M. Letronne — The apparent Miracles, most probably the result of chi-

canery— The impossibility of arriving at a satisfactory solution of the Problem.
In the vicinity of ancient Thebes stood two colossal figures, each consisting of a single stone, the secret enclosure of which bore the name of Memnonia. This word, employed in the Egyptian language to signify " a place sacred to the memory of the dead,* suggested to the memory of the Greeks, one of their heroes, celebrated by Homer. With a vanity, ever ready to appropriate and attach to their own traditions, whatever might be borrowed from the mythology or the history of a people more ancient than themselves, they regarded one of these colossal figures as consecrated to Memnon, and representing the son of Aurora, a warrior who fell in the Trojan war, invested at an earlier period than
* M. Letronne. La Statue Vocale de Memnon, 1 vol. 4to. We shall have occasion, more than once, to quote this erudite work, though we do not adopt the system it advocates.
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the remotest date of Grecian history.. This was the statue famed for the peculiarity of emitting, on the rising of the sun, sounds which, to the enthusiast, appeared to convey a salutation addressed to Aurora or to the sun.*
The upper part of the statue was broken at a period not cor- rectly ascertained ; but the miraculous sounds continued to be heard, appearing to arise from the lower part. M. Letronne believes the colossus to have been restored in the third century of our era ; large masses of grey stone being substituted for that part of the original monolithe, the fragments of which covered the ground.
When Juvenal saw this colossus, in the reign of Adrian, it was broken ; Lucian, under Marcus Aurelius, and Philostratus under Severus, describe it as entire. It is true, that Lucian mentions it in a satirical work ; but his raillery is directed against the exag- geration of a witness to the assumed miracle ; and does not refer to the statue, whether in its mutilated or restored condition. Phi- lostratus, by a palpable anachronism, causes a contemporary of Domitian to speak of it. This licence, which could not be the effect of ignorance, tends to prove that the restoration was not recent ; for no one could place an event which had just taken place in a past century.
The witnesses who attested the vocal nature of the statue, cease with the reign of Caracalla. We are ignorant at what period, and by what means the restored statue was again broken, and equally so as to the time at which its lower part, long silent, ceased to reveal its ancient glory, except by the inscriptions by which it is covered.
Before discussing the various explanations which have been offered of this apparent prodigy, let us call to mind what has been said regarding it by the Greeks and Romans, the only people from whom we derive direct testimony.
* The sound was said to resemble the snapping asunder of a musical string, when the first beam of the morning sun fell upon it. — Ed.
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The Egyptians accused Cambyses of having broken and over- turned the statue of Memnon, with the same impious fury that led him to insult or to destroy, other sacred monuments* in the land of Osiris. Their well-founded detestation for the memory of a barbarous conqueror, induced them to impute to him the result of a natural catastrophe, if it be true, as related by Strabo, that the fall of the Colossus was occasioned by an earthquake, the date of which is given by this writer.
But, for what reason, it may be asked, did Cambyses limit the work of destruction to one of these sacred images ? This inquiry, which, at first sight, appears to weaken the generally received tradition, tends, on the contrary, to strengthen it, if we admit that the miraculous sound proceeding from this image only, made it the marked object of religious veneration to the natives, while it attracted to it the fanatic hatred of the fire- worshippers.
Manethon, as quoted by Eusebius, by Josephus, and also by St. Jerome, affirms that the colossal statue of Amenophis, was identical with the vocal statue of Memnon. Had not its authority been contested, the testimony, given by Ptolemy Phila- delphus, an Egyptian priest, of great research into the antiquities of his country, would be of much importance.
Dionysius, Periegites,f describes in verse " the ancient Thebes where the sonorous Memnon hails the rising of Aurora." It is generally supposed that the poetical geographer wrote shortly after Egypt had been reduced to the condition of a Roman province ; from which it would follow, that the miracle, as well as the fabulous tradition connected with it by the Greeks and Romans, was at that time, and had long been, known and
* Justin, lib. I. cap. ix.
f Dionys. Perieger. vers. 249, 250. This Dionysius was a writer of the Augustan age. He singularly enough wrote a geographical Treatise in Greek hexameters ; consequently he occasionally sacrifices truth to his poetical ima- ginings.— Ed.
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celebrated. But the critic is left at liberty to fix the epoch at which Dionysius flourished : in the reign of Augustus, of Severus, or of Caracalla.
