and copious streams, whose water, unsurpassed in purity, bubbled up through the fountains which stood in the court of every house. Northwards extended a fertile plain between the Orontes and Mount Coryphæus. The northern winds were occasionally keen and searching, but the prevailing western breezes coming up from the sea were so delicately soft, yet refreshing, that the citizens delighted in summer to sleep upon the flat roofs of their dwellings. These advantages, however, were in some degree balanced by a liability to inundations and earthquakes. Those hill-streams, the blessing and delight of the inhabitants in summer, were sometimes swollen in winter by excessive rains into torrents of incontrollable fury, and caused much damage to the buildings which were situated near their course. But far more destructive were the earthquakes. More than once, indeed, especially in the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Trajan, the whole city was almost shattered to pieces; but on each occasion, through public and private exertions, it arose from its ruins in new and, if possible, increased magnificence. The peculiar glories of Antioch were its gardens, and baths, and colonnaded streets. As in its population, and religion, and customs, so also in its architecture, it presented, as time went on, a remarkable mixture of Asiatic, Greek, and Roman elements. The aim of each Greek king and Roman emperor was to leave it more beautiful than he had received it from the hands of his predecessor. Each marked his reign by the erection of a temple or basilica, or bath, or aqueduct, or theatre, or column. The church in which Chrysostom officiated, usually called “the great Church,” to distinguish it from the smaller and older church, called the Church of the Apostles, was begun by Constantine and finished by Constantius. In the main principles of structure, we may find some parallel to it in St. Vitale at Ravenna. It stood in the centre of a large court, and was octangular in shape; chambers, some of them subterranean, were clustered round it; the domed roof, of an amazing height, was gilded on the inside; the floor was paved with polished marbles; the walls and columns were adorned with images, and glistened with precious stones; every part, indeed, was richly embellished with bronze and golden ornament.179 Among the principal wonders of Antioch was the great street constructed by Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four miles in length, which traversed the city from east to west; the natural inequalities of the ground were filled up, so that the thoroughfare was a perfect level from end to end; the spacious colonnades on either side were paved with red granite. From the centre of this magnificent street, where stood a statue of Apollo, another street, similar in character, but much shorter, was drawn at right angles, leading northwards in the direction of the Orontes. Many of the other streets were also colonnaded, so that the inhabitants, as they pursued their errands of business or pleasure, were sheltered alike from the scorching sun of summer and the rains of winter. Innumerable lanterns at night illuminated the main thoroughfares with a brilliancy which almost rivalled the light of day, and much of the business, as well as the festivity, of the inhabitants was carried on by night.180
