194

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XIX.

chose rather to embellish the capital by thegift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote butpolished age, which seems to have precededthe invention of alphabetical writing, a greatnumber of these obelisks had been erected, inthe cities of Thebes and Heliopolis , by the an-cient sovereigns of Egypt , in a just confidencethat the simplicity of their form, and the hard-ness of their substance, would resist the inju-ries of time and violence. 1 Several of these ex-traordinary columns had been transported toRome by Augustus and his successors, as themost durable monuments of their power andvictory;" but there remained one obelisk, which,from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long timethe rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It wasdesigned by Constantine to adorn his new city;*and, after being removed by his order from thepedestal where it stood before the temple of theSun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of Constantine sus-pended the execution of his purpose, and thisobelisk was destined by his son to the ancientcapital of the empire. A vessel of uncommonstrength and capaciousness was provided to

' When Germanicus visited the ancient monumeuts of Thebes , theeldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of these hierogly-phics. Tacit. Annal. ii, c. CO. But it seems probable, that before theuseful invention of an alphabet, these natural or arbitrary signs werethe common characters of the Egyptian nation. See Warburton’j De-vine Legation of Moses, vol. iii, p. CO-243.

“ See Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. xxxvi, c. 14, 15.

1 Ammian. Marccllin. 1. xvii, c. 4. He gives us a Greek interpreta-tion of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator Lindcnbrogius adds aLatin inscription, which, in twenty verses of the age of Constantins,contain a short history of the obelisk.