The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Emperor, Complete, by Georg Ebers

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Title: The Emperor, Complete

Author: Georg Ebers

Last Updated: March 9, 2009
Release Date: October 16, 2006 [EBook #5493]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPEROR, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE EMPEROR, Complete

By Georg Ebers

Translated by Clara Bell

PREFACE.

It is now fourteen years since I planned the story related in these
volumes, the outcome of a series of lectures which I had occasion to
deliver on the period of the Roman dominion in Egypt. But the pleasures
of inventive composition were forced to give way to scientific labors,
and when I was once more at leisure to try my wings with increase of
power I felt more strongly urged to other flights. Thus it came to pass
that I did I not take the time of Hadrian for the background of a tale
till after I had dealt with the still later period of the early monastic
move in "Homo Sum." Since finishing that romance my old wish to depict,
in the form of a story, the most important epoch of the history of that
venerable nation to which I have devoted nearly a quarter century of my
life, has found its fulfilment. I have endeavored to give a picture of
the splendor of the Pharaonic times in "Uarda," of the subjection of
Egypt to the new Empire of the Persians in "An Egyptian Princess," of
the Hellenic period under the Lagides in "The Sisters," of the Roman
dominion and the early growth of Christianity in "The Emperor," and
of the anchorite spirit--in the deserts and rocks of the Sinaitic
Peninsula--in "Homo Sum." Thus the present work is the last of which the
scene will be laid in Egypt. This series of romances will not only
have introduced the reader to a knowledge of the history of manners and
culture in Egypt, but will have facilitated his comprehension of certain
dominant ideas which stirred the mind of the Ancients. How far I may
have succeeded in rendering the color of the times I have described and
in producing pictures that realize the truth, I myself cannot venture
to judge; for since even present facts are differently reflected in