In speaking of Memnon, " There were," says Strabo, " two colossal statues, each composed of a single stone, and standing near one another. One of them remains entire. It is said that the upper part of the other was overturned by an earthquake ; and it is also believed, that a sound resembling that produced by a slight blow proceeds from the base, and from that part of the colossus resting on it. I myself, in company with Aelius Gallus, and a number of his soldiers, heard it towards the dawn of day. But whether in reality it proceeded from the base, or the colos- sus, or was produced by connivance, I cannot decide. In un- certainty of the real cause, it is better to believe anything, than to admit that a sound can issue from stones similarly dis- posed."*
During his travels in Egypt, Germanicus was struck with admiration at the stone image of Memnon, which, as soon as the rays of the sun fell upon it, emitted a sound resembling that of a human voice (vocalem sonum). It is thus that Tacitus expresses himself, an historian so much the more worthy of credit, that he had, in his youth, learned various important details respecting Germanicus, from several old men, contemporaries of that Prince.f
" At Thebes," says Pliny, " in the Temple of Serapis, stands the image said to be consecrated to Memnon, which daily is heard to emit a sound, when the first rays of the sun fall upon it."J
Juvenal, who resided in, or was banished to upper Egypt, not far from the district which owes its fame to the monuments
* Strabo, lib. xvn.
f Tacit. Annal, lib. n. cap. lxi. et lib. in. cap. xvi. % Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvi. cap. vu. N. Dion Chrysostome {Orat. xxxi.) speaks of the statue of Memnon as of the image of a divinity.
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Memnonium, notices the statue in these words : " There," said he, " the magic chords of the mutilated Memnon, may he heard."*
"I admired this colossus much," says Pausanias.f "It is a sitting statue, which appears to represent the sun ; many people call it the statue of Memnon, but the Thebans deny this. It was destroyed (literally broken in two) by Cambyses. At the present day, the upper part, from the crown of the head, to the middle of the body, lies neglected on the ground. The other part still remains in a sitting posture; and, every day at sunrise, it gives out a sound, resembling that produced by the strings of a guitar, or of a lyre, when they break at the instant they are screwed up."
From the times of Lucian, the fame of this colossus attracted the curious into Egypt. In the dialogue upon friendship, [Tox- aris), it is related by Lucian, that " the philosopher, Demetrius, travelled into Egypt, in order to see Memnon having heard that the statue caused its voice to be heard at the rising of the sun, (/3oâv) I set out for Coptos," he causes Eucrate to say, in the Philopseude, "to see Memnon, and to hear the miraculous sound which issues from it at day-dawn. I did hear it, and not like many others, producing an uncertain sound : Memnon himself, opening his mouth, addressed to me an oracle in seven lines, which, were it not superfluous, I would repeat to you."
Philostratus says, that " the statue of Memnon, which is turned towards the east, is heard to speak, as soon as a ray of the sun falls upon its mouth."J
At a period when this assumed miracle had undoubtedly ceased, Himerius, a contemporary of Ammienus Marcellinus, again asserted that the colossus spoke to the sun with a human
* Juvenal. Sat. xv. verse 5.
f Pausanias. Attic, cap. xlii.
% Philostrat. De Vit. Apollon, lib. vi. cap. vi.
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voice.* But on consideration of the dates, we find that his testimony, as well as that of Calistratus,f merely attest the existence of a tradition, which these authors notice without further discussion.
Two unedited works of Juvenal, and the erudite Eustathius, inform us of the modifications that the tradition had undergone in subsequent times.
According to the firsts " the statue of Memnon, the son of Aurora, was so contrived, by a mechanical artifice, that it ad- dressed a greeting both to the sun and to the King, with a voice apparently human. In order to ascertain the source of the apparent miracle, Cambyses caused the statue to be cut in two : after which it continued to salute the sun, but addressed the King no longer. Thence, the poet has adopted the epithet Dimidio (of which there remained only the half.)"
The other scholiast strangely alters the generally received tra- dition. || It says " that a statue in brass, representing Memnon, and holding a guitar, was heard to sing at particular hours of the day. Cambyses caused it to be opened, on the supposition that mechanism was concealed within the statue. But notwithstand- ing its mutilation, the statue having received a magical consecra- tion, still produced the same sounds at the customary hours. It is on this account that Juvenal applies to Memnon the epithet Dimidius, open, or divided into two parts."
In commenting on verses 249, 250, of Dionysius Periegites, Eustathius notices first, that the colossus represented the Day, the son of Aurora. " It was," he adds, " the statue of a man, from which by means of a particular mechanism, a voice appeared to issue and seemed to salute the day, and to render it homage from an inward spontaneous emotion.
