LONDON A BABE IN ARMS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 66, 5 September 1901, Page 2

LONDON A BABE IN ARMS.

London as a place of habitation we rightly regard as being of great antiquity, but in this respect it is a babe of swaddling clothes when compared with some of the cities of the world. It is over 1,950 years since Caesar’s legions visited London and Paris and brought them under the world-wide dominion of Rome. But at that time they were nothing more than little collections of mud huts inhabited by rude and uncivilised Britons and Gauls. The city of Marseilles has been in existence 2,497 years. It was founded by a colony of Greeks when Rome, the future conqueror of both it and Greece, w T as nothing but a tiny village. Rome is about 2,650 years old. Of all the cities there were in existence when it began, and still retain their places on the maps, Rome is the most flourishing and best preserved. It has gone through so many wars, seiges.and captures,without being destroyed, that it is called “ The Eternal City.” But Romo is by no means the oldest city on the globe, or even in Europe. Athens, the capital of Greece, is about 3,453 years old—older than any other European city. Tangier, in Morocco, is probably over 2,700 years of age. Several Asiatic towns are credited with continuous existcncies covering longer periods than those of Europe or any other part of the world. Pekin, the capital of China, is said to be about 3,000 years old, or more; Jerusalem, which was a Jebusite city in the days of Abraham, is 3,900 years oid at least. But there is one other city, and probably only one, that surpasses even Jerusalem in antiquity. This is Damascus, once famous for its manufacture of silks, jewellery, and' arms. A Damascus blade was prized as superior to all others. They are no longer made, the method by which the armourers of Damascus tempered the steel being one of the lost arts. The exact date of the founding of Damascus is not known, but it is said to have been begun by a great-grandson of Noah. It is probably 4,200 years old, at any rate, and the oldest city in the world.