates that spolia
increase as we move down the long hill from the upper fortress toward the Gate
of Persecutions – and with immense quantities of spolia on the eastern-facing
(or road) side. Many monuments must have been demolished to provide such a
quantity of blocks: the theatre, large as it undoubtedly was, would have been
an insufficient quarry for even a fraction of the span from the north to the
south gates - a distance of some three kilometres, with regular towers as well.
A pride in the past and its productions is obvious, not only in the splendour
of the lower citadel and its curtain wall to the upper citadel (supposedly
built in the 7th to 8th centuries, against Arab
incursions), but especially with the Gate of Persecutions to the lower citadel,
so called from a mis-reading of its re-used antique bas-reliefs,[13]
which were carted off for the 6th Earl of Bedford to Woburn, in
1819. This is built entirely with re-used creamy-white marble blocks, and
decorative friezes were incorporated to beautify it. Chandler, who visited the
site in 1764, remarks on the theatre or stadium seats buttressing the Gate,[14]
and Pitton de Tournefort admires the Lower Citadel precisely because of the
beauty of its spolia, including the reliefs. [15]
That the intention is to impress is confirmed by viewing the inner skin of the
wall, which is only rubble and brick.
The upper fortress, overlooking the site of the Temple
of Artemis, is built largely with rubble and brick toward the west (toward the
sea) and the north - except for the use of squared blocks in the 45-degree
revetments between the towers, presumably to guard against mining). But a
considerable amount of antique material is to be seen in the east gate, facing
the road, the arch of which is supported on antique blocks, and all along the
adjacent walls. The antique-block revetments continue round onto the south
wall, facing Seljuk itself, which also incorporates some antique and Byzantine
blocks - including part of a figural relief (perhaps from a sarcophagus), a
triglyph, and a frieze. May we conclude from this disparity that, just as at
Costantinople and Nicaea, the gleaming marble walls were to used as a distant
advert to the traveller? The disparity between Upper and Lower Fortress certainly
struck Charles Tompson[16],
who found in the upper citadel several curious Fragments of antique Marble
being carelessly intermix’d in the Walls amongst other less valuable Materials,
but then towards the south, the Remains of another Citadel of greater
Antiquity, the Works whereof were cover’d with the finest Marble – and he
then admires the bas-reliefs in the Gate of Persecutions and ( like many
travellers) mistakes the Isa Bey Mosque for the church of S. John.
If the upper fortress has sparse antiquities, this is
not the case with the eastern curtain wall joining the upper to the lower
fortress (the latter containing the Church of S. John): recently dug out
cleared of debris, this contains thousands of antique blocks, several of them
with inscriptions, some presumably from large public buildings, and stands to
an average height of 3.5 metres. Lawrence[17]
suggests this work might date to the 8th century. Again, no doubt
some of the material came from monumental tomb structures from outside the
walls of Ephesus - Ephesus now being conspicuously lacking in such tombs,
whereas at other sites in Turkey (Hierapolis, Assos, Patara, Eleiussa Sebaste),
they are plentiful.
Here the city walls are of various periods, topped off
with Seljuk merlins and proud inscriptions. South of the Gate of Hadrian in
Antalya, a splendid triumphal arch, are laid some fine large blocks; adjacent
to the gate, however, the builders have thrown together large and small blocks
and levelled them off more-or-less every six courses or so. The result is a
mess, contrasting with the towers flanking the gate, which are presumably 2ndC
BC (the date of the foundation of the city) and, like the surviving stretch of
wall to the north of the gate, of impeccable courses of large blocks, as
presumably representing the most important (landward) aspect of the city. At the bottom of Kurtulus Sokak
is a mediaeval rebuild, with column shafts, decorated corbel blocks framing an
inscription, and the use of fine sheets of marble veneer for decorative effect
– probably part of the Seljuk refurbishment. Whilst such shafts could have come
from Antalya itself, it is likely that many came from nearby Perge: this still
boasts a splendid colonnaded street, but with conspicuous gaps (and many more
bases on site than columns to go with them); and the enormous south baths have
few columns left, and only insignificant scraps of marble veneer. By contrast,
most of the granite columns of the agora are still in place: are we therefore permitted
to conclude that the (Seljuk?) robbers preferred marble, and left granite
alone? But marble may have been in short supply even at Perge, witness the
construction of the episcopal basilica there using granite - not marble -
columns, which probably came 150m from the palaestra of the North Baths. This
is odd, and matches the odd feature of the spectacular colonnaded street,
namely that the western side is almost entirely marble, but the eastern side is
granite: is this make-and-mend after earthquake damage?