* Himerius. Orat. vm et xvi. — Photii, Bibl. cod. 243.
t Callistrat. Exercit. de Memnon.
% Scholiaste inédit de Juvenal, cité par Vandale, Casselius et Douza.
|| Scholiaste inédit cité par Vandale.
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Numerous Greek and Latin inscriptions engraved upon the colos- sus testify that various persons, attracted by motives of religion or curiosity, had heard the miraculous voice. Monsieur Letronne* made a collection of them to the number of seventy-two, and has restored and explained them. In preserving his enumeration I shall quote such of them only as seem to throw some new light on my subject.
Six inscriptions (Nos. x, xn, xvn, xx, xxxvi, and xxxvn,) affirm that it had spoken to the sun twice on the same day. Another, No. xix, that the voice had been heard three times in the presence of the Emperor Adrian, who looked on this miracle as a pledge of the favour of the Gods.
The author of the xvnth, asserts that Memnon spoke to him, addressing him in a friendly manner.
The following according to Jablonskif and several other learned men, is the translation of the xnth inscription.
" Memnon, the son of Tithon and Aurora, up to this date, had merely permitted us to hear his voice ; to-day he greeted us as his allies and friends. I caught the meaning of the words as they issued from the stone. They were inspired by nature, the creator of all things." M. Letronne thinks, that for this last phrase, the following should be substituted : " Did nature, the creator of all things, inspire this stone with a voice and understanding ?" Without entering into a discussion on these words we may observe that in reality, the correction is of less importance than at first sight it appears to be.
The marked distinction between the unnecessary sound which generally issued from the statue, and the particular friendly salu- tation, appears to me to prove that the authors, both of this in- scription and of the xvnth have heard distinct words, which they entirely believe to proceed from the sacred stone.
* La statue vocale de Memnon, &c. t Jablonski.
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On comparing these various testimonies, we find that, towards the dawn of day, a sound similar to that produced by a lute, or copper instrument, usually proceeded from the statue (inscr. xix). This apparent miracle was repeated two and even three times in a day; at last increasing in proportion to the credulity of the witnesses, the statue arrived at the pronunciation of consecutive words, and the delivery of complete sentences.
This last prodigy calls to remembrance the inscriptions and traditions preserved by Homer and Philostratus and in the Phi- lopseude of Lucian, and is apparently the least admissable of any ; yet I believe it to be the most easily explained.
It was not exclusively confined to Memnon : at Daphne, near Antioch, stood the temple of Apollo, where at noonday the image of that God was heard to chaunt a melodious hymn to the admira- tion of his worshippers.*
If the reader bears in mind what has been already said (c. xn.), concerning the vocal statues celebrated by Pindar, the speaking heads, the uses of ventriloquism, and the advantages derived from the science of acoustics, by the Thaumaturgists, the impossibility of the account disappears ; all depends on the choice of the moment and the absence of inconvenient spectators. We may even conclude, that while believing that he repeated an absurd falsehood, Lucian has related a real fact, an apparent miracle, that under advantageous circumstances, might again be performed in the presence of enthusiasts, who are generally as incapable of penetrating an artifice, as of conceiving a doubt or raising an ob- jection.
It is not impossible even that we may recover the oracle in seven Unes, heard by Philopseude, which he regarded as an inspiration of " Nature the creator of all things !" The following oracle com- posed of a similar number of lines, and transmitted to us by Eusebius,f appears to answer this question.
* Libanius. Monodia super Daphn. Apollin.
t Euseb. Prœpar. Evangel, lib. iv.
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" Invoke Mercury ; the Sun and in the same manner The day of the Sun ; and the Moon when her day Arrives ; and Saturn's ; and Venus' in her turn ; By means of the ineffable invocations, discovered by the most skilful of
the Magi.* King of the seven times resounding, known to a great number of men ;
And invoke always, much, and in secret, the Gods of the sevenfold voice."
The text itself indicates that a verse is wanting, as may be concluded by the omission of the names of Mars and of Jupiter ; this verse was the first, the third, or the fourth, rather than the sixth, completing the oracle, both as to the sense and the number of lines. Having no meaning in the position of the sixth, where it was placed by the inadvertence of a copyist, it would have been totally omitted at a later period.
