DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27910#0089
THE CIRCULAR TEMPLE, BAALBEC.
HOSE are two long days’ rides, eleven or twelve hours each, from Damascus to Baalbec.
S' The second is especially wearying: over each ridge, for the last two or three hours, one is
constantly hoping to be rewarded by a glimpse of the temple. At length we overlook the
]j broad plain of Coelo-Syria. Already at an elevation of some 4000 feet above the sea, the
remaining 5000 of the height of Lebanon rises majestically in the opposite distance, covered
with snow. But the June sun is hot, and the vast plain, as far as the eye can reach, is
covered with yellow crops. Ah, there is Baalbec! apparently at the northern end of the plain, but in
reality near the centre. How one forgets fatigue in such a moment of excitement! But we are not at
Baalbec yet. Descending to the plain, we pass the quarries from which the stone was cut for the temples;
and here, detached, and awaiting the return of civilization for its removal, lies the celebrated block, 68 feet
long, the counterpart of several others in the basement of the temple, which have already been described
in this work. Presently we meet the brilliant copious stream, in whose praise some traveller quotes the
pretty stanza, imitated from an Arab poet—
“ So bright the pebb’es on its shore,
That not a maid may thither stray,
But counts her stringed necklace o’er,
And thinks the pearls have slipped away.”
Biding knee-deep up this luscious water-way, for want of a better road, we presently encamp under the
shadow of the mighty temple, whose area we scamper over in spite of fatigue, and are not again found
until the dragoman, wiping the perspiration from his temples, pounces upon us with an angry call to
dinner !
The little gem known as the “ Circular Temple ” stands at the distance of about a quarter of a mile
from the great structures. My view will show that it was most elaborately ornamented and finished. There
are around it externally eight Corinthian columns, with a roof or entablature, beautifully sculptured, and
projecting in an elegant curve towards each pillar, giving it rather the appearance of an octagonal structure.
Between each column is the niche for a statue. “ The interior,” says Dr. Robinson, “ has two tiers of
columns, one above the other; the lower Ionic, the upper Corinthian.” In the days of Maundrell, Pococke,
and Wood, the building was used by the Greek Christians as a church. According to Maundrell, it was
even then “in a very tottering condition.” Some of the pillars will be seen to have been thrown much out
of the perpendicular, and the structure otherwise injured, probably by the earthquake of a.d. 1170, and again
by that of 1759, which is known to have left standing only six of the nine columns of the peristyle of
the great temple, as depicted by AVood and Dawkins in 1751. This exquisitely beautiful little temple
deserves to be strictly imitated and reproduced in Europe. It stands almost within the modern village,
some of the walls of which are seen in the foreground of my picture. The view ■was taken from the roof
of a house, the good housewife having been bribed to admit the artist by a sum equivalent to one shilling
and eightpence; but this extravagant sum by no means included “peace“and quietness”—mine hostess
noisily insinuating at intervals of a few minutes that for more time she required more piastres!
HOSE are two long days’ rides, eleven or twelve hours each, from Damascus to Baalbec.
S' The second is especially wearying: over each ridge, for the last two or three hours, one is
constantly hoping to be rewarded by a glimpse of the temple. At length we overlook the
]j broad plain of Coelo-Syria. Already at an elevation of some 4000 feet above the sea, the
remaining 5000 of the height of Lebanon rises majestically in the opposite distance, covered
with snow. But the June sun is hot, and the vast plain, as far as the eye can reach, is
covered with yellow crops. Ah, there is Baalbec! apparently at the northern end of the plain, but in
reality near the centre. How one forgets fatigue in such a moment of excitement! But we are not at
Baalbec yet. Descending to the plain, we pass the quarries from which the stone was cut for the temples;
and here, detached, and awaiting the return of civilization for its removal, lies the celebrated block, 68 feet
long, the counterpart of several others in the basement of the temple, which have already been described
in this work. Presently we meet the brilliant copious stream, in whose praise some traveller quotes the
pretty stanza, imitated from an Arab poet—
“ So bright the pebb’es on its shore,
That not a maid may thither stray,
But counts her stringed necklace o’er,
And thinks the pearls have slipped away.”
Biding knee-deep up this luscious water-way, for want of a better road, we presently encamp under the
shadow of the mighty temple, whose area we scamper over in spite of fatigue, and are not again found
until the dragoman, wiping the perspiration from his temples, pounces upon us with an angry call to
dinner !
The little gem known as the “ Circular Temple ” stands at the distance of about a quarter of a mile
from the great structures. My view will show that it was most elaborately ornamented and finished. There
are around it externally eight Corinthian columns, with a roof or entablature, beautifully sculptured, and
projecting in an elegant curve towards each pillar, giving it rather the appearance of an octagonal structure.
Between each column is the niche for a statue. “ The interior,” says Dr. Robinson, “ has two tiers of
columns, one above the other; the lower Ionic, the upper Corinthian.” In the days of Maundrell, Pococke,
and Wood, the building was used by the Greek Christians as a church. According to Maundrell, it was
even then “in a very tottering condition.” Some of the pillars will be seen to have been thrown much out
of the perpendicular, and the structure otherwise injured, probably by the earthquake of a.d. 1170, and again
by that of 1759, which is known to have left standing only six of the nine columns of the peristyle of
the great temple, as depicted by AVood and Dawkins in 1751. This exquisitely beautiful little temple
deserves to be strictly imitated and reproduced in Europe. It stands almost within the modern village,
some of the walls of which are seen in the foreground of my picture. The view ■was taken from the roof
of a house, the good housewife having been bribed to admit the artist by a sum equivalent to one shilling
and eightpence; but this extravagant sum by no means included “peace“and quietness”—mine hostess
noisily insinuating at intervals of a few minutes that for more time she required more piastres!