Another of the great obelisks of Rome is that which stands on Monte Citorio, in front of the present Parliament House.  It was brought to Rome by Augustus, who dedicated it anew to the sun, and placed it as the gnomon of a meridian in the midst of the Campus Martius.  Originally it had been erected at Heliopolis in honour of Psammeticus I., who reigned about seven hundred years before Christ.  This monarch lived during a time when the national religion had become corrupted, and the whole land had come under the influence of Greek thought and Greek customs.  But the obelisk which he erected is worthy of the best period of Egyptian art.  It is universally admired for the remarkable beauty of its hieroglyphics.  The anonymous pilgrim of Einsiedlen mentions that this obelisk was still erect when he visited Rome about the beginning of the ninth century.  It seems, however, to have fallen and to have been broken in pieces, nearly three hundred years later, during the terrible conflagration caused by the Norman troops of Robert Guiscard.  Several fragments of it were dug up, one after another, during the sixteenth century.  The principal part of the shaft was discovered in 1748, among the ruins beneath the choir of the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina.  These portions were damaged in such a way as to show clearly the action of fire, proving that the obelisk had been destroyed in the great fire of 1084.  Pope Pius VI. gathered together the fragments, and with the aid of granite pieces taken from the ruined column of Antoninus Pius, which stood in the neighbourhood, he formed of these a whole shaft, which represents, as nearly as possible, the original obelisk.  It is seventy-two feet high, and is surmounted by a globe and a small pyramid of bronze, which, along with its pedestal, increases its height to one hundred and thirty-four feet.  A portion of the lines of the celebrated sun-dial, whose gnomon it formed, was brought to light under the sacristy of San Lorenzo in Lucina in 1463.

All the other obelisks in Rome belong to comparatively recent periods, to the decadence of Egypt.  None of them are of any great significance to the student of archaeology.  Several of them were executed in Egypt by order of the Roman emperors, and are therefore not genuine but imitation obelisks.  Of this kind may be mentioned the Esquiline and Quirinal obelisks, which were brought to Rome by the emperor Claudius, and placed in the old Egyptian manner, one on each side of the entrance to the great mausoleum of Augustus in the Campus Martius.  They are both destitute of hieroglyphics and are broken into several pieces.  One now stands on Monte Cavallo, in front of the great Quirinal Palace, betwixt the two well-known gigantic groups of men and horses, statues of Greek origin, supposed to be those of Castor and Pollux, executed by Pheidias and Praxiteles; and the other in the large open space in front of the great Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.  Another of these bastard obelisks