Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1919 — ALEPPO [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALEPPO

AT.EPPO, fh£~ cftptnre of' wfflctr by General Allenby on October 2G, 1918, was the culmination of the conquest of Syria, Is, like Damascus and Konleh, one of the ancient cities of the world. It may, Indeed, be older than either-p-eer-tainly It appears In history as early as Damascus and before Konleh, It was one of the Syrian towns captured by the Egyptian conqueror, Tliothmes m, about 1480 B. C„ and thereafter is of frequent occurrence in the agitated annals of those early times, says a writer in the Splierq* , Under Roman rule It enjoyed a long' period of prosperity. Its ancient Syrian name of Haihan, or Khnlhnn, was corrupted by the Greeks into Chqlybon, hut it was 'aistTltnoWn as Berea. When, after seven centuries of Roman rule, it fell Into the hands of the Arabs, it was called by them Haleb, a nearer approximation to its ancient name than the Greek Chulybon. The Venetian and other Italian visitors, of whom there were many in the middle ages, blundered Haleb into Aleppo —that.is, they dropped the aspirate, as Latins so often do, sounded the final “b” ns a “p,” and added in the arbitrary fashion of Romans, Greeks and Italians their termination “o.” The secret of Aleppo’s long prosperity, which endured even under Turkish rule, Is its splendid commercial position at the junction of at least four great trade routes. This was perhaps largely due to the destruction of Palmyra (Tadmor) by Aurelian. after which the bulk of the trade which had passed through the city of Solomon and Zenobia now diverted itself hy a more northerly route through Aleppo. By caravan it traded with Persia and India through Mesopotamia, with Egypt by way of Damascus, with Asia Minor and Constantinople by the ancient route through Taurus. In Romano-Persian times the caravans passed by Ctesiphon,but after the Saracen conquest was the half-way station on the way to Persia.

Byzantine Versus Hamadanite. During the middle ages Aleppo’s existence was a life of stormy magnificence. During the earlier wars of the Saracens with the eastern Roman empire it was more than once taken and retaken. In the tenth century it became the seat of a brilliant local dynasty from Hamadan In Persia. The most noted ruler of this family was Seyf-ed-Din, whom the Byzantine historians call “Khnbdanos,” i. e., the Hamadanite Sevf-ed-Pin kept great state at Aleppo, "and probably the chief portions of the present fortifications of the Citadel were built by him, though it Is quite possible that they are older. He was a patron of art and literature and also a mighty warrior, who led many expeditions against the eastern Roman empire with alternate success and defeat. After much success he sustained a terrible defeat in 961 in the Taurus passes, and himself escaped only “by a breakneck scramble up a ~ precipice. Next year his fate was upon him, for the great Byzantine marshal, Nice-phoi-os Phokas, soon to be emperor-re-gent. marched against Aleppo with all the available forges of the East. Seyf-ed-Din made desperate efforts ; he levied all the citizens of Aleppo and intrenched himself to guard the approaches to his 1 capital, while In Mesopotamia a holy war was proclaimed, and the troops of Mosul, Edessa. Mardin and many other places marched to the relief of Aleppo. Could all these forces unite the Byzantine general; must have been defeated, but he was po prompt that he reached his goal before the Mesopotamians could arrive. By one of those masterly turning movements which- in those days only Byzantine generals and Byzantine troops could achieve, Phokas flanked Seyf-ed-Din out of his intrenehments and forced him to fight in the open before the city gates. He was utterly defeated, and as his beaten troops poured back into -Aleppo* sedition broke out. Tbe citizen soldiers laid the blame of the rout upon the Arab and Turkish mercenaries; they turned their swords against one .another, and amid this Internecine strife the Byzantine cuirassiers stormed the walls and came pouring Into the streets, sweeping the last aimy of "Khabdanos” before them In rout and ruin. For three days the victorious army wrought its will on unhappy Aleppo, while upon the sack and destruction the fallen emir and a remnant of his army looked down from the walls of the impregnable citadel, haps those self-same piles of tawny masonry which crown the fortress hill to

arrived they found that Phokas and his army had quietly retired with their prisoners amlp-plundcr, leaving ruin and destitution behind. Aleppo in the Middle Ages. Aleppo’s brief political greatness thus fell beneath the hammer stroke of Nicephoros Phokas, but its commercial eminence did not, leave it. For two centuries it led a precarious politrcal existence —usually in vassalage to the dominant great power. It was part of the empire of the mighty Saladin, and probably the work of his masons is to be seen today in the citadel walls. After Saladin and his house had passed away Aleppo fell tp the Mameluke, sultans of Egypt. Thither in 1402 came the terrible Timur (Tamerlane) on his way to overthrow the army of Egypt at Damascus. Timur left terrible traces of his presence on Aleppo, but the city, thanks to its splendid situation, recovered, and for the next century nr more, indeed, was at the height of its prosperity. It was injured by the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, but remained great and wealthy until 1822, When it was smitten by an earthquake end almost completely destroyed, with a loss of life calculated at the lowest at 20,000 persons. During the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centurieslt was foremost among the trading cities of the world, and Its renown spread far and wide. It was from Aleppo that the first pioneers of England’s Indian trade and empire started on their long journey to the courts of the moghul emperors. Doubtless it was from some of them, or reports of their journeys which must have been current In Elizabethan London, that Shakespeare and Marlowe learned of the oriental city.. At all events, references to Aleppo are to be found in the plays of both—less in Shakespeare than in Marlowe, whose bent w'as clearly in the direction of oriental glamor. Modern Aleppo still suffers from the qpgtmrtion wrought by the catastrophe of 1822. but there is no doubt that the researches of skilled archeologists would meet with rich reward in a city which has existed continuously for 4,000 years, which has seen the charioteers of Egypt and of Khatti, the phalanx of Alexander and the legions of Rome, no less than the mailed horsemen of Byzantium and the savage riders :Of Timur and Selim the Grim. The citadel walls still stand intact and Imposing; the walls of the inner city are in ruins. In the westerly rampart there survives—in the form of an inscription—evidence of the presence of the Hittite conquerors, who wrested North Syria from the weak hands of the heretic Pharaoh Akenaten. -The flat roofs of the houses are often laid out as gardens, and south and west of the city extend wide plantations and orchards. Water is supplied by means of an ancient aqueduct, a relic of the Roman rule, which, in Syria, as in Ganl and Britain, has left Indestructible evidence of Its passion for works of practical utility. There is much local industry, and as a principal station on the TransSyrian railway close to the Bagdad line. Aleppo still occnples a position of great importance. Under civilized rule it has every opportunity of recovering its former prosperity.

View of Aleppo and Its Citadel.