[1] cf. H. KOHL et al, Baalbek, II, Berlin & Leipzig 1925, pp. 3-11 for an outline of Baalbec in the Middle Ages;
[2] P. DESCHAMPS, La Défense du Comte de Tripoli et de la Principauté d’Antioche, (Les Chateaux des croisés en Terre Sainte, II), 2 vols, Paris 1973, p. 214;
[3] Background in A. BRYER Nicaea, Byzantine city, in History Today, XXI.1 (1971), pp. 22-31; for a study of the walls, see A. M. SCHNEIDER, Die Stadtmauer von Iznik (Nicaea) Istanbuler Forschungen 9, Berlin 1938; and also FOSS, Byzantine Fortifications, pp. 79ff.. For a the use of spolia in Islamic Iznik, cf. K. OTTO-DORN, Das islamische Iznik (Ist. Forsch. 13), Berlin 1941. An equally short account appears as The city walls of Nicaea, Antiquity 12, 1938, pp. 437-43, where he suggests (p.439) that the cladding of some towers and curtains with blocks of fine marble occurred after the Arab incursions and depradations of 727, probably also the ramparts were covered with marble and then crenellated - but he doesn't say why. A longer treatment is A. M. SCHNEIDER & W. KARNAPP, Die Stadtmauer von Iznik (Istanbuler Forschungen 9), Berlin 1938;
[4] J. LEFORT, Les communications entre Constantinople et la Bithynie, in MANGO & DAGRON editors, Constantinople, pp. 207-218, Cf. p. 217: Tous les chemins menaient donc à Nicée, qui est aujourd’hui bien à l’écart, mais qui etait au Ive siècle et resta pendant tout le moyen âge le principal noeud des communications avec l’Asie – and Justinian restored the palace at Nicaea, and a bath;
[5] C. FOSS, Nicomedia and Constantinople, in MANGO & DAGRON, Constantinople, pp. 181-190;
[6] SCHNEIDER, Die Stadtmauer von Iznik, cit., plates 35-6, 42; and pp. 36-43;
[7] DE BUSBECQ, Travels, cit., p. 59.
[8] Quoted by VRYONIS, Nomadization, cit., p. 71;
[9] KINNEAR, Journey, cit., pp. 29-30: The outer port is apparently the work of a later age than the other, and consists of three blocks of white marble finely carved, which in all probability belonged to some temple or church, since the ground is strewn with similar materials;
[10] Arguments in FOSS, Byzantine fortifications, cit., p. 132;
[11] M. BUYUKKOLANCI, Fragmente der Bauplastik des Artemisions von Ephesos: Funde den Grabungen der Johanneskirche in Selcuk, Jahresheft des Oest. Archaeologische Instituts in Wien 62, 1993, pp. 95-104;
[12] FELLOWS, Journal, cit., p.206;
[13] General account in MUELLER-WIENER, Mittelalterliche Befestigungen, cit., pp. 89ff;
[14] R. CHANDLER, Travels in Asia Minor, 1764-1765, London 1971, p. 76;
[15] Relation d'un voyage du Levant, 2 vols, Paris 1717; cf. vol II, p 513;
[16] C. TOMPSON, Travels through Turkey in Asia, the Holy Land, Arabia, Egypt, 3rd edition, 2 vols, London 1767, I.71;
[17] A. W. LAWRENCE, A skeletal history of Byzantine fortification, in Annual of the British School at Athens, 78 (1983), p. 203;