The oracle prescribes the addressing of invocations to planets, as well as the observations of days particularly consecrated to each. Notwithstanding the loss of the fine, it is very clear that the invocations must have been seven in number, in accordance with the days of the week, and the number of the planets. He who instituted this form of worship, was the King (director) of the seven times resounding , a name which appears to indicate a machine or statue, capable of producing seven intonations. It is subsequently commanded to address continual invocations to the God of the sevenfold voice. Compared with the title, seven times resounding, it appears that this was the God to whom the machine was consecrated, or of whom the statue was the image ; even the sun, recognized by the ancients as the King of the celestial world. The statue of Memnon was that of the sun, according to Pau- sanias.
* This expression does not specify Zoroaster. The Greeks have frequently given the title of Magi^ to the Chaldean and even to the Egyptian priest; they signified by it, a person consecrated to a particular Goddess, inspired by her, and superior to other men, in science and wisdom.
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Other observations concur to support our conjecture.
In the earlier ages of Christianity, a religious signification was attached to the seven vowels. Eusehius observes, that by a won- derful mystery, the ineffable name of God, in the four grammatical modifications to which it submits, comprehends the seven vowels.* This religious signification serves also to explain an inscription composed of seven lines, each of which presents the seven Greek vowels, under a different combination. t Gruter and his editor regard the inscription as apocryphal ; but Edward Holten has seen the seven vowels sculptured on a stone in a similar arrange- ment.J " All the mystery which they contain," says he, " con- sists in the name of Jehovah, composed of seven letters, and seven times repeated." With sufficient plausibility, he attributes inscriptions of this nature to the Basilidians, who, like many other sectarians in the earlier ages of the church, were only Theurgists, who grafted on Christianity the rites and superstitious initiations of a more ancient religion.
From Egypt was borrowed, among others, this superstition relative to vowels. The Egyptian priests chanted the seven vowels as a hymn addressed to Serapis.|| In an inscription preserved by Eusebius,§ Serapis declares to his worshippers : " The seven vowels glorify me, the great and immortal God, the unwearied Father of all things." Is it necessary to call to mind,
* Prcep. Evangel, lib. vi. cap. vi.
f Jan. Gruter. Corp. inscript. tome n. p. 21.
% Ibid, p. 346.
|| Dionys. Halicarn.
§ Euseb. Prcep. Evangel. — Scaliger, Animadvers. Euseb. no. 1730. Let us observe, that the vowels were retained, to a comparatively late period, in the mystic allegories, relative to the solar system. The modern writers, probably more faithful echos of the ancients, because they do not fully comprehend them, have preserved the tradition that connects the seven vowels with the idea of the planets. In the sixteenth century, Belot, curate of Milmont, asserted in his Chiromancie, (chap, xvm.) that the seven vowels are consecrated to the seven principal planets.
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that in divination, Serapis stood as one of the emblems of the solar s}rstem, and that Pliny assigns to Serapis the temple with which the statue of Memnon was consecrated.
The mystery attached to this mode of adoration explains the application to the invocations of the epithet ineffable, as well as the silence which Eucrates observes respecting the substance of the oracle, in seven lines, which he pretends to have heard. Thus, in the religion of the Hindoos, of the Parsees, and even of Islam, certain syllables are consecrated, the pronunciation of which is equivalent to a prayer, and whose sacred efficacy must not be revealed.*
Whatever weight we may attach or refuse to these conjectures, with regard to particular occasions, it may be readily admitted, that where the operations of the Thaumaturgists were unrestrained by enlightened curiosity, the machinery employed for animating an automaton, or perhaps mere ventriloquism, would suffice to produce the words and the oracles attributed to Memnon.
It is not so easy to explain the repetition of the apparent miracle every morning.
The idea of an artifice that might lend its aid to the colossus, appears to have struck Strabo. His language is that of a man who is on his guard respecting any deception that might be practiced on him, rather than to admit that the sound could really issue from the stone. Otherwise, he adduces no fact in support of his conjecture.
The term of which Juvenal makes use, appears to indicate, that in his opinion, the miracle was the result of magical art, that is to
' * The great mystical word in the Hindoo faith is O'M., applied to the Supreme Being. It occurs in many of the hymns in the Vestas ; as for example in the following passage translated from them by Sir William Jones : '' God, who is perfect wisdom, and perfect happiness, is the final refuge of the man who has liberally bestowed his wealth, who has been firm in virtue, and who knows and adores that great one !
" Remember me, O'M, Thou divine spirit !" — Ed.
