History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 326 pages of information about History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12).

History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 326 pages of information about History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12).
death used from time to time to leave his body, and wander over the earth as a spirit, till his wife, tired of his coming back again so often, put a stop to it by having his mummy burnt.  He gives us for the first time Eastern tales in a Greek dress, and we thus learn the source from which Europe gained much of its literature in the Middle Ages.  The Alexandrian author of greatest note at this time was the historian Appian, who tells us that he had spent some years in Rome practising as a lawyer, and returned to Egypt on being appointed to a high post in the government of his native city.  There he wrote his Roman history.

In this reign the Jews, forgetful of what they had just suffered under Trajan, again rose against the power of Rome; and, when Judaea rebelled against its prefect, Tinnius Rufus, a little army of Jews marched out of Egypt and Libya, to help their brethren and to free the holy land (130 A.D.).  But they were everywhere routed and put down with resolute slaughter.

[Illustration:  099.jpg VOCAL STATUE OF AMENHOTHES]

Travellers, on reaching a distant point of a journey, or on viewing any remarkable object of their curiosity, have at all times been fond of carving or scribbling their names on the spot, to boast of their prowess to after-comers; and never had any place been more favoured with memorials of this kind than the great statue of Amenhothes at Thebes.  This colossal statue, fifty-three feet high, was famed, as long as the Egyptian priesthood lasted, for sending forth musical sounds every morning at sunrise, when first touched by the sun’s rays; and no traveller ever visited Thebes without listening for these remarkable notes.  The journey through Upper Egypt was at this time perfectly open and safe, and the legs and feet of the statue are covered with names, and inscriptions in prose and verse, of travellers who had visited it at sunrise during the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines.  From these curious memorials we learn that Hadrian visited Thebes a second time with his queen, Sabina, in the fifteenth year of his reign.  When the empress first visited the statue she was disappointed at not hearing the musical sounds; but, on her hinting threats of the emperor’s displeasure, her curiosity was gratified on the following morning.  This gigantic statue of hard gritstone had formerly been broken in half across the waist, and the upper part thrown to the ground, either by the shock of an earthquake or the ruder shock of Persian zeal against the Egyptian religion; and for some centuries past the musical notes had issued from the broken fragments.  Such was its fallen state when the Empress Sabina saw it, and when Strabo and Juvenal and Pausanias listened to its sounds; and it was not till after the reign of Hadrian that it was again raised upright like its companion, as travellers now see it.

[Illustration:  100b..jpg The Slumber Song]

     From the painting by P. Grot.  Johann

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.