when St. Paul passed over these waters, the vessel in which he sailed would soon cleave her way through the strait between Tenedos and the main, past the Dardanelles, and near the eastern shore of Imbros. On rounding the northern end of this island, they would open Samothrace, which had hitherto appeared as a higher and more distant summit over the lower mountains of Imbros.' The distance between the two islands is about twelve miles. Leaving Imbros, and bearing now a little to the west, and having the wind still (as our sailors say) two or three points abaft the beam, the helmsman steered for Samothrace; and, under the shelter of its high shore, they anchored for the night." Samothrace is the highest land in the north of the Archipelago, with the exception of Mount Athos. These two eminences have been in all ages the familiar landmarks of the Greek mariners of the Egean. Even from the neighborhood of Troas, Mount Athos is seen towering over Lemnos, like Samothrace over Imbros. And what Mount Athos is, in another sense, to the superstitious Christian of the Levant, the peak of Samothrace was, in the days of Heathenism, to his Greek ancestors in the same seas. It was the "Monte Santo," on which the Greek mariner looked with awe, as he gazed on it in the distant horizon, or came to anchor under the shelter of its coast. It was the sanctuary of an ancient superstition, which was widely spread over the neighboring continents, and the history of which was vainly investigated by Greek and Roman writers. If St. Paul had staid here even a few days, we might be justified in saying something of the "Cabiri; " but we have no reason to suppose that he even landed on the island. At present it possesses but there is no difficulty in turning over it with a breeze." - Purdy, p. 159. "The current in the Archipelago sets almost continually to the southward, and is increased or retarded according to the winds. In lying at Tenedos, near the north of the Dardanelles, I have observed a strong south wind entirely stop it; but it came strong to the southward the moment the gale from that point ceased." - Captain Stewart, ib. p. 62. For the winds, see pp. 63 and 163. 1 "The island Imbro is separated from Samothraki by a channel twelve miles in breadth. It is much longer and larger, but not so high, as that island." Purdy, p. 152. 2 See the preceding note. 8 Acts xvi. 11. "Samothraki is the highest land in the Archipelago, except Candia and Mount Athos." - Purdy, p. 152. ♪ An evening view has been quoted before (p. 243, n. 4). The following is a morning view. "Nov. 26, 1828, 8, A. M.. Morning beautifully clear. Lemnos just opening. Mount Athos was at first taken for an island about five leagues distant, the outline and shades appearing so perfectly distinct, though nearly fifty miles off. The base of it was covered with haze, as was the summit soon afterward; but toward sunset it became clear again. It is immensely high; and, as there is no other mountain like it to the northward of Negropont, it is an excellent guide for this part of the coast."-Purdy, p. 150. no good harbor, though many places of safe anchorage: and if the wind was from the southward, there would be smooth water anywhere on the north shore. The island was, doubtless, better supplied with artificial advantages in an age not removed by many centuries from the flourishing period of that mercantile empire which the Phoenicians founded, and the Athenians inherited, in the Egean Sea. The relations of Samothrace with the opposite coast were close and frequent, when the merchants of Tyre had their miners at work in Mount Pangæus, and when Athens diffused her citizens as colonists or exiles on all the neighboring shores.3 Nor can those relations have been materially altered when both the Phoenician and Greek settlements on the sea were absorbed in the wider and continental dominion of Rome. Ever since the day when Perseus fled to Samothrace from the Roman conqueror, frequent vessels had been passing and repassing between the island and the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace. The Macedonian harbor at which St. Paul landed was Neapolis. Its direction from Samothrace is a little to the north of west. But a southerly breeze would still be a fair wind, though they could not literally "run before it." A run of seven or eight hours, notwithstanding the easterly current," would bring the vessel under the lea of the island of Thasos, and within a few miles of the coast of Macedonia. The shore of the mainland in this part is low, but mountains rise to a considerable height behind." To the westward of the channel which separates it from Thasos, the coast recedes and forms a bay, within which, on a promontory with a port on each side, the ancient Neapolis was situated. Some difference of opinion has existed concerning the true position of this harbor: but the traces of paved military roads approaching the promontory we have described, in two directions corresponding with those 1 See Purdy, p. 152. 2 Herod. vii. 112. Thasos was the headquarters of the Phoenician mining operations in this part of the Egean. Herodotus visited the island, and was much struck with the traces of their work (vi. 47). It is hardly necessary to refer to the formation of the commercial empire of Athens before the Peloponnesian war, to the mines of Scapte Hyle, and the exile of Thucydides. See Grote's Greece, ch. xxvi., xlvii., &c. • Liv. xlv. 6. 6 "Inside of Thasso, and past Samothraki, the current sets to the eastward."— Purdy, p. 62. "The current at times turns by Monte Santo (Athos), from the S. W., strong toward the eastward, by Thasso."