POMPEY'S PILLAR, a very interesting monument of an tiquity, which has been already briefly described, under the article EGYPT. Since that article was written, much curious information on this subject has appeared, in the late Dr. Clarke's Travels, the substance of which we shall now endeavour to communicate.
Ponipey's pillar is visible from almost every spot in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. The inscription upon its pedestal, supposed to contain the name of the emperor Diocletian, was not known to exist, when Dr. Clarke visit ed Egypt, although it had been mentioned by Maillet and Pocock'. After gazing for some time, in utter astonish ment, at the sight of a column of granite eight feet in dia meter, and sixty-three feet high, Mr. Hamilton expressed a wish to find some part of the inscription. The four sides of the pedestal were accordingly examined, but not a trace of any existing inscription could be discovered. This in scription, however, was afterwards discovered by Lieute nant-Colonel Squire. He observed that the letters H and 0 were legible enough, and he clearly perceived by the re mains of the characters that it consisted of four lines in Greek. Mr. Hamilton was at this time in Upper Egypt ; but upon his arrival in Alexandria, when the attempt to copy the inscription had begun, he assisted in taking a facsimile of it, and observed the letters which arc now believed to com plete the name of the emperor Diocletian. The letters ob served are MO !ANON, which have been supposed by some to he A1OKA11T1ANON, Diocletian; and by others LION AM'IANON, the divine Adrian. In favour of this last supposition, it should be stated, that Sicard, who exa mined the inscription long ago, declared the fourth letter to be N and not K. The veneration of Diocletian's name
has been ascribed to the supposed gratitude of the people of Alexandria to Diocletian, for an allowance of corn; but Dr. Clarke remarks, that history affords no authority ei ther for the tribute itself, or the grateful feelings which it is supposed to have excited. Hadrian, on the contrary, was preeminently entitled to their gratitude. Ile performed also, according to Dio Cassius, funeral rites to Pompey, as Julius Cesar had done before ; and it is related both by Lucan and Valerius Maximus, that when the head of Pom pey was brought to Cesar at Alexandria, he caused it to be burned with odours and the most solemn rites, and its ashes to be enshrined within an urn. As it was sometimes customary among the Romans to place their cinerary urns on the pinnacles of lofty monuments, Dr. Clarke considers it as highly probable, that Pompey's Pillar was a sepulchral mo nument erected by Caesar, to preserve the urn which con tained the ashes of Pompey's head.
In support of this very plausible theory, Dr. Cla; ke mentions that Appian remarks, that the head was buried, but that Cesar ordered a shrine to be constructed over it, (in the suburbs of Alexandria, a situation exactly answer ing to the site of Pompey's Pillar,) which he dedicated to Nemesis, the protecting goddess of the reliques of the memory of deceased persons. Appian adds, that this shrine was overthrown in the time of Trajan, which ex plains the cause of its restoration by Hadrian. Pococke likewise mentions, that some Arabian historians call the pillar the palace of Julius Cxsar.
Dr. Clarke therefore proposes to read the inscription thus :