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Microeconomics (Acemoglu/Laibson/List)
Chapter 7 Perfect Competition and the Invisible Hand
1) A ________ is the price at which a trading partner is indifferent between making the trade and not
doing so.
A) market value
B) reservation value
C) shadow value
D) discounted value
Answer: B
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
3) A buyer is willing to buy 10 units of a good at a maximum price of $10 per unit. The reservation value
of the buyer in this case is:
A) $1.
B) $10.
C) $20.
D) $100.
Answer: B
Difficulty: Easy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
1
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
5) The marginal cost and total revenue of a firm are $5 and $275, respectively. The reservation value of the
seller in this case is ________.
A) $0
B) $5
C) $55
D) $275
Answer: B
Difficulty: Easy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
6) A seller is willing to sell 5 units of a good at a minimum price of $1 per unit. The reservation value of
the seller in this case is:
A) $1.
B) $5.
C) $6.
D) $10.
Answer: A
Difficulty: Easy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
7) The equilibrium price and quantity of a good under perfect competition are determined:
A) by the intersection of the market demand and total revenue curves.
B) by the intersection of the total revenue and total cost curves.
C) by the intersection of the market demand and market supply curves.
D) by the intersection of the market supply and total revenue curves.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
2
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
The following table displays the reservation values of eight buyers and eight sellers where each
individual wants to buy or sell a calculator.
8) Refer to the table above. If the market is perfectly competitive, the equilibrium price of calculators is:
A) $2.
B) $6.
C) $12.
D) $20.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
9) Refer to the table above. If the market is perfectly competitive, the equilibrium quantity of calculators
is:
A) 3 units.
B) 5 units.
C) 6 units.
D) 8 units.
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
3
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
11) Producer surplus is the:
A) sum of a seller's reservation values and the price he finally receives.
B) difference between a seller's reservation value and the price he finally receives.
C) product of a seller's reservation value and the price he finally receives.
D) ratio of a seller's reservation value to the price he finally receives.
Answer: B
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Social Surplus
12) If a seller's reservation value for a good is $10 and the price at which the good is sold is $15, his
producer surplus is:
A) $25.
B) $150.
C) $1.5.
D) $5.
Answer: D
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
13) If a seller's marginal cost is $25, and the price at which the good is sold is $15, the producer surplus is
________.
A) -$10
B) $10
C) $15
D) $25
Answer: A
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
14) If a seller enjoys a producer surplus of $30 when he sells a good for $79, his reservation value for the
good is ________.
A) $30
B) $49
C) $79
D) $109
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
4
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
15) If a buyer's reservation value for a good is $15 and the price at which he purchases the good is $8, his
consumer surplus is:
A) $7.
B) $1.8.
C) -$7.
D) $120.
Answer: A
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
16) If a buyer enjoys a consumer surplus of $25 when he purchases a good for $50, his willingness to pay
for the good is ________.
A) $2
B) $25
C) $50
D) $75
Answer: D
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
17) When buyers and sellers optimize in a perfectly competitive market, ________.
A) social surplus is maximized
B) social surplus is minimized
C) only consumer surplus is maximized
D) only consumer surplus is minimized
Answer: A
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Social Surplus
5
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
19) If the producer surplus in a market for a good is $36 and the consumer surplus in the market for the
same good is $9, the social surplus in the market is ________.
A) $4
B) $27
C) $45
D) $324
Answer: C
Difficulty: Easy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
20) Suppose a market has only one seller and only one buyer of a good. The buyer has a reservation value
of $25 and the seller has a reservation value of $15. The market price of the good is determined at $20. If
they trade, the social surplus will be ________.
A) $10
B) $20
C) $40
D) $60
Answer: A
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
21) Suppose a market has only one seller and only one buyer of a good in the market. The buyer is willing
to pay $50 for the good and the seller is willing to accept $15. The market price of the good is determined
at $30. If they trade, the social surplus will be ________.
A) $15
B) $35
C) $45
D) $65
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
22) For social surplus to be maximized, the ________ buyers are actually making a purchase and the
________ sellers are selling the products.
A) lowest-value; highest-cost
B) highest-value; lowest-cost
C) highest-value; highest-cost
D) lowest-value; lowest-value
Answer: B
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Social Surplus
6
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
23) The total surplus in a market is represented by:
A) the area between the demand curve and the market price line.