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say, of an ingenious and a concealed mechanism. Eustathius* positively affirms it, as well as the two scholiastes of the Latin satirist. One of them even alludes to a magical consecration of the statue ; but he is in the habit of taking so much license with history and with received tradition, that his testimony is almost without value.
The learned Langlès adopted a similar explanation. To render it plausible, he sets out from the supposition, that Memnon repeated the seven intonations in the hymn of the Egyptian priests. To produce these, only required a succession of ham- mers, ranged along a key-board, and striking on sonorous tones, such as from time immemorial have served as instruments of music in China.f
If we could credit the assertion of Philostratus, that the colossus, facing the east, emitted a sound on the rays of the sun falling upon it, and at the very moment when they fell on its mouth, we might easily conceive that this miraculous mechanism was put in motion by some secret familiar to the ancients. A strong and sudden heat, produced by the concentration of the solar rays, would be sufficient to expand one or more metallic rods, which in lengthening, might act on the key-board, the existence of which is presumed by Langlès. Thus would have been derived from the sun itself, the power by which the statue greeted the return of the God to whom it was consecrated, and of whom it was emblematical.
But, notwithstanding this plausible explanation, what grounds exist for the supposition that seven successive intonations proceeded habitually from the colossus ? If, in certain very rare cases, the skill of the priest was able to produce something similar to this,
* Eustathius was Archbishop of Thessalonia, in the twelfth century. He was a man of great ambition, and distinguished as a commentator on Homer. His annotations abound with historical and philological descriptions. — Ed.
t Langlès. Dissertation stir la Statue Vocale de Memnon .... At the end of the Voyages de Norden. tome n. pp. 157, 256.
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the historical testimonies, or the inscriptions, attest in general the emission of but one single sound. Moreover, the miracle was discovered long before the restoration of the statue, and at a time when the head lying in the sand no longer communicated with the lower part whence the sounds appeared to proceed ; and again, no researches have been able to discover in the colossus a cavity capable of containing the musical mechanism supposed by Lan- glès.
This last remark refutes also the conjecture of Vandale, which suggests, that in this colossus, as well as in several other statues, a cavity was contrived for the introduction of priests,* whose office it was to lend the assistance of their voice to the divinity.
The explanation proposed by Dussault is not more admissible. " The statue being hollow," says he, " the air which it contains became affected by the heat of the sun, and in escaping by some passage, produced a sound which could be interpreted as best suited to the interests of the priests. f I may ask, what testimony has ever been given that the statue was hollow ? and, more- over has not Dussault ascribed to the elevation of temperature an unnatural consequence ? To arrive at the interior air, the sun must have penetrated a layer of stone of great thickness, and that almost instantaneously and when the disc of the sun was scarcely risen above the horizon.
In the immense apartments constructed entirely of blocks of granite, which are concealed among the ruins of Carnac, the celebrated sounds emitted from the stones have been heard at the rising of the sun, by French artists. " The sounds appear to issue from enormous stones which roof in the apartments, and are threatening to fall : the phenomena undoubtedly proceeds from the sudden change of temperature on the rising of the sun. J" I am rather inclined to think that the sounds were produced by the
* Vandale. Be oraculis. pp. 207 — 209.
f Dussault. Traduction de Juvenal. 2e edit, tome n. p. 452. note 5, % Description de l'Egypte, tome i. p. 234. VOL. II. Z
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creaking of one of these blocks, apparently about to fall. Masses of red granite, when struck by a hammer, sound like a bell.* In short, if we admit this explanation, we must also grant that the statue of Memnon could never have ceased to be sonorous ; and we must believe that the ceilings, the walls, the colossal figures, the obelisks of granite, raised in such numbers in Egypt, also rendered sounds, at the rising of the sun. Allow this, and the miracle disappears ; the sonorous tones claim no more attention than any other simple fact, as common as the course of a stream, or the noise of a tempest. But we know that the colossus of Memnon alone enjoys the prerogative ; and since that peculiarity has disappeared, its exposure to the sun, and the temperature of the climate have not been subjected to the slightest alteration.
The assertion on which this explanation is founded, is other- wise destitute of probability. Could the successive change of temperature, such as is supposed, cause a sonorous body to sound ? I reply, No. There is no direct experiment on record, which can authorize us to credit the assertion. A bell, or tam-tam, would remain silent if exposed to it ; no sounds proceeds from the seolian- harp though the coolness of night is succeeded by a tempe- rature very perceptibly higher ; and yet the strings of this harp readily procure lengthened chords on meeting with the slightest breath of air.
