The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature. C.-F. Volney

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СКАЧАТЬ renown! countries of never-dying memory! what sublime lessons doth your aspect offer! what profound truths are written on the surface of your soil! remembrances of times past, return into my mind! places, witnesses of the life of man in so many different ages, retrace for me the revolutions of his fortune! say, what were their springs and secret causes! say, from what sources he derived success and disgrace! unveil to himself the causes of his evils! correct him by the spectacle of his errors! teach him the wisdom which belongeth to him, and let the experience of past ages become a means of instruction, and a germ of happiness to present and future generations.

      * In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is published

       a memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve ages

       anterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which I

       conceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerly

       composed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the name

       of Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was

       specially given. This kingdom preserved its independence to

       the time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united to

       the Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, which

       thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and upon

       the different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, their

       metropolis.

       ** The idea of a city with a hundred gates, in the common

       acceptation of the word, is so absurd, that I am astonished

       the equivoque has not before been felt.

       It has ever been the custom of the East to call palaces and

       houses of the great by the name of gates, because the

       principal luxury of these buildings consists in the singular

       gate leading from the street into the court, at the farthest

       extremity of which the palace is situated. It is under the

       vestibule of this gate that conversation is held with

       passengers, and a sort of audience and hospitality given.

       All this was doubtless known to Homer; but poets make no

       commentaries, and readers love the marvellous.

       This city of Thebes, now Lougsor, reduced to the condition

       of a miserable village, has left astonishing monuments of

       its magnificence. Particulars of this may be seen in the

       plates of Norden, in Pocock, and in the recent travels of

       Bruce. These monuments give credibility to all that Homer

       has related of its splendor, and lead us to infer its

       political power and external commerce.

       Its geographical position was favorable to this twofold

       object. For, on one side, the valley of the Nile, singularly

       fertile, must have early occasioned a numerous population;

       and, on the other, the Red Sea, giving communication with

       Arabia and India, and the Nile with Abyssinia and the

       Mediterranean, Thebes was thus naturally allied to the

       richest countries on the globe; an alliance that procured it

       an activity so much the greater, as Lower Egypt, at first a

       swamp, was nearly, if not totally, uninhabited. But when at

       length this country had been drained by the canals and dikes

       which Sesostris constructed, population was introduced

       there, and wars arose which proved fatal to the power of

       Thebes. Commerce then took another route, and descended to

       the point of the Red Sea, to the canals of Sesostris (see

       Strabo), and wealth and activity were transferred to

       Memphis. This is manifestly what Diodorus means when he

       tells us (lib. i. sect. 2), that as soon as Memphis was

       established and made a wholesome and delicious abode, kings

       abandoned Thebes to fix themselves there. Thus Thebes

       continued to decline, and Memphis to flourish, till the time

       of Alexander, who, building Alexandria on the border of the

       sea, caused Memphis to fall in its turn; so that prosperity

       and power seem to have descended historically step by step

       along the Nile; whence it results, both physically and

       historically, that the existence of Thebes was prior to that

       of the other cities. The testimony of writers is very

       positive in this respect. "The Thebans," says Diodorus,

       "consider themselves as the most ancient people of the

       earth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy and

       the science of the stars. Their situation, it is true, is

       infinitely favorable to astronomical observation, and they

       have a more accurate division of time into mouths and years

       than other nations" etc.

       What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himself

       elsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmly

       to establish the identity of this place of which I have

       spoken. "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says he, lib.

       iii., "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation: and

       it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth

       may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose

       themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of

       festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every

       other religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians

       are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was

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