B) the area between the supply curve and the market price line.
C) the area between the demand and supply curves and the price axis.
D) the area between the demand curve and the horizontal axis.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
Topic: Social Surplus
24) Jack is a prospective buyer of a commodity that Jill is offering to sell. Social surplus in this scenario
can be maximized:
A) when only Jack is optimizing.
B) when only Jill is optimizing.
C) when both Jack and Jill are optimizing.
D) when neither Jack nor Jill is optimizing.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Easy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
The following table displays the reservation values of buyers and sellers in the market for notebooks,
where each one either wants to buy or sell one notebook.
25) Refer to the table above. If the market for notebooks is perfectly competitive, the equilibrium price is:
A) $2.
B) $3.
C) $4.
D) $5.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
7
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
26) Refer to the table above. If the market for notebooks is perfectly competitive, the equilibrium quantity
is:
A) 2 units.
B) 3 units.
C) 4 units.
D) 5 units.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
27) Refer to the table above. If the market is perfectly competitive, what is Buyer 3's consumer surplus?
A) $0
B) -$1
C) $1
D) $2
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
28) Refer to the table above. What is Seller 3's producer surplus?
A) $1
B) $2
C) $3
D) $4
Answer: A
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
29) Refer to the table above. If only the two highest-value buyers and the two least-cost sellers engage in
trade, what is the social surplus?
A) $6
B) $10
C) $12
D) $20
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
8
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
30) Refer to the table above. If the six highest-value buyers and the six least-cost sellers engage in trade,
what is the social surplus?
A) $6
B) $8
C) $10
D) $12
Answer: A
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
31) Refer to the table above. When the price is ________ and the quantity is ________, social surplus is
maximized.
A) $8; 5 units
B) $6; 4 units
C) $4; 4 units
D) $2; 8 units
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
9
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
The following figure illustrates the demand and supply of decorative light bulbs in a perfectly
competitive market.
33) Refer to the figure above. What is the equilibrium price and quantity of the light bulbs?
A) Equilibrium price = $25, Equilibrium quantity = 0 units
B) Equilibrium price = $25, Equilibrium quantity = 15 units
C) Equilibrium price = $15, Equilibrium quantity = 15 units
D) Equilibrium price = $5, Equilibrium quantity = 15 units
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
34) Refer to the figure above. What is the consumer surplus in the market?
A) $50
B) $75
C) $100
D) $225
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
35) Refer to the figure above. What is the producer surplus in the market?
A) $50
B) $75
C) $150
D) $200
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
10
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
36) Refer to the figure above. What is the social surplus if the market is in equilibrium?
A) $50
B) $75
C) $100
D) $150
Answer: D
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
37) Refer to the figure above. What is the maximum possible social surplus?
A) $100
B) $150
C) $225
D) $375
Answer: B
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
38) The social surplus in a market is $50. If another economic agent enters the market such that the
marginal cost he incurs is $10 and the marginal benefit he receives from the trade is $5, then which of the
following statements is true?
A) The social surplus will remain the same.
B) The social surplus will increase by $5.
C) The social surplus will decrease by $5.
D) The social surplus will increase by $10.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
11
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
40) In a competitive market equilibrium:
A) social surplus is minimized.
B) all the gains from trade are not realized.
C) there is Pareto efficiency.
D) all the firms earn positive economic profits.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Easy
Topic: Pareto Efficiency
12
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
45) $100 is to be divided among two individuals—Mary and Jenna. Which of the following allocations is
Pareto efficient?
A) Mary receives $45, and Jenna receives $45.
B) Mary receives $20, and Jenna receives $75.
C) Mary receives $1, and Jenna receives $99.
D) Mary receives $90, and Jenna receives $9.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Pareto Efficiency
46) $20 is to be divided among two individuals—Gary and Jamie. Which of the following allocations is
NOT Pareto efficient?
A) Gary receives $1, and Jamie receives $19.
B) Gary receives $19, and Jamie receives $1.
