MENTS IN WOOD PAINTED]

The harsh justice with which Tiberius began his reign was at Rome soon
changed into a cruel tyranny; but in the provinces it was only felt as
a check to the injustice of the prefects. On one occasion, when AEmilius
Rectus sent home from Egypt a larger amount of taxes than was usual,
he hoped that his zeal would be praised by Tiberius. But the emperor's
message to the prefect was as stern as it was humane: "I should wish my
sheep to be sheared, but not to be flayed." On the death of one of
the prefects, there was found among his property at Rome a statue of
Menelaus, carved in Ethiopian obsidian, which had been used in the
religious ceremonies in the temple of Heliopolis, and Tiberius returned
it to the priests of that city as its rightful owners. Another proof of
the equal justice with which this province was governed was to be seen
in the buildings then carried on by the priests in Upper Egypt. We find
the name of Tiberius carved in hieroglyphics on additions or repairs
made to the temples at Thebes, at Aphroditopolis, at Berenice, on the
Red Sea, at Philae, and at the Greek city of Parembole, in Nubia. The
great portico was at this time added to the temple at Tentyra, with an
inscription dedicating it to the goddess in Greek and in hieroglyphics.
As a building is often the work of years, while sculpture is only the
work of weeks, so the fashion of the former is always far less changing
than that of the latter. The sculptures on the walls of this beautiful
portico are crowded and graceless; while, on the other hand, the
building itself has the same grand simplicity and massive strength that
we find in the older temples of Upper Egypt.

We cannot but admire the zeal of the Egyptians by whom this work
was then finished. They were treated as slaves by their Greek
fellow-countrymen; their houses were ransacked every third year by
military authority in search of arms; they could have had no help from
their Roman masters, who only drained the province of its wealth; and
the temple had perhaps never been heard of by the emperor, who could
have been little aware that the most lasting monument of his reign was
being raised in the distant province of Egypt.

[Illustration: 024.jpg TEMPLE AT TENTYRA, ENLARGED BY ROMAN ARCHITECTS]

The priests of the other parts of the country sent gifts out of their
poverty in aid of this pious work; and among the figures on the walls
we see those of forty cities, from