Part 2
It was the habit of the human kind in those early ages—as, alas! is too often the case in the present day—to be puffed up by success and enfeebled by indulgence. So it fell out with the princes of Persia; for, in the latter years of their reign of two centuries in Egypt, the rulers became indolent and incompetent; they relied on others for the performance of duties which were inseparably their own; they enlisted an army of mercenaries in Greece; the mercenaries grew bold and powerful, and, in due time, seized on the possessions of their masters. The Greeks, in their turn, rushed forward to a similar fate; they conquered the world, and then, growing indifferent and luxurious, it was the easy task of the Romans to conquer them. Too enervated and too listless to maintain the greatness they had achieved, they purchased for their defence the help of the Roman soldiery; and the Roman legions, nothing loth, were not long before they occupied the throne of their employers. Three centuries saw the beginning and the ending of Greek rule in Egypt. Pompey and Julius Cæsar, fighting for the supremacy of the world, precipitated themselves on the oft-disputed battle-ground of Egypt; Pompey for refuge, Cæsar in pursuit; Pompey welcomed by false friends with the poniard, while, shortly afterwards, Cæsar fell by the hand of his colleagues and of his friend Brutus. And so it happened that Augustus, the renowned Roman emperor, became supreme sovereign of Egypt just thirty years before the Christian era; and Egypt was governed by the Romans for seven hundred years.
Ptolemy was the family surname of the Greek kings, and Cæsar that of the Roman emperors; so that it is not an uncommon thing to speak of the reign of the Ptolemies and the reign of the Cæsars; but as there were queens as well as kings among the Greeks, the prevailing name of the sovereign ladies was Cleopatra. The last of the Ptolemies left behind him, at his death, two sons and two daughters; both the sons were named Ptolemy, and the eldest daughter, Cleopatra.[5]
[5] Cleopatra the famous, was the sixth Cleopatra.
Cleopatra, says a popular author on the Greek dynasty (Samuel Sharpe), “had been a favourite name in Greece and with the royal families of Macedonia and Alexandria for at least four hundred years. What prettier name could be given to a little girl in her cradle, than to call her _the pride of her father_.” Nevertheless Cleopatra was harshly dealt with by her brother: their father had directed that his eldest son and daughter should rule conjointly; but Ptolemy endeavoured to secure the throne for himself, and Cleopatra was obliged to fly the country. In this emergency Cleopatra sought and secured the assistance of Julius Cæsar; her brother was beaten in battle and drowned in his endeavours to escape the pursuit of the victorious army, and she was restored to the throne by Cæsar to rule conjointly with her younger brother.
After the death of Cæsar, Cleopatra fell into disfavour with Mark Anthony. Mark Anthony was then at Tarsus, sovereign of the East, and tripartite ruler of the then known world. Tarsus is familiar to ourselves as the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, and the city which, in the infancy of Christianity, was enlightened by his teachings. It was situated on the river Cydnus; and here Cleopatra was commanded to appear before her powerful master Anthony, to meet the charges of misgovernment that had been made against her. “The beauty, sweetness, and gaiety of this young Queen,” says Sharpe, “joined to her great powers of mind, which were all turned to the art of pleasing, had quite overcome Anthony; he had sent for her as her master, but he was now her slave. Her playful wit was delightful; her voice was an instrument of many strings; she spake readily to every ambassador in his own language; and was said to be the only sovereign of Egypt who could understand the language of all her subjects:—Greek, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Troglodytic, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. With these charms, at the age of five-and-twenty, Anthony could deny her nothing.”
Our compassion is beginning to be enlisted for the sovereign and the judge; for behold, the culprit approaches:—“She entered the river Cydnus with the Egyptian fleet, in a magnificent galley. The stern was covered with gold; the sails were of scarlet cloth; and the silver oars beat time to the music of flutes and harps. The Queen, dressed like Venus, lay under an awning embroidered with gold, while pretty dimpled boys, like Cupids, stood on each side of the sofa fanning her. Her maidens, dressed like sea-nymphs and graces, handled the silken tackle, and steered the vessel; as they approached the town of Tarsus, the winds wafted the perfumes and the scent of the burning incense to the shores, which were lined with crowds who had come out to see her land.”
Shakspeare pursues the tempting theme in the same rapturous tone, having doubtless derived his history of Cleopatra, like Sharpe, from Plutarch.
“From the barge, A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast Her people out upon her. And Anthony, Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature. Upon her landing, Anthony sent to her; Invited her to supper: she replied, It should be better he became her guest; Which she intreated: our courteous Anthony, Whom ne’er the word of “No” woman heard speak, Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast, And for his ordinary pays his heart For what his eyes eat only.”
