Egypt felt no change on the death of Augustus.  The province was well governed during the whole of the reign of Tiberius, and the Alexandrians completed the beautiful temple to his honour, named the Sebaste, or Caesar’s Temple.  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 Thutmosis III. and carved by Ramses II., and which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors.  These obelisks are now generally known as “Cleopatra’s Needles.”  One of them, in 1878, was taken to London and set up on the Thames Embankment; the other was soon afterward brought to New York, and is now in Central Park in that city.  It is sixty-seven feet high to its sharpened apex, and seven feet, seven inches in diameter at its base.  On its face are deeply incised inscriptions in hieroglyphic character, giving the names Thutmosis III., Ramses II., and Seti II.

[Illustration:  022b.jpg fragments in wood painted]

The harsh justice with which Tiberius began his reign was at Rome soon changed into a cruel tyranny; but in the provinces it was only felt as a check to the injustice of the prefects.  On one occasion, when AEmilius Rectus sent home from Egypt a larger amount of taxes than was usual, he hoped that his zeal would be praised by Tiberius.  But the emperor’s message to the prefect was as stern as it was humane:  “I should wish my sheep to be sheared, but not to be flayed.”  On the death of one of the prefects, there was found among his property at Rome a statue of Menelaus, carved in Ethiopian obsidian, which had been used in the religious ceremonies in the temple of Heliopolis, and Tiberius returned it to the priests of that city as its rightful owners.  Another proof of the equal justice with which this province was governed was to be seen in the buildings then carried on by the priests in Upper Egypt.  We find the name of Tiberius carved in hieroglyphics on additions or repairs made to the temples at Thebes, at Aphroditopolis, at Berenice, on the Red Sea, at Philae, and at the Greek city of Parembole, in Nubia.  The great portico was at this time added to the temple at Tentyra, with an inscription dedicating it to the goddess in Greek and in hieroglyphics.  As a building is often the work of years, while sculpture is only the work of weeks, so the fashion of the former is always far less changing than that of the latter.  The sculptures on the walls of this beautiful portico are crowded and graceless; while, on the other hand, the building itself has the same grand simplicity and massive strength that we find in the older temples of Upper Egypt.