C) Gary receives $8, and Jamie receives $9.
D) Gary receives $15, and Jamie receives $5.
Answer: C
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Pareto Efficiency
48) Define reservation values. If a buyer of a product has a reservation value of $10, the seller of the
product has a reservation value of $3, and the equilibrium price of the product is determined at $5,
calculate the consumer surplus and the producer surplus.
Answer: A reservation value is the price at which a trading partner is indifferent between making the
trade and not doing so. For a buyer, this is the highest price he is willing to pay for a good or service. For
a seller, it is the lowest price he is willing to accept for a good or service.
Consumer surplus = $10 - $5 = $5
Producer surplus = $5 - $3 = $2
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Perfect Competition and Efficiency
13
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
49) The following figure shows the demand and supply of a good. Calculate the social surplus from the
following figure. What is the maximum possible social surplus in this market?
Answer: Social surplus refers to the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus.
In this figure, consumer surplus = $(1/2 × 4 × 5) = $10.
Producer surplus = $(1/2 × 4 × 5) = $10.
Social surplus = $10 + $10 = $20.
Since, in the figure, market price is determined at the point of intersection of demand and supply, it is a
free market economy that is in equilibrium. Since social surplus is maximized when a market is in
equilibrium, the maximum possible social surplus is $20.
Difficulty: Medium
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
Topic: Social Surplus
50) Define a Pareto efficient outcome. Does it ensure equity? Explain with an example.
Answer: An outcome is said to be Pareto efficient outcome if it is not possible to make someone better off
without making someone else worse off. Pareto efficiency does not ensure equity. For example, $100 is
divided between two individuals such that one individual receives $75 and the other individual receives
$25. This allocation is Pareto efficient as it is not possible to make an individual better off without making
the other worse off, but the allocation does not represent equity.
Difficulty: Medium
Topic: Pareto Efficiency
14
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
51) The following table displays the reservation values of 10 sellers and 10 buyers in a market for cameras
where each individual wants to buy or sell one camera.
b) Social surplus is the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus. These can be calculated as
shown in the table below.
Consumer Producer
Buyers Value ($) Surplus ($) Sellers Value ($) Surplus ($)
1 100 50 1 5 45
2 86 36 2 18 32
3 74 24 3 22 28
4 60 10 4 26 24
5 55 5 5 35 15
6 50 0 6 50 0
7 34 -16 7 65 -15
8 26 -24 8 75 -25
9 12 -38 9 85 -35
10 6 -44 10 100 -50
Social surplus when the four highest value buyers trade with the four lowest value sellers:
= $(50 + 45 + 36 + 32 + 24 + 28 + 10 + 24) = $249.
c) The social surplus when the eight highest value buyers trade with the eight lowest value sellers:
= 50 + 45 + 36 + 32 + 24 + 28 + 10 + 24 + 5 + 15 - 16 - 15 - 24 - 25 = $189.
15
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
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saline. Rocks of a volcanic character were often visible. There were
little evidences of life except here and there long droves of heavily
burdened donkeys and camels and occasional flocks and herds of
wandering Turkomans.
Trains of camels in the deserts of Asia and Africa have always had
a peculiar fascination for me. Like the llama trains of the Peruvian
and Bolivian Andes they seem to be specially adapted to their
environment and to the work which they are called upon to perform.
Before the invention of the steam engine both, in their sphere, were
all but indispensable—the sure-footed llama on dizzy mountain
heights, the thirst-resisting camel in torrid, interminable deserts.
Even since the appearance of the locomotive these useful animals
are apparently as much in demand as ever. For, in addition to
transporting merchandise, as formerly, where railroads do not exist,
they are still in constant use in delivering goods to such roads as are
already in operation.
