DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4023#0064
18 TRAVELS IN EGYPT
giyphics: the shafts of pillars, and the pieces of marble employed in the bulwarks*
have not any neither. It is proper, therefore, to search for some way of recon-
ciling this contradiction, and to give a good account of the affair, in order to
render our proof acceptable; this is what I mall attempt to execute.
At the time of Alexander, and under his successbrs, the taste of Egyptian
architecture was no longer in vogue. Greece, though slie had drawn from
Egypt the first principles of that art, had substituted there an architecture much
more light, and adorned in a quite different manner. The Greeks, not having
the immense riches of the Egyptians, nor, like them, abundance of materials,
nor multitudes of workmen, renounced that solid architecture. They even
considered it afterwards as defective, and producing nothing but heavy piles of
building, and without taste. They fixed rules for the different orders of ar-
chitecture, and they carried them so far, that they came even to think them-
felves the first inventors of that art.
Alexander, imbued in his youth with the principles of his country, dis-
dained to adopt those of a kingdom he had subdued; and besides, it would not
have redounded to his honour to raise there buildings which would have been in-
ferior to the least of those, that had been preserved in the country. It will therefore
be easily admitted, that all the temples and all the palaces, which this prince or his
successors raised, were built in the taste and according to the rules of Greece.
The materials, which they took from the ruins of Memphis, could not be em-
ployed, without being fashioned a-new according to the order of that architecture.
This order was extremely light in comparison of the other: thus there was a
great deal to take away. They respeded not hieroglyphics, of which they had
no longer any knowledge. The Greeks looked on them even with envy, be-
cause they contained the mysteries of religion, and of those arts, of which they
pretended to be the sole inventors. Let us not then be surprized, if we find
not hieroglyphics upon marbles, that are taken out of the ruins of Alexandria.
It was not likely that there should be any on them. If the rules of the new
architecture did not require those hieroglyphics to be taken away, yet still they
would have effaced them, that they might not have appeared in edifices, with
which they had no connexion. What an indecency, for example, would it
have been, to have employed a column, covered with hieroglyphics, together with
a column of the corinthian order ?
We mould properly consider the ruins of Memphis only as a rough quarry,
from whence they drew stones, in order to cut them into a suitable fashion. It
would have been impossible to collect together all the pieces in such a manner
that they could have served for edifices, like those, wherein they had been em-
ployed. As soon as one supposes, that those edifices were in ruins, one must
expect in them nothing that is intire; and there would have been likewise an
impossibility of re-establishing what was wanting. Reasons of ambition and of
jealousy, as we have observed, opposed any such attempt; and we cannot be
ignorant of the obstruftion that a natural cause occasioned, since, in the time of
Alex-
giyphics: the shafts of pillars, and the pieces of marble employed in the bulwarks*
have not any neither. It is proper, therefore, to search for some way of recon-
ciling this contradiction, and to give a good account of the affair, in order to
render our proof acceptable; this is what I mall attempt to execute.
At the time of Alexander, and under his successbrs, the taste of Egyptian
architecture was no longer in vogue. Greece, though slie had drawn from
Egypt the first principles of that art, had substituted there an architecture much
more light, and adorned in a quite different manner. The Greeks, not having
the immense riches of the Egyptians, nor, like them, abundance of materials,
nor multitudes of workmen, renounced that solid architecture. They even
considered it afterwards as defective, and producing nothing but heavy piles of
building, and without taste. They fixed rules for the different orders of ar-
chitecture, and they carried them so far, that they came even to think them-
felves the first inventors of that art.
Alexander, imbued in his youth with the principles of his country, dis-
dained to adopt those of a kingdom he had subdued; and besides, it would not
have redounded to his honour to raise there buildings which would have been in-
ferior to the least of those, that had been preserved in the country. It will therefore
be easily admitted, that all the temples and all the palaces, which this prince or his
successors raised, were built in the taste and according to the rules of Greece.
The materials, which they took from the ruins of Memphis, could not be em-
ployed, without being fashioned a-new according to the order of that architecture.
This order was extremely light in comparison of the other: thus there was a
great deal to take away. They respeded not hieroglyphics, of which they had
no longer any knowledge. The Greeks looked on them even with envy, be-
cause they contained the mysteries of religion, and of those arts, of which they
pretended to be the sole inventors. Let us not then be surprized, if we find
not hieroglyphics upon marbles, that are taken out of the ruins of Alexandria.
It was not likely that there should be any on them. If the rules of the new
architecture did not require those hieroglyphics to be taken away, yet still they
would have effaced them, that they might not have appeared in edifices, with
which they had no connexion. What an indecency, for example, would it
have been, to have employed a column, covered with hieroglyphics, together with
a column of the corinthian order ?
We mould properly consider the ruins of Memphis only as a rough quarry,
from whence they drew stones, in order to cut them into a suitable fashion. It
would have been impossible to collect together all the pieces in such a manner
that they could have served for edifices, like those, wherein they had been em-
ployed. As soon as one supposes, that those edifices were in ruins, one must
expect in them nothing that is intire; and there would have been likewise an
impossibility of re-establishing what was wanting. Reasons of ambition and of
jealousy, as we have observed, opposed any such attempt; and we cannot be
ignorant of the obstruftion that a natural cause occasioned, since, in the time of
Alex-