The Roman soldier marvelled at the loveliness of his hostess and the splendour of her entertainment, and was not unwilling to repeat his visit. Each sumptuous feast surpassed in gorgeous profusion that which had gone before it, until a bet was laid that Cleopatra would give a banquet which should cost £60,000. She came to the entertainment adorned with two magnificent earrings of pearl, the largest in the world, and part of her suite of crown-jewels. In the midst of the feast an attendant set before her a cup of vinegar; she took a pearl from her ear and dropped it into the vinegar, and, when it was dissolved, she drank off the contents of the cup as a pledge to her distinguished guest. One of Anthony’s friends, Plancus, adjudged that Anthony had lost the bet, and taking the other pearl from her ear, sent it to Italy, where it was cut in two and made into a pair of earrings for the statue of Venus, in the Pantheon of Rome.
A pleasant compliment had been paid, some two hundred years before that time, to another great Queen of Egypt, Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Euergetes. Euergetes had been called to the wars, and Berenice, who was remarkable for a splendid head of hair, vowed, in her grief, that she would cut it all off and offer it as a sacrifice to the gods if her husband returned in safety. Ptolemy was victorious, the hair was dutifully cut off, and hung up in the Temple of Venus; after a time the hair disappeared, and Conon, the astronomer, being appealed to, declared that it had been carried off by Jupiter, who spreading it forth in the azure vault of heaven, had made of it a constellation of seven stars, which, to this day, is known as the “Coma Berenicis;” literally, Berenice’s head of hair. There must have been grand prizes to be drawn in those lucky days by the fortunate: to be installed in the starry firmament could not otherwise be regarded than as a distinguished and lasting honour; and an astronomer who was desirous of standing well with the Court, had it in his power to pay an agreeable compliment. We can fancy Astronomer Conon, after a courteous reception at the palace, saying, as he took his leave, “Your name, Madam, shall be enrolled among the constellations, to shine brightly for ever and ever more.” It was a pretty piece of scientific patronage, and convincing; for, of course, no further search was made for Berenice’s curls.
These pleasant stories convey to us, as well as anything can, the admiration of the Egyptians for their lovely ones, and the ideal inspiration which associates itself with a name. We can no longer wonder that two superb obelisks, chiselled in the best period of Egyptian art, sculptured in the rose-coloured granite of the renowned quarries of Syené at the extremest limit of the kingdom, and set up in the midst of the regal city, made doubly lustrous by the presence of its beautiful Queen, and probably within the precincts of her favourite palace, should have received the name of Cleopatra’s Needles; nor, that that name should be borne by them to all futurity.[6]
[6] Cleopatra’s Needle at Alexandria is the subject of the vignette on our title-page: it exhibits the infirm condition of the base of the obelisk; and it has been represented to the Egyptian government that, unless steps are taken to render it secure, it will probably share the fate of its fellow monolith. In the figure the pedestal is partially stripped of the earth and rubbish with which it is ordinarily covered.
We assume, therefore, that the name of Cleopatra, associated with the two beautiful obelisks brought from Heliopolis, represents the popularity of the Queen, and the affectionate regard of her subjects, rather than any participation of herself in their transport or erection; and we are borne out in that presumption by Mr. Waynman Dixon’s recent discovery of an inscription, engraved in Greek and Latin on the bronze supports of the standing obelisk. The inscription to which we refer reads as follows:—
Anno VIII. Cæsaris;—Barbarus, præfectus Ægypti, posuit;—Architectore Pontio.
“In the eighth year of Cæsar (Augustus), Barbarus, prefect of Egypt, erected this, Pontius being the architect.”
Now, the eighth year of the reign of Cæsar Augustus, which he himself dated from the battle of Actium, was twenty-three years before the birth of Christ; and, consequently, seven years after the death of Cleopatra. It is not, however, at all improbable that Queen Cleopatra may have designed as well as contributed to the decoration of the palace during her lifetime, and that the setting-up of the obelisks may have been part of her plan. History likewise informs us that this grand palace of the Cæsars, the Cæsarium, was not finally completed until fifty years later—namely, in the reign of Tiberius. Mr. Sharpe says of it, that “it stood by the side of the harbour, and was surrounded with a sacred grove. It was ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up with libraries, paintings, and statues, and was the most lofty building in the city. In front of this temple they set up two ancient obelisks which had been made by Thothmes III., and carved by Rameses II.; and which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors. One of the obelisks has fallen to the ground, but the other is still standing, and bears the name of Cleopatra’s Needle.” Both obelisks, and consequently both Needles, are reported as having been standing at the end of the twelfth century.
