DINOCRATES' PLAN FOR CUTTING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
According to Vitruvius, this famous architect, having provided himself with recommendatory letters to the principal personages of Alexander's court, set out from his native country with the hope of gaining, through their means, the favor of the monarch. The courtiers made him promises which they neglected to perform, and framed various excuses to prevent his access to the sovereign; he therefore determined upon the following expedient:—Being of a gigantic and well proportioned stature, he stripped himself, anointed his body with oil, bound his head with poplar leaves, and throwing a lion's skin across his shoulders, with a club in his hand, presented himself to Alexander, in the place where he held his public audience. Alexander, astonished at his Herculean figure, desired him to approach, demanding, at the same time, his name:—"I am," said he, "a Macedonian architect, and am come to submit to you designs worthy of the fame you have acquired. I have modelled Mount Athos in the form of a giant, holding in his right hand a city, and his left a shell, from which are discharged into the sea all the rivers collected from the mountain." It was impossible to imagine a scheme more agreeable to Alexander, who asked seriously whether there would be sufficient country round this city to maintain its inhabitants. Dinocrates answered in the negative, and that it would be necessary to supply it by sea. Athos consequently remained a mountain; but Alexander was so pleased with the novelty of the idea, and the genius of Dinocrates, that he at once took him into his service. The design of Dinocrates may be found in Fischer's History of Architecture. According to Pliny, Dinocrates planned and built the city of Alexandria.
POPE'S IDEA OF FORMING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
"I cannot conceive," said Spence, the author of Polymetis, to Pope, "how Dinocrates could ever have carried his proposal of forming Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, into execution."—"For my part," replied Pope, "I have long since had an idea how that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welch mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the figure must be on a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that would be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eye brows, and a wood for the hair. The natural green turf should be left wherever it would be necessary to represent the ground he reclines on. It should be so contrived, that the true point of view should be at a considerable distance. When you were near it, it should still have the appearance of a rough mountain, but at the proper distance such a rising should be the leg, and such another an arm. It would be best if there were a river, or rather a lake, at the bottom of it, for the rivulet that came through his other hand, to tumble down the hill, and discharge itself into it."
Diodorus Siculus, says that Semiramis had the mountain Bajitanus, in Media, cut into a statue of herself, seventeen stadii high, (about two miles) surrounded by one hundred others, probably representing the various members of her court. China, among other wonders, is said to have many mountains cut into the figures of men, animals, and birds. It is probable, however, that all these stories have originated in the imagination, from the real or fanciful resemblance of mountains, to various objects, which are found in every country, as "The Old Man of the Mountain," Mt. Washington, N. H., "St. Anthony's Nose," in the Highlands, "Camel's Rump," Green Mountains, "Giant of the Valley," on lake Champlain, &c. It is easy to imagine a mountain as a cloud, "almost in shape of a camel," "backed like a weasel," or "very like a whale."
TEMPLE WITH AN IRON STATUE SUSPENDED IN THE AIR BY LOADSTONE.
According to Pliny, Dinocrates built a temple at Alexandria, in honor of Arsinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The whole interior was to have been incrusted with loadstone, in order that the statue of the princess, composed of iron, should be suspended in the centre, solely by magnetic influence. On the death of Ptolemy and of the architect, the idea was abandoned, and has never been executed elsewhere, though believed to be practicable. A similar fable was invented of the tomb of Mahomet.