from ancient days to our own
since it is our good fortune to have readers sufficiently intelligent to encourage us to write a book in which romance is relegated to the second place, we shall doubtless be permitted to detail not only the modern, but also the ancient history of the places which we visit with our heroes. there is much charm for the poet, the historian, even the dreamer, in treading upon soil composed of the ashes of past generations; and nowhere more than in the region we are now treading do we find traces of those great historical catastrophes which, becoming less substantial and fainter in outline as the years roll past, finally disappear like ruins and the spectres of ruins amid the ever-thickening shadows of the past.
this is true of the city which we have just left, throbbing with shrieks of anguish, overflowing with carnage and blood, with its walls battered to pieces and its houses in flames. the rapid movement of our narrative, and our desire to enter modern jaffa with our young conqueror, have hitherto prevented us from telling you what manner of place was the jaffa of olden days.
jaffa in hebrew signifies beauty. joppa in ph?nician means height.
[pg 589]
jaffa is to the eastern gulf of the mediterranean what jiddah is to the red sea. it is the city of pilgrims. every christian pilgrim on his way to visit the tomb of christ takes in jaffa on the road. every mussulman hadji who goes to mecca to visit the prophet's tomb takes in jiddah on his way.
when we read the great works of to-day on egypt—works in which the most learned men of the day have united their efforts—we are astonished to find so few of these luminous points which, placed in the dark night of the past, illuminate and attract the traveller like beacons.
we are about to attempt what they have neglected to do.
the author who assigns to jaffa (the joppa of the ph?nicians) the most ancient place in history is pomponius mela, who affirms that it was built before the deluge.
est joppe ante diluvium condita.
and joppa must have built before the deluge, since the historian josephus, in his "antiquities," says, with berosius and nicolas of damascus, not exactly that the ark was built at joppa—for that would be in contradiction with the bible—but that it stopped there. they assure us that in their time fragments of it were still shown to incredulous travellers, and that they used as a remedy, which was efficacious in all cases as a universal panacea, the dust of the tar which was used to coat the ark.
it was at joppa, if we may believe pliny, that andromeda was chained to the rocks, to be devoured by the sea-monster; there she was delivered by perseus, mounted on the chimera and armed with the head of medusa, which turned the beholder into stone.
pliny affirms that during the reign of adrian the holes through which andromeda's chain had been passed were still visible; and saint jerome—a witness who cannot be accused of partiality—declares that he saw them.
the skeleton of the sea-monster, forty feet long, was thought by some of the people of joppa to be that of the divinity ceto. the water of the fountain in which perseus[pg 590] bathed after killing the monster was ever afterward tinged with his blood. pausanias tells us so, and declares that he saw the rose-tinged water with his own eyes. ceto, a goddess of whom pliny speaks (colitur fabulosa ceto), and who is called derceto by historians, was the name which tradition gave to the unknown mother of semiramis.
diodorus relates the pretty fable of the unknown mother with the quaint charm which makes poetry of this fable without robbing it of its sensuousness.
"there is," he says, "in syria a city called ascalon, overlooking a deep lake in which fish abound, and near it is a temple dedicated to the celebrated goddess whom the syrians call derceto.
"she has a head and a face like a woman's; all the rest of the body is that of a fish. the learned men of the nation say that venus, having been offended by derceto, inspired her with a passion for a young priest as intense as that which she had awakened in phedrus and sappho. derceto had a daughter by him; but she repented so bitterly of her fault that she caused the youth to disappear, abandoned the infant in a desert place full of rocks, and threw herself into the lake, where her body was transformed into that of a siren. for this reason the syrians worship the fish as gods, and abstain from eating them.
"but the little girl was saved and fed by doves, who came in great numbers and made their nests among the rocks where she had been left to die.
"a shepherd found her and brought her up with as much care as if she had been his own daughter, and named her semiramis, or 'the daughter of the doves.'"
if we may believe diodorus, it is to this daughter of the doves, the haughty semiramis, the wife and murderess of ninus, who fortified babylon and laid out those magnificent gardens, the envy and the admiration of the ancient world, that the orientals owe the splendid costume which they wear to this day. when she had reached the height of her power, having conquered egyptian arabia, a part[pg 591] of ethiopia, libya, and all asia as far as the indus, she felt the need of inventing a costume for her travels which should be at once convenient and elegant, in which she could not only perform the ordinary duties of life, but also ride horseback and fight. this costume was adopted by all the people whom she conquered.