And this brings us to the question:—What are these obelisks? and more particularly:—What is the British obelisk, of which its fellow at Alexandria is termed Cleopatra’s Needle? The answer is:—that the sculptures on the four sides of the monument, its hieroglyphs or sacred writing, or more popularly, its picture-writing, declare it to be an invocation addressed to the deities of Egypt; a proclamation of the grandeur and deserts of the Pharaoh, by whom it is dedicated; his victories; his construction of temples and monuments; his love of justice, and his other exalted qualities, not forgetting the erection of this obelisk; the proclamation concluding with a prayer for health and a strong life. In the present instance the petitioner-in-chief is Thothmes III., and in the second place, Rameses II. Thothmes III., also called Thothmes the Great, was a distinguished Pharaoh, of a distinguished dynasty, the eighteenth, renowned for its grandeur and magnificence; and of his reign it has been said that Egypt could then plant the boundary of her territory wherever she chose. Rameses II. was likewise styled “Rameses the Great;” and by the Greek historian Herodotus, Sesostris: he was a Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty; in his early days a victorious soldier; and during the remainder of his long reign, a devoted cultivator of the arts of civilisation and peace. So that those who are discontent with the euphonious title of “Cleopatra’s Needle,” and prefer to be rigorously precise in their language, must contrive to familiarise their voice and their ear with the less euphonious title of “Thothmes-Rameses obelisk.”
This obelisk bears evidence of having been constructed at the command of Thothmes, inasmuch as the legend of that monarch occupies the place of honour on its shaft—namely, the central portion of the face of the monument, extending from the top to the bottom; while the two sides of each face are devoted to that of Rameses. It is furthermore worthy of note, that about two hundred years must have intervened between the action of Thothmes and that of Rameses in relation to this obelisk. And consequently that the central and side columns of hieroglyphs represent periods of art of, at least, two centuries apart. It is also not a little singular that a king of vast renown, like Rameses the Great, should have preferred to publish the record of his own brilliant titles by the side of those of his distinguished predecessor, rather than raise a separate obelisk as an independent memorial of himself. Was it a submissive deference to the grandeur of his ancestor? Was it the ambition of linking his own name with that of the magnificent Thothmes? Or was it a part of that eccentricity of character which led him to stamp his escutcheon on several other works of his predecessors, and in some instances to obliterate their names in order to give his own a prominent place? In the present instance, we should be unwilling to treat of the combination as a blot, but would rather condone the offence—if such it be—and congratulate ourselves that the obelisk bears the insignia of two such grand Pharaonic personages. Thothmes III. and Rameses II. were undoubtedly the two greatest monarchs among the Pharaohs of Egypt; and the latter, besides being remarkable for the construction of temples and for his magnificent sculptures, was equally so for his eagerness to render his name universal. His cartouche[7] is to be met with extensively distributed all over Egypt, and also in those neighbouring countries which had been conquered by the Egyptian arms. He is the author of a considerable number of Egyptian obelisks; and his desire to occupy with his titles every vacant space of stone, is exhibited, not only by the writing on the British obelisk, but also by his appropriation of two sides of two obelisks erected in the great temple of Karnak by Thothmes the First. With respect to the age of our own monument, it seems not improbable that the order for the British obelisk was given about sixteen hundred years before the Christian era; and consequently that its age, at the present time, may be taken to be about 3,500 years.
[7] Cartouche is a word introduced into Egyptology by Champollion; it signifies a scroll, or label, or escutcheon, on which the name of a Pharaoh is inscribed. Early Egyptologists had had their interest and curiosity awakened by observing the enclosure of certain hieroglyphs within an oval outline; and further research discovered that the ovals included hieroglyphs representing royal names and titles. The oval, or cartouche, is to be regarded therefore as the seal, or signet, or heraldic cypher of a king or potentate, and its presence on an obelisk or monument confers a right of authorship or proprietorship, and informs us to whom the monument belongs. The seal likewise typifies _renovation_ and _immortality_, and on this account was selected as the badge of kings, to render immortality, which all Egyptians eagerly aspire to, the more secure. It is impossible to read Egyptian monuments correctly without a knowledge of the royal cartouches.
