On the summit, the first object which attracts the notice of the traveller, and, at the same time, the most conspicuous ruin of the place, is the church dedicated to .John the Baptist, erected on the spot which an old tradition (noticed above) fixed as the jilace of his buri- al, if not of his martyrdom. It is said to have been built by the empress Helena; but the architecture lim- its its antiiiuity to the period of the Crusades, although a portion of the eastern end seems to have been of ear- lier date. There is a blending of (irecU and Saracenic styles, which is particularly observable in the interi- or, whore there are several pointed arciies; others are round. The columns follow no regular order, while the capitals and ornaments present a motley combination uot to be found in any church erected in or near the age of Constantine, The length of the edifice is 153 feet inside, besides a porch of W feet; and the breadth is 75 feet. The eastern end is rounded, in the common Greek style; and, resting, as it does, upon a precipitous elevation of nearly 100 feet immediately above the val-
ley, it is a noble and striking monument. Within the enclosure is a common Turkish tomb; and beneath it, at a depth reached by twent\'-one stone steps, is a sep- ulchre, three or four paces square, where, according to the tradition, John the Baptist was interred after he had been slain by Herod. There is no trace of this tradition earlier than the time of Jerome; and if Jose- phus is correct in stating that John was beheaded in the castle of INIachwrus, on the east of the Dead Sea {Ant. xviii, 5, 2), his burial in Samaria is very improba- ble. See John the Baptist.
On approaching the summit of the hill, the traveller comes suddenly upon an area once surrounded by lime- stone columns, of which fifteen are still standing and two prostrate. These columns form two rows, thirty- two paces apart, while less than two paces intervene between the columns. They measure seven feet nine inches in circumference; but there is no trace of the order of their architecture, nor are there any founda- tions to indicate the nature of the edifice to which they belonged. Some refer them to Herod's temple to Au- gustus, others to a Greek church which seems to have once occupied the summit of the hill. The descent of the hill on the W.S.W. side brings the traveller to a very remarkable colonnade, which is easily traceable by a great luimber of columns, erect or prostrate, along the side of the hill for at least one third of a mile, where it terminates at a heap of ruins, near the eastern extrem- ity of the ancient site. The columns are sixteen feet high, two feet in diameter at the base, and one foot eight inches at the top. The capitals have disappear- ed; but the shafts retain their polish, and, when not broken, are in good preservation. Eighty-two of these columns are still erect, and the number of those fallen and broken must be much greater. Most of them are of the limestone conmion to the region ; but some are of white marble, and some of granite. The mass of ruins in which this colonnade terminates towards the west is composed of blocks of hewn stone, covering no great area, on the slope of the hill, many feet lower than the summit. Neither the situation nor extent of this pile favors the notion of its having been a pal- ace, nor is it easy to conjecture the design of the edi- fice. The colonnade, the remains of which now stand solitary and mournful in the midst of ploughed fields, may, however, with little hesitation, be referred to the time of Herod the (ireat, and must be regarded as be- longing to some one of the splendid structures with which he adorned the city. In the deep ravine which bounds the city on the north there is another colon-
SAMARIA
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SAMARIA
RuiUb ot llciod - LuluuiiaU
Ihc Hill ot bam Ml i. (Fiom a photugiapli by Ihe Editor.)
nade, not visited by Dr. Robinson, but fully described by Dr. Olin {Travels, ii, 371-373). The area in which these columns stand is completely shut in by hills, with the exception of an opening on the north-east ; and so peculiarly sequestered is the situation that it is only visible from a few points of the heights of the ancient site, by which it is overshadowed. The columns, of which a large number are entire and several in frag- ments, are erect, and arranged in a quadrangle 196 paces in length and 64 in breadth. They are three paces asuuder, which would give 170 columns as the whole number when the colonnade was complete. The columns resemble, in size and material, those of the col- onnade last noticed, and appear to belong to the same age. These also probably formed part of Herod's city, though it is difficult to determine the use to which the colonnade Avas appropriated. Dr. Olin is possibly right in his conjecture that this was one of the places of pub- lic assembly and amusement which Herod introduced into his dominions. "A long avenue of broken pil- lars" (says dean Stanley), "apparently the main street of Herod's city, here, as at Palmyra and Damascus, adorned by a colonnade on each side, still lines the topmost terrace of the hill." But the fragmentary as- pect of the whole place exhibits a present fulfilment of the prophecy of Micah (i, 6), though it may have been fulfilled more than once previously by the ravages of Shalmaneser or of John Hyrcanus : " I will make Sa- maria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vine- yard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and 1 will discover the foundations thereof" (Mic. i, 6 ; comp. Hos. xiii, 16).