⚫ gates'; an expreffion, which certainly ought not to be taken literally; but which, however, means a very large and powerful city. He adds, that Thebes was able to furnish twenty thousand chariots of war; by which we may judge of the number of inhabitants which it contained. It muft have been by fo much the more confiderable as the houses were four or five ftories high1. Yet we fhall never be perfuaded, that it role to that degree to which the Egyp tians have made it amount. Ancient infcriptions fay in effect, that this city had included within its walls to the number of feven hundred thoufand fighting men ". P. Mela increafing the number farther, makes them amount to a million". We easily perceive how much fuch exaggera. tions are out of the way and abfurd *: Herodotus only reckons forty-one thousand fighting men in all Egypt •. Homer boafts much of the opulence of Thebes and this is a point about which all antiquity feem to be agreed. The ancient authors affure us, that no city in the world. ever contained fo much riches and magnificence, in gold, in filver, in ivory, in precious ftones, in coloffal ftatues, and in obelifks of one piece. We may judge of this from a fact reported by Diodorus. He fays, that Sefoftris offered to the god whom they adored at Thebes, a fhip, built of Euftathius gives the greatest extent to this capital of Egypt, of all the ancients. He fays, that it was 420 ftadia long. Ad Dionyf. Perieget. v. 248. According to the fcholium of Didymus, on Iliad. 9. v. 383. the city of Thebes was 3700 arures in furface. We know, from the report of Herodotus, that the arure was 100 Egyptian cubits complete, that is to lay, ten thousand fquare Egyptian cubits; and the Egyptian cubit, which, by the confeffion of the greatest part of the learned, ftill fubfifts at this time under the name of Derah, without having received any alteration, is one foot eight inches, 5 royal lines. Thus, the furface of the city of Thebes was from 2997825 to 2997826 square fathoms. That of the city of Paris contains, according to Delifle, 4100337; from whence it refults, that ancient Thebes was only a little more than three fourths of Paris. 8 i Iliad: 1. 9. v. 383. Tacit. annal. 1. 2. c. 65. k Ibid. 1 Diod. 1. 1. p. 54. "L. I. c. 9. * They must fuppofe from five to fix millions of inhabitants in Thebes. They only reckon in Paris about fix hundred and fifty thousand. L. 2. n. 164. c. P Diod. loco cit. $ 2 9 lbid. 1. 1. p. 55. cedar, cedar, two hundred and eighty cubits long *, covered on the infide with plates of filver, on the outside with plates of gold. There remain, in other refpects, few particulars of the magnificence Thebes formerly had. Diodorus fpeaks of four temples which were diftinguished above all the reft. The most ancient was, fays he, a wonder in grandeur and beauty. This edifice was thirteen ftadia about +, and forty-five cubits high. Its walls were twenty-four feet thick. All the ornaments of this temple, both by the richness of the materials, and by the grandeur of the work, anfwered to the majesty of that edifice, which still subfifted at the time in which Diodorus was in Egypt. This is all we can collect from the ancients on the fubject of Thebes. With refpect to the modern travellers, they agree to fay, that this city exhibits at present only a great heap of ruins. But they fpeak of many monuments which still remain in its neighbourhood. I think that it will not be troublesome to compare their accounts with what the ancients have faid of the grand edifices built in the plains of Thebes. Diodorus acquaints us, that it was in the neighbourhood of that capital, that they had raised those celebrated tombs of the ancient kings of Egypt, which nothing, as he has faid, equalled in magnificence. The Egyptian histories make mention of forty-feven of these tombs. At the time of Diodorus, there only remained seventeen, of which many were then almost destroyed ". That hiftorian has *Two hundred and eighty great cubits, are equal to four hundred and one feet fix lines, French measure. That is, more than half a league. *Diod. 1. 1. p. 67. This fact appears amongst the most exaggerated. Diod. 1. 1. p. 55. It remains to know, if this temple was really the most ancient of all those which Thebes contained; and if this edifice had been brought at its foundation to the point of magnificence of which Diodorus Speaks. P. Lucas, third voyage, t. 3. p. 148.; Sicard, mem. des miffions du Levant, t. 7. p. 159.; Granger, voyage d'Egypte, p. $4. "L. I. p. 56. about thirty years before Chrift. If we believe Father Sicard, there fill fubfift ten, five entire, and five half ruined. Mem. des miss. du Lev, t. 7. p. 162. preferved preferved a defcription which an ancient Greek traveller had left of one of these mausoleums, a monument, which, I think, owed its conftruction to one of the fucceffors of Sefoftris. The prince of whom we fpeak was called Ofymandes. We fhall have occafion, in the following book, to examine into the epocha of his reign, which falls about the time of the war of Troy. Let us return to the description of his tomb. At the entrance of this edifice appeared a vestibule of two hundred feet long and fixty-seven and an half high. The most rich marbles had been used in its construction. Afterwards was found a fquare periftyle, of which each fide was four hundred feet long. Figures of animals, ill worked, but each of one ftone, and fixteen cubits high, were in the place of columns, and fupported the ceiling, made with ftones which were twelve feet long. Its whole length was covered with stars of gold, defigned on a ground of skyblue. Beyond this periftyle, is found a fecond veftibule built like the former; but more adorned with fculptures. The eyes are there immediately ftruck with three coloffal figures, made from one fingle block. The principal is that of the monarch who had built the monument. is represented fitting. This ftatue paffed for the largest coloffus which they had in Egypt. It must have been at least fifty feet high*. All this piece was, fay they, lefs eftimable for its enormous fize, than for the beauty of the work, and the choice of the ftone, which, in fuch a fize, did not present the least defect or the least spot. 1 He From this veftibule we paffed into another peristyle, much more beautiful than the firft which I have defcribed. All the walls were loaded with a multitude of sculptures in niches, representing the military exploits of Ofymandes. * Diod. 1. 