had been well nigh extinguished, and grew into grandeur and magnificence, not as the liberty and happiness of the nation increased, but as the power and wealth of the emperors waxed greater and greater, and reached its culminating point of magnitude, though not of taste, in the days of Caracalla and Diocletian.

The early Romans however, as we have said, were not altogether insensible to the beauties of art; and if they had not genius to produce, they had power to seize and to transport to Italy the finest specimens which the known world could furnish. Some of the earliest examples of this system of spoliation have been quoted, and it continued so long as Rome continued to conquer. Whatever was beautiful in vanquished cities, if only portable, was conveyed to the capital, and was used, if practicable, first to adorn the cruel triumphal procession, and permanently to ornament one or other of the various places of general resort, where they served the double purpose of gratifying the public eye, and of stirring up the minds of youth to farther acts of conquest and of spoliation, that they too might, in their turn, contribute to the adornment of the capital of the world.

When Egypt was conquered, it was natural that the beautiful obelisks should excite the cupidity of the victors, and that they should desire to convey them to their own capital, both as objects worthy of all admiration, and as most enduring trophies.

They employed them in various ways. Many of them were set up on the Spinæ of the principal circuses, where latterly they seem to have been regarded as almost indispensable ornaments.* Two were placed in front of the

* "Et mediis centri summus obeliscus abit."-Epigr. de Circensibus, quoted by Hoffman.

Mausoleum of Augustus, and one was employed as the gnomon of an enormous sun-dial.

We learn from Publius Victor, that at one time fortyeight existed in Rome, six of the largest size, and forty-two smaller.* The first of these was imported by Augustus, and the last by Constantius, during a period of rather more than three centuries. Of the forty-eight, twelve only now remain erect in Rome; but fortunately several of them are of the largest size. Of the other thirty-six, one is now at Florence, one in France, one or two are known to exist under the earth in Rome, especially one under the Church of the Jesuits, of large size, but which cannot be extracted without pulling down a corner of the church, and the greater part of an adjoining palace. It is probable that the remaining thirty-two are still more or less safely covered up amid the ruins of ancient Rome, and may yet repay the labour of the excavator. They are formed of a most durable material, not easily injured, even wilfully, and not liable to decay. Most of those found have indeed been broken, but the fractures are the evident result of their fall; and it is satisfactory to know, that we possess the finest of them all in a state of almost perfect preservation.

The ancient Romans must have had an intense admiration of these obelisks, for they conveyed them at enormous expense from the banks of the Nile to the banks of the Tiber, and in this they deserve all credit for their taste.

There is no form more perfect, no outline more beautiful, than that of an obelisk. View it in whatever direction we may, its figure is complete, and the material of which those brought to Rome is composed, leaves nothing to be desired.

VOL. V.

* Publius Victor de Regionibus.

K

So far as we know, they were all extracted from the large grained red granite quarries of Syene in Upper Egypt. This rock, termed "Syenite" by mineralogists, is so named from these quarries, and it is distinguished from common granite, by containing hornblende in place of mica. But granite and syenite can scarcely be distinguished from each other by the general appearance, and in the rocks the component parts vary, and both granite and syenite in many varieties occur at Syene. A similar rock occurs in our own and in many countries, but nowhere of the same brilliant colour, nor in the same gigantic

masses.

A genuine obelisk is a monolithic monument of four equal sides, tapering very gradually from the base upwards, and generally terminating in a pyramidion, though in a few instances the termination is flat, and occasionally the sides are not equal, but two of one size and two of another. The proportions vary considerably, and it may be they were partly determined by the form of the stone as first obtained from the rock; it was desirable to make use of every portion, and hence in some the terminating pyramidion is very long, and in others very short, in proportion to the shaft. It is thus defined by Am. Marcellinus"Est autem obeliscus asperrimus lapis, in figuram metæ cujusdam sensim ad proceritatem consurgens excelsam; utque radium imitetur gracilescens, paulisper specie quadratâ in verticem productus angustum manu levigatus artifici."-Am. Marcellinus, xvii. 4.

