forms, wherever he is himself the actor, strictly to the Sheriat, and on doubtful points consults always the mufti or Sheykh el Islam. He has shown no inconsiderable firmness in resisting European demands when they contravened the canon law.'

For all these reasons it will be readily understood that Abd el Hamid has gained not only the support of his own old Turkish Ulema, but the sympathy of a very considerable section of opinion outside his dominions. From a traitor to the cause of religion the Ottoman Sultan has come to be looked upon, east and west, as once more its champion; and with the old-fashioned reactionary school Abd el Hamid is fast growing into a hero. A year ago, when I was at Jeddah, this was not yet the case, but it would seem to be so now. Then even the people of his own party spoke of him doubtfully, and he certainly excited no enthusiasm among them. They did not understand him, and thought that he was playing a part. He was said to be of Armenian parentage (on his mother's side) and his sincerity as a Moslem was suspected. It seemed impossible one born. in Abd el Mejid's Seraglio should be a serious man. Besides he had not yet shown his strength, and to be strong is to be a hero everywhere. But within the last eight months events have marched rapidly. Abd el Hamid has played his cards successfully in Greece, in Albania, and with the Kurds. He has not been afraid of England and has shown a bold front against infidel reforms. He has had the courage under the eyes of Europe to arrest their protégé, Midhat, and to try him for murder. Lastly, the French have played into his hands in Tunis, and he has thus gained a footing of sympathy with the Mussulmans of North Africa, a population which has for centuries opposed his claims. Twenty years ago it would have been absolutely impossible for an Ottoman Sultan to awaken any loyal feeling in any Arab breast. Tunis then specially boasted her independence of the Porte, and even the Hanefites of the sea-coast towns of Africa would have scouted the idea of fighting for the Turk. Now the Malekites themselves, the puritans of Kerwan, are moving at Abd el Hamid's nod. He would seem, too, to be stirring with some success in Egypt, and Indian Mussulmans are praying for him publicly in their mosques. Everywhere the reactionary party is standing to its arms, and is beginning to recognise a leader in this supple Armenian Khalifeh, who is defying Europe, and seems willing, if necessary, to lead them one day on a Jehad.

With all this, however, it must not be supposed that Orthodox

(1) In the recent trial of the murderers of Abd el Aziz, Abd el Hamid has departed from his usual adherence to the Sheriat. It is a lapsus which may one day be taken hold of against him, should the Ulema need to depose him. He is said to have yielded to the advice of an European confidant who directs the details of his diplomacy with Europe.

Islam is by any means yet won back to Constantinople. Turkey, I have shown, and the Hanefite school, are far from being the whole of the Mohammedan world; and side by side with the fanatical obduracy of the Ottoman State party and the still fiercer puritanism of the Melkites there exists an intelligent and hopeful party favourable to religious reform. Shafite Arabia is its stronghold, but it is powerful too in Egypt and further East. With it a first article of faith is that the House of Othman has been and is the curse of Islam, and that its end is at hand. In spite of Abd el Hamid's pious appeals to the Sheriat they look upon him as one who troubleth Islam. He is the representative of the party most bitterly opposed to all of good. They know that as long as there is an Ottoman Caliph, whether his name be Abd el Aziz or Abd el Hamid, moral progress is impossible, that the ijtahad cannot be re-opened, and that no such reformation. of doctrine and practice can be attempted as would alone enable their faith to cope with modern infidelity. They see moreover that, notwithstanding his affected legality, Abd el Hamid's rule is neither juster nor more in accordance with the Mussulman law than that of his predecessors. The same vices of administration are found in it, and the same recklessness for his Mussulman subjects' welfare. Of all the lands of Islam his own are probably those where Abd el Hamid has now the most scanty following. Constantinople is after all his weak point, for the Young Turkish school is far from dead, the vicissitudes of life and death follow each other closely on the Bosphorus, and the liberal party can better afford than the reactionary to wait. The death or fall of Abd el Hamid, whenever it may happen, would immediately decide a movement counter to the Ottoman Caliphate.

What form this may eventually take I shall endeavour in my next paper to show.

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

(To be continued.)

THE RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN PERGAMON.

THE ancient and once splendid city of Pergamon, still known by the name of Bergama, is situated in the rich valley of the Caicus (hod. Bakir Tschai) about ten miles from that portion of the coast of Mysia which lies opposite to Mitylene. Above the city to the N.E. rises a steep and rocky conical hill (öpos orpoßiλoeidès, Strabo) to the height of 1,000 feet, the site no doubt of the first settlement, and in later times the Acropolis of Pergamon. On either side of this natural fortress flow two small streams, the Selinus and the Ketios (hod. Bergama Tschai) from the N., the former of which passing through it to the W., and the latter washing its eastern walls, mingle with the Caicus at a short distance from the city. Little or nothing is known of the origin of Pergamon. The Pergamenians regarded themselves as the descendants of Greek colonists from Arcadia, who settled in Asia under the Heraclid Telephus, and derived their name from Pergamus, a son of Pyrrhus. The latter, it was said, came to Pergamon with his mother Andromache, and assumed the sovereignty of Teuthrania after a single combat with its ruler Arius.1

Pergamon, however, remained comparatively insignificant until the death of Alexander, and owed its rise to one of the great monarch's greatest generals and successors, Lysimachus. The natural strength of the place appears to have attracted his attention, and during his struggle with Seleucus he chose it as his treasure house, and deposited the vast sum of nine thousand talents in the Acropolis under the guardianship of the Pontian general Philetaerus. The latter, who appears to have been a truly attached servant, remained faithful to his trust for several years; and when he changed sides and gave up the citadel to Seleucus, he was influenced rather by the instinct of self-defence than by a treacherous and selfish disposition.