"she was so beautiful," says valerius maximus, "that one day when an insurrection broke out in her capital, just as she was at her toilet, she had only to show herself, half naked and with her hair unbound, to restore order."
perhaps we may find the reason for venus' hatred of derceto in higinus.
"the syrian goddess who was worshipped at hierapolis," he says, "was venus. an egg fell from heaven into the euphrates; the fishes brought it to the bank, where it was hatched by a dove. venus issued from it, and became the goddess of the syrians, while jupiter, at her request, placed the fishes in the sky; and she in gratitude harnessed her nurses to her chariot."
the famous temple of dagon, where the statue of the god was found overturned before the ark with both hands broken, was situated in the city of azoth, between joppa and ascalon.
read the bible, that great treasure-house of history and poetry, and you will see that the cedars of lebanon, brought for the building of the temple of solomon, came from the gates of joppa. you will see that the prophet jonah came to the gates of joppa to embark for tarsus when he was flying from the face of the lord.
then, passing from the bible to josephus, whose writings may be called the continuation of it, you will see that judas maccabeus, to avenge his two hundred brethren who had been treacherously slain by the inhabitants, came with sword and firebrand and set fire to the ships anchored in the port, and put to death with the sword all who had escaped the fire.
we read in the acts of the apostles as follows:
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there was at joppa a certain disciple named tabitha, which by interpretation is called dorcas: this woman was full of good works and alms deeds which she did.
and it came to pass in those days that she was sick, and died: whom when they had washed they laid her in an upper chamber.
and for as much as lydda was nigh to joppa, and the disciples had heard that peter was there, they sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would not delay to come to them.
then peter arose and went to them, when he was come, they brought him to the upper chamber: and all the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the coats which dorcas had made when she was with them.
but peter put them all forth, and kneeled down and prayed; and turned to the body and said, "tabitha, arise!" and she opened her eyes: and when she saw peter, she sat up.
and he gave her his hand and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows he presented her alive.
and it was known throughout all joppa; and many believed in the lord.
and it came to pass that he tarried many days in joppa with one simon, a tanner.
it was there that the servants of the centurion cornelius found him when they came to beg him to go to cesarea. it was in simon's house that he had the vision bidding him carry the gospel to the gentiles.
at the time of the rising of the jews against rome, sextus besieged joppa, took it by storm and burned it. eight thousand of the inhabitants perished; but it was soon rebuilt. as the new city was constantly sending forth pirates, who infested the coasts of syria and made expeditions as far as greece and even egypt, the emperor vespasian took it again, razed it to the ground from the first to the last house, and built a fortress on its site.
but in his jewish wars, josephus relates that a new city soon sprang up at the foot of the fortress of vespasian, which became the seat of a bishopric, or rather of a bishop, from the reign of constantine, a.d. 330, until the invasion of the arabs in 636. this bishopric was established during[pg 593] the first crusade, and made subject to the metropolitan see of cesarea. finally it was converted into a county, and embellished and fortified by baldwin i., emperor of constantinople.
saint louis also came to joppa; and joinville, his ingenuous historian, tells of the sojourn which he made with the comte de japhe, as the good chevalier frenchifies the name.
this comte de japhe, who was gautier de brienne, did his best to clean and whitewash the city, which was in such a deplorable state that saint louis was ashamed of it, and took it upon himself to build its walls and beautify its churches. saint louis received the news of his mother's death while there.
"when the sainted king," writes joinville, "saw the archbishop of tyre and his confessor entering his apartments with expressions of sorrow, he asked them to go with him to his chapel, which was his refuge from all the ills of the world.
"then when he had heard the fatal news, he fell upon his knees, and with clasped hands he exclaimed, weeping: 'i thank thee, o god, that thou didst lend my mother to me, while it seemed best to thee, and for that, in thy good pleasure, thou hast taken her again to thee. it is true that i loved her above all other creatures, and she deserved it; but since thou hast taken her from me, may thy holy name be blessed for evermore.'"
the works erected by saint louis were destroyed in 1268 by the pasha of egypt, bibas, who levelled the citadel to the ground, and sent the wood and precious marbles of it which it was composed to cairo to build his mosque.
finally, when monconys visited palestine, he found at jaffa only a castle and three caves hollowed out of a rock. we have told of its condition when bonaparte entered it, and in what state he left it.
we shall return once more to this town, which to bonaparte was neither jaffa the beautiful, nor jaffa the lofty, but jaffa the fatal.
