[30] Supposing, as is most probable, that Pliny means the Egyptian talent; the Attic talent was about one-half the value of the other.
If the reports of some writers are to be believed, this Tower must have far exceeded in size the great Pyramid itself; but the fact that a building of comparatively so late a date should have so completely disappeared, whilst the Pyramid remains almost unchanged, is a sufficient reason for rejecting, as erroneous, the dimensions which have been assigned by most writers to the Pharos of Alexandria. Some have pretended that large mirrors were employed to direct the rays of the beacon-light on its top, in the most advantageous direction; but, in so far as I know, there is no definite evidence in favour of this supposition. Others, with greater probability, have imagined that this celebrated beacon was known to mariners, simply by the uncertain and rude light afforded by a common fire. In speaking of the Pharos, the poet Lucian, on most occasions sufficiently fond of the marvellous, takes no notice of the gigantic mirrors which it is said to have contained. He thus speaks of this celebrated lighthouse as having indicated to Julius Cæsar his approach to the Pharos of Egypt on the seventh night after he sailed from Troy:
Septima nox, Zephyro nunquam laxante rudentes,
Ostendit Phariis Ægyptia littora flammis.
Sed prius orta dies nocturna lampada texit,
Quam tutas intraret aquas.
Pharsal., ix., 1004.
It is true that, by using the word “lampada,” which can only with propriety be applied to a more perfect mode of illumination than an open fire, he appears to indicate that the “flammis” of which he speaks, were not so produced. The word lampada may however, be used metaphorically; and flammis would, in this case, not improperly describe the irregular appearance of a common fire.
Perhaps, also, the opinion that some kind of lamp was used in the Pharos, may seem to receive countenance from the remarkable words of Pliny, in the passage above cited—“Periculum in continuatione ignium, ne sidus existimetur, quoniam è longinquo similis flammarum aspectus est.” The fear he expresses lest the light viewed from a distance should be mistaken for a star, could hardly be applicable to the diffuse, oscillating, lambent light derived from an open fire, and certainly gives some reason for imagining that, even at that remote time, the art of illuminating lighthouses was better understood than in the early part of the present century.
Before leaving the subject of the Pharos of Alexandria, I wish to vindicate the memory of its architect Sostratus from the calumny of Lucian, who, in his Treatise on the art of writing history, with his usual acrimony, accuses the builder of the Pharos of a fraud, in cutting his own name on the solid walls of the Tower, and covering the inscription with plaster, on which he carved the name of his royal master Ptolemy.[31] Against this assertion I would oppose the testimony of Strabo, who calls Sostratus the “friend of the Kings” (see the [quotation] at the foot of page 183), and the direct evidence of Pliny, who, in the passage above cited, expressly states, as a proof of Ptolemy’s magnanimity, his giving the architect liberty to inscribe his own name on the Tower. The only other notices of the Pharos which I have been able to find in ancient writers are from Cæsar’s Commentaries, Valerius Flaccus, and Pomponius Mela.[32] At Alexandria, there is a modern lighthouse called the Pharos, which is maintained by the Pacha of Egypt.