DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0186
170
Pliny relates the same extraordinary phenomenon of a statue
at Thebes, said to be that of Memnon; and which, he says, was
of a stone like basalt, of the same colour and hardness as iron.
Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, gives a long
account of this statue, as seen by Damis, the companion of the
philosopher and magician, without mentioning the circumstance
of its being broken ; so that it must either have been repaired
before his time, or he is speaking of another statue: he says
that it was that of a youth, and faced the East; that it uttered
a sound when the rays of the sun touched its lips: that the
hands were placed on the thighs, and the feet close together, as
was the case with all statues prior to the age of Daedalus. In
the two last circumstances the statue in question agrees with his
description ; but it has not the appearance of a youth, and it is
turned rather to the Southward of East. The same author speaks
of this vocal statue as connected with another series of colossal
Hermes-statues; a circumstance which has given credit to the
opinion of those who consider him to have been speaking of
that within the Memnonion. But these columnar statues, in imi-
tation of which the Grecian architects seem to have erected their
caryatides, were very common in the different buildings at Thebes;
r
that is, of the Sun : others 'Hii~ON, referring it to Memnon the son of Aurora. The
former reading appears the most natural.
The Latin translator, and his English imitator Mr. Taylor, seem erroneously to have
rendered ijv dTteppiij-ivov, the one by humi neglecta jacet, the other hy " lies on the
ground." Mr. Taylor has also rendered another part of this passage so as to make
Pausanias assert, that the statue itself was brought from Ethiopia into Egypt. This
supposition is in the highest degree improbable, not only l'rom the size of the monu-
ment, but likewise from the circumstance of its general resemblance to the other works
6f Egyptian statuaries, and from there being a quarry of gres rock in the mountains not
a mile and a half distant from the statue. The other statue, indeed, at the Memnoniou
of the French, which was of granite, must have been brought from the quarries of Ele-
phantine or Sycnc, on the borders of ^Ethiopia,
and
Pliny relates the same extraordinary phenomenon of a statue
at Thebes, said to be that of Memnon; and which, he says, was
of a stone like basalt, of the same colour and hardness as iron.
Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, gives a long
account of this statue, as seen by Damis, the companion of the
philosopher and magician, without mentioning the circumstance
of its being broken ; so that it must either have been repaired
before his time, or he is speaking of another statue: he says
that it was that of a youth, and faced the East; that it uttered
a sound when the rays of the sun touched its lips: that the
hands were placed on the thighs, and the feet close together, as
was the case with all statues prior to the age of Daedalus. In
the two last circumstances the statue in question agrees with his
description ; but it has not the appearance of a youth, and it is
turned rather to the Southward of East. The same author speaks
of this vocal statue as connected with another series of colossal
Hermes-statues; a circumstance which has given credit to the
opinion of those who consider him to have been speaking of
that within the Memnonion. But these columnar statues, in imi-
tation of which the Grecian architects seem to have erected their
caryatides, were very common in the different buildings at Thebes;
r
that is, of the Sun : others 'Hii~ON, referring it to Memnon the son of Aurora. The
former reading appears the most natural.
The Latin translator, and his English imitator Mr. Taylor, seem erroneously to have
rendered ijv dTteppiij-ivov, the one by humi neglecta jacet, the other hy " lies on the
ground." Mr. Taylor has also rendered another part of this passage so as to make
Pausanias assert, that the statue itself was brought from Ethiopia into Egypt. This
supposition is in the highest degree improbable, not only l'rom the size of the monu-
ment, but likewise from the circumstance of its general resemblance to the other works
6f Egyptian statuaries, and from there being a quarry of gres rock in the mountains not
a mile and a half distant from the statue. The other statue, indeed, at the Memnoniou
of the French, which was of granite, must have been brought from the quarries of Ele-
phantine or Sycnc, on the borders of ^Ethiopia,
and