Lysimachus in his old age had fallen into the hands, or rather the arms, of the beautiful Arsinoe, who proved to be a second Phaedra. After compassing the murder of her stepson, the excellent Agathocles, she directed her machinations against Philetaerus, as an adherent of her victim, and left him no other course than to seek the protection of Seleucus. Having once changed sides, Philetaerus appears to have carried out the policy of the Vicar of Bray. "By fair promises and occasional services to the strongest and nearest," of the successive masters and plunderers of Asia Minor, "he continued for (1) Pausan., i. 11, 2.

(2) Strabo, Lib. XIII. p. 623, ἦν μὲν δὴ τὸ Πέργαμον Λυσιμάχου γαζοφυλάκιον.

twenty years to maintain himself in the possession of the Acropolis of Pergamon and the treasure."1

Philetaerus bequeathed his money and his policy to his nephew Eumenes I., who not only kept possession of his dominions in very difficult circumstances, but extended them, and consolidated his authority. His successor (in 241 B.C.), the famous Attalus I., found himself in a position to assume the title as well as the power of an independent king. He was wise enough to foresee the triumph. of the Romans in their struggle with the splendid but brittle monarchies of Asia, and to seek strength and safety in a firm alliance with the irresistible Republic. Under Attalus, too, the new dynasty which had been founded and strengthened by a cautious policy, was rendered illustrious by great deeds of arms against the Gauls, the common enemies of the Greek and Roman world.

These terrible invaders poured into Asia Minor on the invitation of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, in 278 B.C. After plundering the shores of the Hellespont, Ionia, and Eolia, they settled on the river Halys, and received tribute from nearly all the States west of the Taurus range. Attalus alone refused submission, and in a battle near his capital, Pergamon, gained a decisive victory over the barbarians, and compelled them to confine themselves to a province in the interior, which received its name of Galatia from them.

2

The moral elevation consequent on this new victory of Hellenic civilisation over barbarism gave a fresh impulse to plastic art, for which the events of the Gallic wars furnished appropriate subjects. The victories of Attalus inspired the art of Pergamon. With true Greek feeling the victor sought to record the glories of his triumph. in Athens, the once hallowed centre of Greek life, and rejoiced to write his name in plastic characters in the roll of heroes who, like himself, had maintained the supremacy of the Hellenic race. Pausanias tells us that Attalus I. offered four groups of statues at Athens, which were set up on the south wall of the Acropolis, viz. 1. The Battle of the Gods and Giants, "who once dwelt in Thrace and the isthmus of Pallene;" 2. The Battle of the Athenians and Amazons; 3. The Battle of Marathon; and 4. The Destruction of the Gauls in Mysia by Attalus.

Of these marble groups it is more than probable that we possess very considerable remains. Professor Brunn3 was the first to direct attention to a very remarkable series of statues of barbarian type, scattered through the museums of Venice, Naples, Rome, and Paris, but having a common provenance. Among these are figures belonging to all four groups-Giants, Amazons, Persians, and numerous Gallic warriors, in every variety of attitude expressive of defeat (1) Strabo, .c.

(2) For date of this battle vide Niebuhr's Kleine Schriften, and Clinton, F. H. p. 413. (3) Arch. Zeit. 1865, Anzeiger, p. 66.

and approaching death. The extraordinary fidelity with which the ethnological peculiarities of the barbarian type are rendered in these statues renders them marvels of realistic art.

The well-known notice of Pliny respecting the art of Pergamon refers to a later period. "Several artists," he says, "represented the battles of Eumenes against the Gauls, viz. Isigonus, Phyromachus, Stratonicus, and Antigonus." These works, of course, were in Pergamon itself, and in bronze. In his report of the recent excavations at Pergamon, Professor Conze1 says, "We may now confidently assert that we have found the battle-pieces of which Pliny speaks." It is probable that the famous statue falsely called the "Dying Gladiator" in the Capitol, and the touching group of "The Gaul Killing his Wife," in the Villa Ludovisi at Rome, belonged to another marble group at Pergamon. But we are at present more immediately concerned with the sculptures of the Altar of Pergamon, which there are good palæographical reasons for referring to the reign of Eumenes II., who succeeded Attalus in 197 B.C. The son inherited both the martial spirit and the artistic tastes of his great father; and by valour and policy and a liberal patronage of the arts, raised his kingdom and his capital to the highest point of prosperity and grandeur which they were destined to reach.

It appears that the victory of Attalus, brilliant as it was, did not permanently destroy the strength and spirit of the Galatians. In alliance with Bithynia they once more invaded Pergamon in 168 B.c., and were defeated by Eumenes II. in this final struggle with tremendous loss. Surrounded as he was by jealous and warlike neighbours, Eumenes saw that he could only maintain his independence by a strict alliance with the Romans. He afforded them valuable assistance in their Aetolian and Syrian campaigns, and especially at the battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), in which Scipio broke the power of Antiochus the Great. Eumenes was richly rewarded for his services, and obtained from the grateful Romans, with whom he made himself personally popular during a visit to Rome, the Thracian Chersonese and nearly all the country to the west of the Taurus range. Antiochus was compelled to pay him 359 talents for his war expenses, and 127 talents in lieu of a yearly tribute of corn; and as an especial honour to the son of Attalus, the friend of the Roman people, he received the elephants which formed part of the spoils of the defeated Syrian king. We may judge of the favour with which he was regarded at Rome from the fact that on his second visit Cato complained of the honours which were paid him.2

Eumenes was now at the summit of his power and prosperity, and

(1) Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen zu Pergamon, 1880.

(2) Plutarch, "Cato Major."