In the region of which I am now speaking, one, at times, sees
only three or four camels at most; at others there are a hundred or
more, all loaded to the limit of endurance. But whenever they
appear in the gray, barren, undulating plain, they, with their drivers,
at once give life and color to the landscape which is else but a dull
study in monochrome. Their leader is usually a dirty, unkempt,
diminutive donkey—in marked contrast to the stately animals that
submissively follow him—which is frequently bestridden by a
somnolent Turk wearing a faded old fez and voluminous red
trousers, with his legs reaching almost to the ground. As the caravan
gradually approaches one hears the jingling of the bells of the light-
stepping donkey and the clanging of the larger bells of the heavy,
lurching camel. But we also presently discover that both donkey and
camels are decked with gaudy trappings adorned with beads and
cowrie shells. These, however, are not solely for ornament, as one
might suppose, but rather to avert the evil eye which, in the Near
East, is even more dreaded than it is in any part of southern Italy.
How the camel carries one back to patriarchal times, to times
even when the domesticated horse was known only in warfare! As a
long line of betasselled camels came near our train one day, they
seemed by their sneers and the lofty manner in which they held up
their heads to be conscious of their ancient lineage and to resent the
trespassing by the Bagdad Railway on what was long their exclusive
domain. But to judge by the general appearance of the country—the
old patched tents, the reed huts, the hovels of unbaked mud, the
peculiar garb of the people, the primitive methods of agriculture, the
simple manners and customs of the people—this part of Anatolia,
notwithstanding the advent of the iron horse, is in almost the same
condition as it was when Joseph and his brethren tended their
father’s flocks in the land of Canaan.
If this part of Asia Minor was as arid and desolate in the days of
Godfrey de Bouillon and Barbarossa—and we have no reason to
believe it was materially different—we can easily realize what must
have been the trials and sufferings of the Crusaders during their long
march through “burning Phrygia” and inhospitable Lycaonia. Their
route was through a dry, sterile, and salty desert, a land of
tribulation and horror.[192] It was then, no wonder that, in view of
the perils and sufferings entailed by an inland expedition, the later
Crusaders preferred to make the journey from Europe to the Holy
Land by sea.
Terror [writes Michaud] opened to the pilgrims all the passages of
Mount Taurus. Throughout their triumphant march the Christians had
nothing to dread but famine, the heat of the climate and the badness
of the roads. They had particularly much to suffer in crossing a
mountain situated between Coxon and Marash which their historians
denominate, “The Mountain of the Devil.”[193]
So great, indeed, were the toils and dangers and disasters
experienced by the Crusaders before they reached the Holy City of
Jerusalem, that the brilliant French historian is moved to declare, “If
great national remembrances inspire us with the same enthusiasm, if
we entertain as strong a respect for the memory of our ancestors,
the Conquest of the Holy Land must be for us as glorious and
memorable an epoch as the war of Troy was for the people of
Greece.”[194] Again he avers, “When comparing these two
memorable wars and the poetical masterpieces that have celebrated
them, we cannot but think the subject of the Jerusalem Delivered is
more wonderful than that of the Iliad.”[195]
There are several passes through the Taurus, but by far the most
important of them is the famous one long known as the Pylæ
Ciliciæ, or Cilician Gates.[196] From time immemorial this celebrated
pass has been the gateway between Syria and Asia Minor, between
southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. Assyrians, Hittites,
Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Saracens,
Crusaders passed through them. Asurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, and
Sapor I led their armies through their narrow defiles. Cyrus the
Younger and Xenophon pushed their way through them on their way
to fateful Cunaxa. Alexander, Cicero, Harun-al-Rashid led their
armies through this narrow passage. It was also traversed by St.
Paul, by hosts of the Crusaders and by pilgrims innumerable from
the earliest ages of the Church.
On our way across the Taurus we followed in the footsteps of
Alexander and the Crusaders as far as the Vale of Bozanti. Here the
Bagdad Railway diverges slightly eastward from the old military and
trade route which passes through the Cilician Gates. As we preferred
to follow the old historic route to passing through nearly eleven
miles of railway tunnels, we left the train at Bozanti Khan and
proceeded by carriage through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus.
