[510] Suetonius calls this "the great obelisk" in comparison with those which Augustus had placed in the Circus Maximus and Campus Martius. The one here mentioned was erected by Caligula in his Circus, afterwards called the Circus of Nero. It stood at Heliopolis, having been dedicated to the sun, as Herodotus informs us, by Phero, son of Sesostris, in acknowledgment of his recovery from blindness. It was removed by Pope Sixtus V. in 1586, under the celebrated architect, Fontana, to the centre of the area before St. Peter's, in the Vatican, not far from its former position. This obelisk is a solid piece of red granite, without hieroglyphics, and, with the pedestal and ornaments at the top, is 182 feet high. The height of the obelisk itself is 113 palms, or 84 feet.
[511] Pliny relates some curious particulars of this ship: "A fir tree of prodigious size was used in the vessel which, by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with their arms."—B. xvi. c. 76.
[512] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi. It appears to have been often a prey to the flames, TIBERIUS, c. xli.; CALIGULA, c. xx.
[513] Contrary to the usual custom of rising and saluting the emperor without acclamations.
[514] A.U.C. 800.
[515] The Secular Games had been celebrated by Augustus, A.U.C. 736. See c. xxxi. of his life, and the Epode of Horace written on the occasion.
[516] In the circus which he had himself built.
[517] Tophina; Tuffo, a porous stone of volcanic origin, which abounds in the neighbourhood of Rome, and, with the Travertino, is employed in all common buildings.
[518] In compliment to the troops to whom he owed his elevation: see before, c. xi.
[519] Palumbus was a gladiator: and Claudius condescended to pun upon his name, which signifies a wood-pigeon.