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424 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
turbulent centuries. In a city where each rich man's
house was a stone-walled iron-barred fortress ; where
the shop-keeping class, for the safety of person and
goods, herded together in strong bazaars ; where for
the same reasons merchants and travellers lodged
themselves in massive khans — in such a city the
rulers required a stronghold befitting their greater
possessions and greater risks. For them at need,
therefore, was the citadel. Without the citadel,
indeed, one suspects there could have been no permanent
rule in Aleppo during the days of the small
States into which the country was so long divided.
The more you consider this fortress, the more you
perceive that its real aim was against the citizens
the citizens, not of a town but of a great city, and
that the size and strength of the citadel were roughly
proportioned to this domestic factor. Before the
citadel could repel foreign invasion the invaders
would be in the city itself One cannot think that
citizens of the medieval city ever had any illusions
on this score ; the citadel never saved them from
massacre by Hulugu the Egyptian, or the more fell
Timur. The citadel was, in fact, a Bastille, and in
structure great as any ever built.
It is said to resemble Edinburgh Castle seen from
the west, but is on a greater scale. Some assert that
it is really built upon a hill so completely enclosed by
masonry that all signs of the rock have disappeared.
The only ground for this idea is that under the castle
are rock-hewn galleries ; but the outer walls at least
owe nothing to natural elevation in making up a
stark height of a hundred and twenty feet. Enclosing
them is a fosse with a sloping revetment of
squared stones from the bed of the fosse to the
base of the towering walls. The whole edifice is so
huge in height and bulk that its true size is not
appreciated until you make the outer circuit by
following the Plaza which extends around it outside
the fosse ; then, indeed, it is discovered that half
an hour has been occupied in steady walking.