Notes On Supplementary Plates Lxi-Lxiv

Extract

The majority of the photographs that follow are of monuments in Byzantium and Asia Minor. Unfortunately extant buildings are nearly all of the Roman Imperial period, when the Asiatic cities were largely rebuilt. The fortification walls, however, are mostly Hellenistic. Monuments—even city-walls—earlier than Alexander are rare in Ionia. The terms of the Peace of Callias in 449–8 are obscure, but it seems almost certain that demilitarization of coastal cities was among them. Thuc. (iii. 33) speaks of Ionia in general as άτɛíχoτoς in 427 and applies the same epithet to other cities on the coast (Clazomenae, Lampsacus, Cyzicus). Under the Diadochi these cities rebuilt their defences, and the walls now extant, all down the coast as far as Caunus, are nearly all Hellenistic. The extant ruins of Byzantium are later still. Apart from the Obelisk of Theodosius, stolen from Egypt, and the Serpent Column, stolen from Delphi, the thirdcentury Gothic column is the earliest considerable monument now standing. The Turkish occupation played havoc in the past with the antiquities: not that wanton vandalism was practised, but they were strangely indifferent. Now, however, Turkish archaeologists are playing a distinguished part in the excavations and their journal Belleten cannot be disregarded by European workers.