Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/337

 GREAT MONUMENTS IN EGYPT. 321 did not finish, between the Pelusian arm of the Nile and the Red sea j 1 while the construction of the two great pyramids, attributed to the kings Cheops and Chephren, was described to Herodotus by the priests as a period of exhausting labor and extreme suffer- ing to the whole Egyptian people, and yet the great Labyrinth, 2 said to have been built by the dodekarchs, appeared to him a more stupendous work than the Pyramids, so that the toil em ployed upon it cannot have been less destructive. The moving of such vast masses of stone as were seen in the ancient edifices both of upper and lower Egypt, with the imperfect mechanical resources then existing, must have tasked the efforts of the people yet more severely than the excavation of the half-finished canal of Xckus. Indeed, the associations with which the Pyramids were connected, in the minds of those with whom Herodotus con- versed, were of the most odious character. Such vast works, Aristotle observes, are suitable to princes who desire to consume the strength and break the spirit of their people. With Greek despots, perhaps, such an intention may have been sometimes deliberately conceived ; but the Egyptian kings may be presumed to have followed chiefly caprice, or love of pomp, sometimes 1 Hcrodot. ii, 158. Read the account of the foundation of Petersburg by Peter the Great : " Au milieu dc ces re'formes, grandes et petitcs, qui faisaient les amuscmcns du czar, et de la guerre terrible qui 1'occupoit centre Charles XII, il jcta les fondemcns de 1'importante villc et du port de Pt'tersbourg, en 1714, dans un marais oil il n'y avail pas une cabane. Pierre travailla dt scs mains a. la premiere maison: ricn ne le rebuta: dcs ouvricrs furent forces dc vcnir sur ce bord de la mcr Baltique, des frontieres d'Astrachan, des Lords de la Mer Jsoire et de la Mer Caspicnnc. II peril plus de cent mille hommes dans les travaux qu'il fallut faire, ct dans les fatigues et la disctte qu'on essuya: mais enfm la villc existe.'' (Voltaire, Anecdotes sur Pierre le Grand, en (Euvrcs Completes, ed. Paris, 1825. torn, xxxi, p. 491.) i, 63-64.) nepl TUV Hvpapiduv (Diodorus observes) ovdtv oAuc ovAe Trapa rotf i-y^u- oioif, oi'Je -xapH rote avyypaQfvaiv, ovpQuvetTai. He then alludes to some of the discrepant stories about the date of the Pyramids, and the names of their constructors. This confession, of the complete want of trustworthy information respecting the most remarkable edifices of lower Egypt, forms a striking contrast with the statement which Diodorus had given (c. 44), that the priests possessed records, <: continually handed down from reign to re-.gn respecting four hundred and seventy Egyptian kings." VOL. ITT. 14* 2100.
 * Herodot. ii, 124-129. TOV T.EUV rerpv/ievov f f TO eff^arov Hanoi'. (Diodor