We were well repaid for so doing, for we had, in consequence,
one of the most delightful mountain drives in the world. On each
side of the road were towering heights clothed with forests of pine
and other evergreens, while rising far above these was the sky-
piercing summit of Bulgar Dagh covered with a mantle of snow of
dazzling whiteness. Further on our way
The pass expands
Its strong jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
And seems with its accumulated crags,
To overhang the world.
before a stone table “through which his fiery-red beard has grown
nearly to the floor, or around which it has coiled itself nearly three
times.” Here, like King Arthur, of whom it is written, “Arturus rex
quondam rexque futurus,” he rests until
In some dark day when Germany
Hath need of warriors such as he,
A voice to tell of her distress
Shall pierce the mountain’s deep recess—
Shall ring through the dim vaults and scare
The spectral ravens round his chair,
And from his trance the sleeper wake.
The solid mountain shall dispart,
The granite slab in splinters start,
(Responsive to those accents weird)
And loose the Kaiser’s shaggy beard.
Through all the startled air shall rise
The old Teutonic battle cries;
The horns of war that once could stir
The wild blood of the Berserker,
Shall fling their blare abroad, and then
The champion of his own Almain,
Shall Barbarossa come again.
CHAPTER IX
IN HISTORIC CILICIA CAMPESTRIS
Domes, minarets, their spiry heads that rear,
Mocking with gaudy hues the ruins near;
Dim crumbling colonnades and marble walls,
Rich columns, broken statutes, roofless halls;
Beauty, deformity, together thrown,
A maze of ruins, date, design unknown—
Such is the scene, the conquest Time hath won.
Nicolas Michel.
it was the highway between Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. It was the
royal road between Persia and Greece on which was heard the
martial tread of the armies of Xerxes, Cyrus, and Alexander.
Rameses II—the Napoleon of Egypt—and Asurbanipal—the Napoleon
of Assyria—led their victorious hosts along this road and, like the
warriors who had preceded them, found subsistence for their men in
the fertile valleys of the Pyramus and the Cydnus. It was also a field
of frequent sanguinary conflicts during the days of Pompey and
Cicero, of Mark Anthony and Zenobia, the rarely gifted but ill-fated
“Queen of the East.” It was a continued arena of strife during
protracted wars between the Byzantine Emperors and the Sassanian
Kings, between the Osmanlis and Timur and Jenghiz Khan, and, in
recent times, between the Sultan of Constantinople and his
ambitious and rebellious viceroy, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt.
Three of the decisive battles of the world war were fought on the
Cilician Plain. It was on the banks of the Pinarus that Alexander won
his memorable victory over Darius—a victory that gave the
irresistible Macedonian the control of the vast region between the
Mediterranean and the Euphrates and paved the way for the brilliant
triumph at Arbela, which made him the master of the world’s
greatest continent. It was here that more than five hundred years
later Septimus Severus crushed his rival Pescennius Niger, when “the
troops of Europe asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate
natives of Asia.” And it was on this same historic spot that Heraclius
defeated Chosroes and once more, in a most signal manner, showed
the superiority of the West over the East.
But in addition to its celebrity as the theater of contests for world
supremacy, Cilicia, like so many other regions we have described in
the preceding pages, is noted as a field of romance, of myths, and
legends innumerable.
Among the strange romances that still await the pen of novelist
and historian is that connected with the extraordinary life and deeds
of the Turkoman freebooter, Kutchuk Ali Uglu, who a century ago
had his stronghold in the mountain fastnesses near Issus. Here,
during forty years, he openly defied the authority of the Porte and
the Great Powers of Europe. With the audacity of a Fra Diavolo and
the cruelty and relentlessness of a Barbary corsair he ravaged the
surrounding country and plundered traveling merchants and the
grand annual caravan of pilgrims from Constantinople to Mecca
whenever they came within his reach.
I am not [he was wont to say] as other Darah Beys are—fellows
without faith, who allow their men to stop travellers on the King’s
highway;—I am content with what God sends me. I await his good
pleasure, and—Alhumlillah—God be praised—He never leaves me long
in want of anything.[198]
When one is told that Kutchuk Ali, during his forty years of a
desperado’s life, never had more than two hundred men, and
frequently a far less number, it seems incredible that he was so long
able to defy not only the Porte but even the greatest powers of
Europe. But we forget that the notorious Calabian bandit, Fra
Diavolo, during the same period and with a much smaller band of
outlaws, was wantonly perpetrating similar atrocities in southern
Italy. And it was only a few generations earlier that the notorious
Captain Kidd was roving the high seas in open defiance of the naval
power of the civilized world.