1. p. 56. *They had only measured the foot, which was found to be a little more than feven cubits. The foot of a man is the fixth part of his height. So the ftatue of which we are speaking, must have been more than forty-two cubits, or fixty-three feet high, if Ofymandes had been represented standing. But as he was reprefented fitting, we must abate a fifth for the length of the thighs, and there still remain more than 33 cubits, or 50% feet, In the middle of this periftyle they had raised an altar of most beautiful marble, of furprising grandeur and immense workmanship. At the bottom, they had placed against the wall two ftatues, each of one block, twenty-feven cubits high. They represented perfons fitting. They went out of this periftyle by three gates, among which were placed the ftatues I have fpoken of, to enter into a hall whofe ceiling was fupported by high columns. It much resembled an amphitheatre, and was two hundred feet fquare. This place was filled with an infinity of fi gures in wood, which reprefented a grand audience attentive to the decifions of a fenate, taken up, as it feems, with adminiftering juftice. The judges, to the number of thirty, were placed on a bench much elevated, leaning against one of the fronts of the body of the building of which we speak. From this place they paffed through a gallery flanked on the right and on the left, with many cabinets, in which were seen reprefented on tables, all the different meats which could flatter the tafte. In this fame gallery, the monarch, author of the fuperb edifice of which I fpeak, appeared proftrate at the feet of Ofiris, offering facrifices to him. Another body of the building included the facred library, near to which were placed the images of all the gods of Egypt, the king presenting to each the proper offerings. Beyond this library, and on the fame line, they had raised a great hall, the entry of which contained twenty beds, on which the ftatues of Jupiter, Juno, and Ofymandes were feen lying. They believed that the body of that monarch lies in that part of the edifice. Many buildings were joined to this last hall; and they had there placed reprefentations of all the animals facred in Egypt. They afcended, laftly, to a place which formed, to speak properly, the tomb of the Egyptian monarch. There was feen a circle or crown of gold, a cubit in thickness, and three hundred and fixty-five in circumference. Cambyfes, when he pillaged Egypt, they fay, took away this valuable piece y. Diod. loco fupra cit. Such Such was, according to the ancient authors, the maufoleum of Ofymandes *, on which at present I fhall make no reflection. All the modern travellers who have had occafion to visit the places where they presume that Thebes was built, atteft to have feen in its neighbourhood many. cdifices, among which they remark, in spite of the injury and ravage of time, great refemblance with the monument which I have defcribed. Here is what we read on this fubject in Paul Lucas, who has taken, as far as one can judge, the ruins of a palice for thofe of a temple, an error common to him with almost all modern travellers. "Near Andera, a village, which I think was not far "diftant from ancient Thebes, although fituate on the "other fide of the Nile †, we perceive the ruins of a pa"lace the moft fpacious and the most magnificent that can be imagined. This edifice is built wholly of gray "granite; the walls are all covered with bass reliefs larger "than life . The grand front of this palace offers at first a veftibule fupported with grand fquare pilafters of an a"ftonishing thicknefs. A long periftyle, formed by "three ranks of columns, that fearce eight men could "fathom, extend along the two fides of the veftibule, and "fupport a ceiling made oft ftones of fix or feven feet in "breadth, and of an extraordinary length. This ceiling "feems to have been originally painted: there we yet perceive the remains of colours which time has fpared. "A long cornice runs above all the columns of this edifice. * Let us remark that Diodorus has taken all this recital from Hecateus, a writer abfolutely decried, even among the ancients, for his lies and his exaggerations. Strabo acquaints us that the boundaries of Thebes extended on both fides of the Nile, 1. 17. p. 1170. Father Sicard places the tombs of the kings of Thebes to the weft of the Nile, on the fame fide on which the village of Andera is fituated. Mem. des miff. du Levant, t. 7. p. 161. 162. Paul Lucas has either expreffed himself very ill in ufing the term bas reliefs to defign the fculptures of the palace of Andera, or this monument is not of great antiquity; for the ancient inhabitants of Egypt never knew to work bas reliefs: they only knew how to ingrave; this is a fact which all the monuments of ancient Egypt, joined to the teftimony of all the ancient writers, do not permit us to doubt of. "Each |