It has been supposed, that the original idea of an obelisk was to represent a ray of the sun's light, or a flame, and both the form and the material correspond with the idea. The Greek word obeλaxos, a diminutive from obelos, a spit, points to a less poetic origin, and even the

word bexo is thus used by Diodorus Siculus (v. 28) in describing an Egyptian dinner,* and in another place he uses the word in a totally different sense, as a pipe or conduit, when describing a great flood at Rhodes.†

The warm red colour of the granite of Syene is completely associated in our minds with the idea of an obelisk. We can hardly think of it as formed of any other material, and certainly no other produces the full genuine effect.

The obelisks were admired by all strangers who visited Egypt, and even the ruthless destroyer Cambyses is said to have been so struck by the exquisite beauty of one of those at Thebes, that he spared it alone of all the monuments of that glorious city.‡

The mysterious characters engraven upon them attracted the attention of intelligent travellers, and it is curious to notice how, from the time of Herodotus downwards, the Egyptian priests seem to have carried on a regular system of mystification, and sent home the inquisitive Greeks and Romans, crammed with information, all tending to exalt the glory of Egypt and the Egyptian priesthood, with little regard to historic truth and accuracy.

The notices of obelisks in the Latin classics are few and slight. Although Egypt was reduced to a Roman

* σε Και λεβητας εχουσι και οβελισκους πληρεις κρεων ολομερων.”

66

Ollisque ac verubus, quæ integrorum carnibus membrorum re

ferta sunt, instructi." Diod. Siculus, v. 28.

66

† « Των δε εν τοις τείχεσι οβελισκων συμφραχθέντων.”

"Et tubis murorum obstructis." - Ibid. xix. 45.

‡ “Hac admiratione operis effectum est, ut cum oppidum id expugnaret Cambyses Rex, ventumque esset incendio ad crepidines obelisci extingui ignem juberet molis reverentia qui urbis nullam habuerat."-Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 9.

province by Augustus, none of the authors of his age, so far as we can find, take the least notice of the noble monuments he brought from thence to Rome. Our information regarding them is all derived from subsequent writers and from the inscriptions on themselves.

The art of quarrying out and erecting obelisks, and sculpturing hieroglyphic inscriptions upon them is of great antiquity in Egypt, ascending up to a very early period of the monarchy, beyond the times of other records; and the precise dates remain to be yet determined by the decypherment and interpretation of the sculptures on the monuments themselves. The removal of the blocks from the rock seems to have been accomplished by wedges, for their marks still remain in the quarries. Herodotus attributes the first obelisks to Pheron, who erected two at the Temple of the Sun, in gratitude for the restoration of his sight, each of one stone, 100 cubits long and 8 cubits broad.* Pliny gives the name of Mitres to the first maker of an obelisk, and declares he had been commanded to do so in a dream.t

Ammianus Marcellinus says, that the hieroglyphics contained the principles of ancient wisdom, and adds, that single characters expressed nouns and verbs, and sometimes entire sentences. Pliny states, that the hieroglyphic

* σε Οβέλους δυο λιθινους, ἐξ ἑνος έοντα εκατερον λιθου, μῆκος μεν εκατερον πήχεων έκατον, ουρος δε οκτω πηχεων.” — Herod. ii. 3.

↑ "Primus omnium id instituit Mitres, qui in Solis urbe regnabat, somnio jussus, et hoc ipsum inscriptum est in eo."-Pliny, xxxvi. 8.

"Non autem, ut nunc literarum numerus præstitutus et facilis exprimit quidquid humana mens concipere potest, ita prisci quoque scriptitarunt Ægyptii, sed singulæ litteræ singulis nominibus serviebant et verbis; nonnunquam significabant integros sensus."—Am. Marcell. xvii. 4.