Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

Chap. I.] VOCAL STATUE OF JUEMNOiV. 33

wonder of the ancients, and the subject of some con-
troversy among modern writers; nor were the nu-
merous inscriptions, which decide it to have been
the Memnon of the Romans, sufficient to convince
every one that this was the statue reported by an-
cient authors to utter a sound at the rising of the
sun. Strabo, who visited it withiElius Gallus, the
governor of Egypt, confesses that he heard a sound,
but could " not affirm * whether it proceeded from
the pedestal, or from the statue itself, or even from
some of those who stood near its base;" and inde-
pendent of his total disbelief that it was uttered by
the stone itself, he does not hint that the name of
Memnon had as yet been given it. The supersti-
tion of the Roman visitors, however, shortly after,
ascribed it to the son of Tithonus, and a multitude
of inscriptions testified his miraculous powers, and
the credulity of the writers. Previous to Strabo's
time, the " upper part of this statue, above the
throne, had been broken and hurled down," as he
was told, " by the shock of an earthquake;" nor do
the repairs afterwards made to it appear to date
prior to the time of Juvenal, since the poetf thus
refers to its fractured condition :—

" Dimidio magicee resonant ubi Memnone chordae."

But from the account in the Apollonius Thyaneus of
Philostratus, we should conclude that the statue
had been already repaired as early as the age of

* Strabo, lib. xvii. f Juv., sat. xv.

D