One of the most popular legends in Cilicia is that of the Seven
Sleepers. According to the Christian version they were seven
brothers who fell asleep in a cave near Ephesus during the
persecution of the Emperor Decius, and did not awake until the time
of Theodosius II—nearly two hundred years later. The
Mohammedans, however, contend that the cave in which this
preternatural event occurred was about ten miles northwest of
Tarsus. Because of the prominence the Prophet gives the legend in
the Koran, the Cilician cave has become among the Moslems a
favorite place of pilgrimage. Mohammed has, however, elaborated
the story by introducing the dog—Al Rakim—of the Seven Sleepers
and descanting on the care that Allah took of the bodies of the
sleepers during their long, miraculous sleep.[200]
But it is in classical legend and myth that Cilicia is specially rich. It
was near the mouth of the Pyramus, according to Homer, that
Bellerophon, after his fall from Pegasus,
Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind,
Wide o’er the Aleian field he chose to stray,
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way.
During the past few decades a great change has been made for
the better, as is attested by the large number of American
agricultural implements which are now found throughout the plain
and the hundreds of ginning machines, looms, and thousands of
spindles—mostly from England—which are seen in the cotton
factories of Tarsus and Adana. But, although a great advance has
been made over the condition which obtained a third of a century
ago, there is yet vast room for improvement. When the Ottoman
Government shall awaken to the necessity of conserving its natural
resources, when it shall systematically reforest the territory whose
once precious woodlands have been so sadly despoiled, and shall
duly drain the vast swamps which have been formed by the neglect
of its treasure-giving rivers, Cilicia Campestris will again be worthy of
the name which legend tells us it once bore—Garden of Eden.
As it is now, the whole extent of Cilicia from the Taurus to the
Amanus and from the mouth of the Cydnus to the headwaters of the
Pyramus is chiefly remarkable for ruins of cities and the sites of
towns whose very names are forgotten. Everywhere on the plain and
on the girdling foothills, one will see crumbling fortresses built by
Genoese and Venetians; moss-covered strongholds of Saracens and
Crusaders; Corinthian columns and marble colonnades, arches, and
vaulted roofs of Christian churches; reminders of mediæval warfare
and of days when this historic land was swept by inundations of
barbarian hordes, who destroyed by fire and sword the arts and
labors which were once the pride of western Asia. Everywhere one
observes fragmentary remains of Roman bridges and arches, of
aqueducts and causeways, of Greek altars attributed to Alexander to
commemorate his victory over the Persians; dilapidated walls and
towers and sepulchral grottoes with an occasional Greek or Arabic
inscription to mark the sites of Corycus, Pompeiopolis, and Anazarba
—those cities of renown, where their inhabitants could quietly rest
under their vines and fig trees free from the incursions of predatory
Cliteans and Tibareni and barbarians of Hun and Scithian savagery,
who spread terror and devastation wherever they could gratify their
lust of cruelty or plunder. It was the boast of the Mongols that so
complete was their work of “extirpation and erasure” of certain
cities, where they had wreaked their full fury of rapine and murder,
“that horses might run without stumbling over the ground where
they had once stood.”[223] Judging by the calamities that have been
inflicted on the once populous cities of Cilicia one would say that
they were, in the expressive words of St. Prosper of Aquitaine,
depredatione vastatœ—ravaged by depredations as ruthless as those
that ever characterized the frightful irruptions of Timur or Jenghiz
Khan.