We have now lying before us an engraving, for which we are indebted to Captain Cotton, of Quex Park, in Thanet; an engraving published by Colnaghi, in May, 1803,[8] which bears the following legend:—“The obelisk at Alexandria, generally called Cleopatra’s Needle, as cleared to its base by the British troops in Egypt, and similar to the one lying by it, intended to be brought to England. From the original drawing by Lieut.-Colonel Montresor, 80th Regiment, in the possession of the Right Honourable the Earl of Cavan, then Commanding-in-chief His Majesty’s forces in Egypt.” In this engraving, Cleopatra’s Needle stands close to the sea, on a square pedestal mounted on three step-like plinths; and is surrounded with broken arches, which may possibly have belonged to a magnificent temple or palace; while behind it are the towers and ruins of a part of the ancient city wall, and in the distance, stretching away into the sea, the promontory, on which stands the smaller lighthouse, or Pharillon. In recent photographs little is seen of these massive and extensive ruins; the Needle is sunk in a hole, the pedestal being lost to the sight, in a stonemason’s yard; and the fallen obelisk is buried in the sand. “In 1849,” says Mr. Macgregor, the celebrated canoe traveller, “this neglected gift was only half buried; but, in 1869, it was so completely hidden, that not even the owner of the workshop, where it lies, could point out to me the exact spot of its sandy grave.” The Rev. Alfred Charles Smith corroborates the forlorn condition of the fallen obelisk at about the same date. “It is not only prostrate,” he says, “but buried beneath a mass of rubbish; and, I doubt not, is now hopelessly covered in by the foundations of a house, for which preparations were being made at the time of our visit. We were so far benefited by the labours of the workmen, that we had a better view of the prostrate obelisk than has fallen to the lot of recent travellers, inasmuch as, in excavating the ground at this spot, the labourers had uncovered nearly the entire length of the recumbent granite, and as they were just about to fill-in the earth around, I suppose we were the last tourists who have looked in upon the open grave of this renowned relic, * * * * though I am bound to add it is the most dilapidated, weather-worn, and ill-conditioned of all its brethren on the banks of the Nile.” _Nous verrons._
[8] The battle of Alexandria was fought within sight of Cleopatra’s Needle, in March, 1801.
The term “Needle” is familiar to our ear as designating a pointed shaft soaring upwards into the sky. In this sense we adopt it as the name of certain pointed rocks rising perpendicularly out of the sea, such as the “Needles” of the Isle of Wight; and it has been similarly applied to two of the obelisks of Heliopolis, Pharaoh’s Needles, which were removed by Constantine. It is a term peculiarly suitable to the obelisk, which, according to Johnson, is “a magnificent high piece of solid marble or other fine stone, having usually four faces, and lessening upwards by degrees till it ends in a point like a pyramid.” The term obelisk is of Greek origin, derived from the word “_obelos_,” a spit; conveying the idea of a pointed implement; but its Arab synonym is still more explicit—namely, “_meselleh_,” which literally means “a packing needle or skewer;” the ancient Egyptian name of obelisk being _tekn_.
The Egyptian obelisks have two other important features:—first, they are monoliths, and secondly, they are hewn out of the quarries of rose-coloured granite of Syené. By monolith is meant “a single stone,” from the Greek words “monos,” one or single, and “lithos,” a stone, and is intended to signify that the object is formed of a single piece; therefore we have good reason for our wonder when we see before us a stately shaft of granite consisting of a single piece, very little short of a hundred feet in height, and weighing nearly two hundred tons.[9]
[9] The real weight of the British obelisk is 186 tons, seven hundredweight, two stones, eleven pounds; and its cubic measurement 2,529 feet.
The Egyptian obelisk has another peculiarity; it is rarely uniform in breadth on all its four sides; the opposites agree, but the neighbouring sides differ. This difference is clearly not intentional, but a possible consequence of the method of splitting so gigantic a shaft from its mother-rock. The British obelisk, for example, measures 7 feet 5 inches in breadth at its base on one side, and close upon 8 feet (7 ft. 10½ in.) on the adjoining side—a difference of five inches and a-half; while similar measurements of the Alexandrian obelisk give 7 feet 9¾ inches, and 8 feet 2¼ inches—a difference of only two inches and a-half. The proper proportions of the shaft of an obelisk, exclusive of its pyramidion, are said to be ten times the breadth of the base. Now if we apply this rule to the British obelisk, its height should be nearly eighty feet, whereas its extremest height, from the base to the point, is _sixty-eight feet five inches and a-half_. From its base of 7 feet 5, or 7 feet 10½ inches, it tapers gradually upwards to a breadth of 4 feet 10 inches, or 5 feet 1 inch; and then contracts into a pointed pyramid of 7 feet 6 inches high. The Alexandrian obelisk is hardly so tall as the British obelisk, and measures 67 feet 2 inches. But when the British obelisk shall have been raised on its pedestal of ten feet square, and mounted on plinths, the monument will then have an altitude of over eighty feet. Comparing it with the Paris obelisk, the latter is seventy-six feet and a-half in height, consequently nearly eight feet higher than the British obelisk: whereas one of Pharaoh’s Needles, set up before the Lateran Church in Rome, was originally more than 108 feet high; but having lost part of its base, at present measures 105 feet 7 inches.
The rose-coloured granite of Syené, the so-called “Syenite,” has acquired a world-wide reputation for its beauty of colour, the lustre of its polish, and its hardness of texture. In the dry climate of Upper Egypt, where a rainy day occurs only four or five times in the year, this granite may be said to be absolutely indestructible; and therefore it is that the Egyptian sculptures and obelisks, more than four thousand years old, come down to us almost as fresh as if they had just issued from the workman’s hand. The engraving of the hieroglyphs is often several inches in depth, its hollows carefully polished, and the work comparable to the delicate carving of a gem.