Sir A. Smith, an English traveller, asserts that he has visited the statue of Memnon ; and that, accompanied by a numerous escort, he heard very distinctly, about six o'clock in the morning, the sounds which rendered this image so celebrated in antiquity. He conceives the mysterious sound to issue from the pedestal, not from the statue ; and believes it to arise from the percussion of air on the stones of this part, which are so disposed as to produce this singular effect. But what can this disposition mean, since the base and lower part of the colossus have always consisted of,
* Magasin Encyclop. 181G. tome n. p. 29- t Revue Encyclop. 1821. tome ix. p. 592.
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and do still form but one piece ? And how could it produce the result indicated ? This the traveller does not explain. In con- clusion, it may be asked, how he alone, of all modern spectators, should have heard the colossus, whose voice has been for centuries, silent ? How could such an important phenomenon have escaped observation of the French who remained several years in Egypt, and who pushed their learned investigations to a great length ? In all probability Sir A. Smith was deceived by a crashing noise, similar to that heard by the French artists at Carnac.
Such was the state of the question, when M. Letronne attempted to resolve it definitively by a new hypothesis which he supports with profound erudition and more logical meaning.*
The silence of Herodotus and Diodorus of Sicily respecting the existence of this apparent miracle, and also in reference to the tradition which imputes the destruction of the monument to Cambyses, induces him to reject it ; whilst he fixes the period at which the statue of Memnon was first heard, to have been some centuries later. He puts aside, as an interpolation, the important passage from Manethon ; and sets out, from the assertion of Strabo, comparing it with the notice by Eusebius, of a great earthquake which caused many disasters in Egypt, twenty- seven years before our era.f This brings him to the conclusion, that at that time the colossus was one among many other monuments that were broken ; and that by its mutilation, it acquired a vocal power, which previously it had not enjoyed.
This new property appeared at first of little importance to the surrounding population. At a subsequent period, the Greeks and Romans recognized it as a miracle ; but its renown did not become universal, or widely spread, before the reign of Nero. It was then the traveller commenced to inscribe on the columns the reverential admiration he had experienced. None of these inscrip- tions are of Egyptian authorship ; a proof that it excites in the
* De la Statue Vocale de Memnon, &c. f Euseb. Chronicon.
z 2
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natives neither enthusiasm nor admiration. Tacitus, in relating the travels of Germanicus in Egypt, has spoken of the statue of Memnon, as it is described by Domitian and Trajan : he erred, in substituting for the opinions of an earlier century, the ideas con- ceived regarding it in his own times. The fame of the assumed miracle increased continually, and in the reign of Adrian it reached its height. It had suffered no diminution when Septimus Severus* conceived and executed the project of restoring the colossus, by substituting blocks of grey stone for that portion of the original mass which had been broken by the fall. The statue then became mute; the last inscriptions alluding to its vocal power do not extend after the simultaneous reign of Severus and of Caracalla ;
* Lucius Septimus Severus, who acquired the Empirial purple, by pro- claiming himself Emperor ,^when he commanded the Roman forces, stationed against the Barbarians, on the borders of Illyrium ; and to secure his aim he joined Albinus, who commanded in Britain, as his partner in the Empire. His first object was to depose Didius Julianus, who had purchased the government ; and who, being soon deserted by his dependents, was assas- sinated by his own soldiers. At this time, however, another rival for the purple existed in Pesuntius Niger; but, after many battles, he also was defeated ; and Severus left with no other rival than his partner, who however soon fell beneath his fortunate sword at the plains of Gaul ; and he thus became sole master of the Empire.
It "was this Emperor who built the wall across the northern parts of our island, to defend his territory in Britain from the frequent invasions of the Caledonians.
As a monarch he was tyrannical and cruel ; and having risen by ambition, he maintained his power by severity, and by the unhesitating destruction of every one whom he thought likely, in any manner, to oppose his inch- nation.
The restoration of the statue of Memnon, mentioned in the text, was attempted during a progress made by Severus into the East with his sons. He was recalled by a revolt in Britain, which he soon reduced ; but his triumph was sullied by an attempt of his son Caracalla to murder him ; an event which so much depressed his spirit, and added so cruelly to his bodily sufferings from gout, that he died at York, a.d. 210, after a reign of less than eighteen years. — Ed.
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after this reign, also, no writer speaks of the miracle in the cha- racter of a witness.