— p. 152. See Purdy, p. 152, and the accurate delineation of the coast in the Admiralty charts. 7 Clarke's Travels, ch. xii. and xiii. An important paper on Neapolis and Philippi has been written (after a recent visit to these places) by Prof. Hackett, in the Bib. Sacra for October, 1860. 8 Cousinéry, in his Voyage dans la Macedoine, identifies Neapolis with Eski-Cavallo, a harbor more to the west; but his arguments are quite inconclusive. Colonel Leake, whose opinion is of great weight, though he did not indicated in the ancient itineraries; the Latin inscriptions which have been found on the spot; the remains of a great aqueduct on two tiers of Roman arches, and of cisterns like those at Baiæ near the other Neapolis on the Campanian shore, seem to leave little doubt that the small Turkish village of Cavallo is the Naples of Macedonia, the "Neapolis" at which St. Paul landed, and the seaport of Philippi, the "first city" which the traveller reached on entering this " part of Macedonia," and a city of no little importance as a Roman military" colony." A ridge of elevated land, which connects the range of Pangæus with the higher mountains in the interior of Thrace, is crossed between Neapolis and Philippi. The whole distance is about ten miles. The ascent of the ridge is begun immediately from the town, through a defile formed by some precipices almost close upon the sea. When the higher ground is attained, an extensive and magnificent sea-view is opened towards the south. Samothrace is seen to the east; Thasos to the south-east; and, more distant and farther to the right, the towering summit of Athos." When the descent on the opposite side begins and the sea is lost to view, another prospect succeeds, less extensive, but not less worthy of our notice. We look down on a plain, which is level as an inland sea, and which, if the eye could range over its remoter spaces, would be seen winding far within its mountain-enclosure, to the west and the north. Its appearance is either exuberantly green,- for its fertility has been always famous,— or cold and dreary, for the streams which water it are often diffused into marshes, according to the season when we visit this corner of Mace 8 Hence it was unnecessary for Meyer to deride Olshausen's remark, that Philippi was the "first city" in Macedonia visited by the Apostle, because Neapolis was its harbor. Olshausen was quite right. The distance of Neapolis from Philippi is only twice as great as that from the Piræus to Athens, not much greater than that from Cenchrea to Corinth, and less than that from Seleucia to Antioch, or from Ostia to Rome. We may quote here two passages from Dr. Clarke, one describing this approach to Neapolis from the neighborhood, the other his departure in the direction of Constantinople. Ascending the mountainous boundary of the plain on its north-eastern side by a broad ancient paved way, we had not daylight enough to enjoy the fine prospect of the sea See the very full descriptions of the plain donia; whether it be when the snows are white and chill on the summits of the Thracian Hamus,' or when the roses, of which Theophrastus and Pliny speak, are displaying their bloom on the warmer slopes of the Pangean hills.2 This plain, between Hamus and Pangæus, is the plain of Philippi, where the last battle was lost by the republicans of Rome. The whole region around is eloquent of the history of this battle. Among the mountains on the right was the difficult path by which the republican army penetrated into Macedonia; on some part of the very ridge on which we stand were the camps of Brutus and Cassius; the stream before us is the river which passed in front of them; below us, "upon the left hand of the even field," is the marsh by which Antony crossed as he approached his antagonist; directly opposite is the hill of Philippi, where Cassius died; behind us is the narrow strait of the sea, across which Brutus sent his body to the island of Thasos, lest the army should be disheartened before the final struggle. The city of Philippi was itself a monument of the termination of that struggle. It had been founded by the father of Alexander, in a place called, from its numerous streams, "The Place of Fountains," to commemorate the addition of a new province to his kingdom, and to protect the frontier against the Thracian mountaineers. For similar reasons the city of Philip was gifted by Augustus with the privileges of a colonia. It thus became at once a border-garrison of the province of Macedonia, and a perpetual memorial of his victory over Brutus. And now a Jewish Apostle came to the same place, to win a greater victory than that of Philippi, and to found a more durable empire than that of Augustus. It is a fact of deep significance, that the "first city" at which St. Paul arrived, on his entrance into Europe, should be that 7 Plutarch's Life of Brutus. See the 8 The full and proper Roman name was Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis. coin engraved at the end of Ch. XXVI. Cousinéry (ch. x.) enters fully into the present condition of Philippi, and gives coins and inscriptions. 9 We regard the phrase in Acts xvi. 12 as meaning the first city in its geographical relation to St. Paul's journey; not the first politically ("chief city," Auth. Vers.), either of Macedonia or a part of it. The chief city of the province was Thessalonica; and, even if we suppose the subdivisions of Macedonia Prima, Secunda, &c., to have subsisted at this time, the chief city of Macedonia Prima ras not Philippi, but Amphipolis. |