This indiscriminate destruction of centers of culture and marts of
commerce is often attributed to the Turks. But, as we have already
seen, the Turks—I refer especially to the Osmanlis—who have been
the rulers of the Ottoman Empire for more than five hundred years,
were not like the Mongols and Tartars, a nation of raiders, but a
nation of colonizers and empire builders. Their object, therefore, was
not to destroy but to construct and develop. Those who make this
charge, which is in great measure gratuitous, forget the wholesale
destruction of the hordes of Timur and Jenghiz Khan, not to speak of
other raiders, and lose sight of the fact that some of the most
famous cities of the East were reduced to ashes by the armies of
Greece and Rome more than a thousand years before the
appearance of the armies of the Ottoman conquerors in Syria,
Greece, and Ionia. Thus, to mention only a few instances, it was
Alexander the Great who destroyed Halicarnasus, the birthplace of
the historians Herodotus and Dionysius. Here stood the magnificent
tomb of Mausolus, classed by the ancients among the seven
wonders of the world, the ruins of which were in 1402 used by the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem as a quarry for building their
castles. It was the Roman general Mummius who brought ruin to the
famous city of Corinth. This was, in truth, rebuilt by Julius Cæsar,
but only to be destroyed again, at a much later period, by the
Greeks themselves. It was the Emperor Aurelian who doomed to
destruction Palmyra, the magnificent capital of Zenobia, almost
during the heyday of its architectural splendor and commercial
prosperity. It was the Goths who demolished the temple of Diana at
Ephesus, another of the world’s wonders, while the city itself was in
ruins even before the advent of the devastating Timur. But it was
Timur who razed Sardis, the capital of Crœsus, whose name has
ever been a synonym of untold wealth. It was Malik al-Ashraf, ruler
of Egypt and Syria, who destroyed the famed city of Tyre after its
long and eventful history which antedated the reigns of Hiram and
Solomon.
Moreover, for thousands of years before the advent of the
Osmanlis in western Asia there was at work an agency of destruction
that is usually quite disregarded by those who are so propense to
impute to the “Unspeakable Turk” the heaps of ruins which
overspread a large part of the great Ottoman Empire—an agency
whose power of annihilation is incomparably greater than ever was
that of Hun or Mongol. This is the earthquake. From the dawn of
history this irresistible power has been in action in nearly all the
countries bordering the Mediterranean, and has, times without
number, exhibited its relentless fury from Cilicia to Sicily and from
Egypt to Dalmatia. In Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor,[224] and Greece
whole cities were subverted. In the reign of Valens and Valentinian
the greater part of the Roman world was shaken by seismic
disturbances of the most appalling violence. Time and again the
massive walls of Constantinople, its palaces, churches, and
monasteries crumbled under the earth’s paroxysmal movements,
and the extent of the disaster inflicted was beyond computation. At
Cyzicus a temple which its builders fondly hoped would be as stable
and as durable as the pyramids was, in an instant, leveled with the
ground by one of those periodical earth shocks that have visited Asia
Minor from time immemorial.
In the destructive earthquake of 365 A. D., no fewer than fifty
thousand persons lost their lives in Alexandria. But probably no city
in the world has suffered more from seismic vibrations than Antioch,
which is near the southern border of Cilicia. Here in the terrific
earthquake of 526 A. D., the loss of life totaled a full quarter of a
million people. During the celebration of a public festival in Greece,
at which a vast multitude had assembled, “the whole population was
swallowed up in the midst of the ceremonies.” It was during this
period of widespread catastrophe in Greece that “the ravages of
earthquakes began to figure in history as an important cause of the
impoverished and declining condition of the country.”[225]
The same causes that led to the economic and social decline of
Greece operated with equally dire results in Asia Minor and Syria and
Palestine. When, therefore, we contemplate the countless ruins of
once famous cities, that are so conspicuous in a great part of Greece
and Turkey in Asia, let us assign them to their real causes—not “the
ravaging Turks,” but the devastating Huns and Goths, Tartars and
Mongols, Persians and Saracens, and the blind and convulsive forces
of nature.
It is far from my purpose to excuse the Osmanlis from any of the
crimes they have perpetrated against civilization. But the foregoing
paragraphs evince that their part in the destruction of the proud
cities and monuments—magnificent centers of culture and
commerce—of the ancient world has been greatly exaggerated.
Their great sin against humanity, at least for generations past, has
been one of omission rather than commission.[226] It has consisted
—I speak of the ruling classes—in their inefficient government,
which has given little or no encouragement to trade or industry;
which has neglected roads and bridges, making interior
communication difficult and often impossible; which has failed to
develop the vast resources of a country to which a beneficent nature
has been rarely prodigal; which has oppressed and trodden down a
laborious and long-suffering peasantry, than which there is no better
in the world; which has failed to provide for the education of the