DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0127
117
were permitted to go upon it.1 These are probably the most an-
cient monuments of art now extant; at least, if we except some
of the neighbouring temples of Thebes; both having been cer-
tainly erected when that city was the seat of wealth and empire; as
it seuvis to have been, even proverbially, in the time of the Trojan
war.1 How long it had then been so, we can form no conjecture;
but that it soon after declined, theie can be little doubt; for,
when the Greeks, in the reign of Psammetichus (generally com-
puted to have been about 530 years after, but probably more)
became personally acquainted with JEgypt,3 Memphis had been
for many ages its capital, and Thebes was in a manner de-
serted.
ii \,: KjWoft "*° 8J2i?»oo chin- uiii:>nil -nil lo -j.-tsd •►dl.Vr'rmq
148. We may therefore reasonably infer that the greatest part
of the superb edifices now remaining were executed or at least
begun before the Uomenc or even Trojan times, many of
them being such as could not have been finished but in a long
course of years, even supposing the wealth and resources of the
ancient kings of iEgvpt to have equalled that of the greatest of the
Roman emperors. The completion of Trajan's column in three
years has been justly deemed a very extraordinary effort; as there
could not have been less than three hundred sculptors employed:
and yet at Thebes the ruins of which, according to Strabo, ex-
tended ten miles on both sides of the Nile,4 we find whole temples
and obelisks of enormous magnitude covered with figures carved
out of the hard and brittle granite of the Libyan mountains, in-
stead of the soft and yielding marbles of Faros and Carara. To
judge, too, of the mode and degree of their finish by those on
the obelitk of Rameses, once a part of them, but now lying in
' Diodur. Sic. lib. p. 25. cd. Wesf. - See II. I. v. £81.
3 npcDTOS (o "¥ap.HT)Tiiws) tw icar hi-yvnTov $aai\euv avecufe toi? aWois e0ce<ri ra
Kara tt\v aKKrpi x&iptw e/tjropia. This prince was the fifth before Amasis who
died in the 2nd year of the Ixiiird. Olympiad, in which Caml^ses invaded
.Egypt. Diodpr. Sic. lib. i. p. 78 and 0.
4 Kai vw Scutvvrai 3' i%','7 tov HtytOovs avnjs ctti oySor]ieoyTa araSwvs to fiTjuof.
lib. xvii. j>. 81(1.
were permitted to go upon it.1 These are probably the most an-
cient monuments of art now extant; at least, if we except some
of the neighbouring temples of Thebes; both having been cer-
tainly erected when that city was the seat of wealth and empire; as
it seuvis to have been, even proverbially, in the time of the Trojan
war.1 How long it had then been so, we can form no conjecture;
but that it soon after declined, theie can be little doubt; for,
when the Greeks, in the reign of Psammetichus (generally com-
puted to have been about 530 years after, but probably more)
became personally acquainted with JEgypt,3 Memphis had been
for many ages its capital, and Thebes was in a manner de-
serted.
ii \,: KjWoft "*° 8J2i?»oo chin- uiii:>nil -nil lo -j.-tsd •►dl.Vr'rmq
148. We may therefore reasonably infer that the greatest part
of the superb edifices now remaining were executed or at least
begun before the Uomenc or even Trojan times, many of
them being such as could not have been finished but in a long
course of years, even supposing the wealth and resources of the
ancient kings of iEgvpt to have equalled that of the greatest of the
Roman emperors. The completion of Trajan's column in three
years has been justly deemed a very extraordinary effort; as there
could not have been less than three hundred sculptors employed:
and yet at Thebes the ruins of which, according to Strabo, ex-
tended ten miles on both sides of the Nile,4 we find whole temples
and obelisks of enormous magnitude covered with figures carved
out of the hard and brittle granite of the Libyan mountains, in-
stead of the soft and yielding marbles of Faros and Carara. To
judge, too, of the mode and degree of their finish by those on
the obelitk of Rameses, once a part of them, but now lying in
' Diodur. Sic. lib. p. 25. cd. Wesf. - See II. I. v. £81.
3 npcDTOS (o "¥ap.HT)Tiiws) tw icar hi-yvnTov $aai\euv avecufe toi? aWois e0ce<ri ra
Kara tt\v aKKrpi x&iptw e/tjropia. This prince was the fifth before Amasis who
died in the 2nd year of the Ixiiird. Olympiad, in which Caml^ses invaded
.Egypt. Diodpr. Sic. lib. i. p. 78 and 0.
4 Kai vw Scutvvrai 3' i%','7 tov HtytOovs avnjs ctti oySor]ieoyTa araSwvs to fiTjuof.
lib. xvii. j>. 81(1.