Although Thebes had greatly fallen from its former splendour, in the time of Cambyses the Persian it was the fury of this lawless and merciless conqueror that gave the last blow to its grandeur, about 520 years before the Christian era. He pillaged its temples, and carried away the ornaments of gold, silver, and ivory. Before this period, no city in the world could be compared with it in size, beauty, and wealth; and according to the expression of Diodorus—“The sun had never seen so magnificent a city.”
The next step towards the decline and fall of this city was, as we learn from Diodorus, the preference given to Memphis; and the removal of the seat of government thither, and subsequently to Sais and Alexandria, proved as disastrous to the welfare, as the Persian invasion had been to the splendour, of the capital of Upper Egypt. “Commercial wealth,” says Mr. Wilkinson, “on the accession of the Ptolemies, began to flow through other channels. Coptos and Apollinopolis succeeded to the lucrative trade of Arabia; and Ethiopia no longer contributed to the revenues of Thebes; and its subsequent destruction, after a three years’ siege, by Ptolemy Lathyrus, struck a death-blow to the welfare and existence of this capital, which was, thenceforth, scarcely deemed an Egyptian city. Some few repairs, however, were made to its dilapidated temples by Evergetes II., and some by the later Ptolemies. But it remained depopulated; and at the time of Strabo’s visit, was already divided into small and detached villages.”
Thebes was, perhaps, the most astonishing work ever performed by the hand of man. In the time of its splendour, it extended above twenty-three miles; and upon any emergency could send into the field seven hundred thousand men, according to Tacitus; but Homer allows only that it could pour through each of its hundred gates two hundred armed men, with their chariots and horses, which makes about forty thousand men, allowing two men to each chariot.
Though its walls were twenty-four feet in thickness, and its buildings the most solid and magnificent; yet, in the time of Strabo and of Juvenal, only mutilated columns, broken obelisks, and temples levelled with the dust, remained to mark its situation, and inform the traveller of the desolation which time, or the more cruel hand of tyranny, can assert over the proudest monuments of human art.
“Thebes,” says Strabo, “presents only remains of its former grandeur, dispersed over a space eighty stadia in length. Here are found great number of temples, in part destroyed by Cambyses; its inhabitants have retired to small towns, east of the Nile, where the present city is built, and to the western shore, near Memnonium; at which place we admired two colossal stone figures, standing on each side, the one entire, the other in part thrown down, it has been said by an earthquake. There is a popular opinion, that the remaining part of this statue, towards the base, utters a sound once a day. Curiosity leading me to examine this fact, I went thither with Ælius Gallus, who was accompanied with his numerous friends, and an escort of soldiers. I heard a sound about six o’clock in the morning, but dare not affirm whether it proceeded from the base, from the colossus, or had been produced by some person present; for one is rather inclined to suppose a thousand different causes, than that it should be the effect of a certain assemblage of stones.
“Beyond Memnonium are the tombs of the kings, hewn out of the rock. There are about forty, made after a marvellous manner, and worthy the attention of travellers. Near them are obelisks, bearing various inscriptions, descriptive of the wealth, power, and extensive empire of those sovereigns who reigned over Scythia, Bactriana, Judæa, and what is now called Ionia. They also recount the various tributes those kings had exacted, and the number of their troops, which amounted to a million of men.”
We now proceed to draw from Diodorus Siculus:—
“The great Diospolis,” says he, “which the Greeks have named Thebes, was six miles in circumference. Busiris, who founded it, adorned it with magnificent edifices and presents. The fame of its power and wealth, celebrated by Homer, has filled the world. Never was there a city which received so many offerings in silver, gold and ivory, colossal statues and [Pg 407]obelisks, each cut from a single stone. Four principal temples are especially admired there: the most ancient of which was surpassingly grand and sumptuous. It was thirteen stadia in circumference, and surrounded by walls twenty-four feet in thickness and forty-five cubits high. The richness and workmanship of its ornaments were correspondent to the majesty of the building, which many kings contributed to embellish. The temple still is standing; but it was stripped of its silver and gold, ivory, and precious stones, when Cambyses set fire to all the temples of Egypt.”
The following account of the tomb of Osymandyas is also from Diodorus:—