Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

68 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

Dynasty they change again, the usual proportions being those which Diodoros
reports to have been common to all Egyptian art.

With the subjugation of Egypt by Alexander (332 B.C.), a change, indeed,
came over Egyptian affairs. The conqueror, by introducing the policy of leav-
ing the vanquished in the possession of their religion, arts, and customs,
happily secured for Egypt, after its centuries of warfare, two hundred and
seventy-five years of peace. After the death of Alexander's son, Egypt fell to
the Ptolemies, who form the Thirty-third Dynasty; and her political history
from now on was merged in the struggles of Greek princes. As true Greeks,
the Ptolemies, though often politically unfortunate, showed great zeal in lit-
erature and art. Under their patronage, Manetho, the Egyptian, wrote in
Greek the annals of his country; the sacred books of the Hebrews were trans-
lated in the Septuagint version, and the great library of four hundred thousand
volumes at Alexandria was collected. It was a Ptolemy who, according to a
wild report, brought back the twenty-five thousand Egyptian statues carried
off by Cambyses; and no dynasty after the Nineteenth erected more and
grander structures on the banks of the Nile than did these Greek rulers. But,
although the temples they erected are numerous and imposing, the sculptures
that adorn them are without character, and show great falling-off from true
Egyptian style. The architectural simplicity and strength of former times are
gone. The introduction of the free spirit of the Greeks could not rejuvenate,
rather does it seem to have hastened the decay of, the traditional art of Egypt.

With the Roman conquest, Egypt lost all political significance, and became
little more than the granary of Rome. The emperor Hadrian, with his passion
for every thing that was old, did, much for the encouragement of art in Egypt,
and sought to galvanize a new life into these antiquated forms. In honor of
his favorite Antinous, he caused a city to be built, and many costly monuments
to be erected. Before his tomb were sphinxes and obelisks ; but this Roman-
Egyptian art is characterless, — a mere affectation. The severe but beautiful
forms of the sculpture of the olden times, although retaining their rigidity,
became with every day more gross and careless. After the dismemberment of
the Roman dominion into the two rules of the East and the West, Egypt fell
to the Oriental ruler. It was not, however, until Theodosius promulgated his
famous edict, that Christianity became the religion of the state,—381 B.C.
The emperor ordered the closing of all the temples, and the destruction of the
figures of the gods, which many Egyptians of his day still adored. Thus was
consummated the destruction of pagan Egypt, with its Pantheon of innu-
merable gods. Thousands of statues, we are told, perished: the temples were
profaned and destroyed, leaving ruins which in the course of centuries have
been shrouded by the sands of the desert, but are now slowly throwing off
their covering mantle, and revealing their treasured secrets to the eager stu-
dent of antiquity.