inopolis in Egypt in
front of a temple dedicated to the deified Antinous, the lamented
favourite of the emperor. It was afterwards transferred to the
imperial villa at Tivoli, near Rome, and subsequently to the grounds
of the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, from whence it was
finally taken to its present site. This obelisk has a special interest
because it commemorates one of the most beautiful and touching
examples of self-sacrifice which the annals of paganism afford. We are
apt to judge of Antinous from the languid beauty of the statue of him
in the Roman galleries, as simply the pampered sycophant of a court.
But behind his sensual beauty and softness there was an unselfish
devotion which the caresses of royalty and the favours of fortune
could not spoil. When the oracle declared that the happiness of
Hadrian, who was afflicted with a profound melancholy, could only be
secured by the sacrifice of what was most dear to him, Antinous went
at once and drowned himself in the Nile, and thus gave his life for
his imperial friend, who, instead of being made better by the
sacrifice, was left altogether inconsolable. The magnificent city
founded to perpetuate his memory is now a heap of ruined mounds, and
the obelisk that bore his name in Egypt now stands far away in Rome;
but time cannot quench the glow of sympathy that kindles in the heart
of every one who remembers his story of noble self-sacrificing love.

There are three or four obelisks that mark the introduction of the
Egyptian worship of Isis into the imperial city of the later emperors.
At one time everything Egyptian was fashionable in Rome, and the
goddess of Egypt was domesticated in the Roman Pantheon, and temples
in her honour were erected in several parts of the city and throughout
the empire. Obelisks, fashioned in Egypt by command of the Romans,
were often placed in front of the temples. But these spurious obelisks
have little dignity or significance, and suffer wofully when brought
into comparison with specimens of the genuine work of old Egypt. The
largest and most imposing of these monuments of the new faith of the
city is the one that now stands in the Piazza Navona, formerly called
the Pamphilian Obelisk, in honour of the family name of Pope Innocent
X., who placed it there. It is forty feet high, of red granite, broken
into five pieces, and covered with hieroglyphics, the whole style and
execution of which are so inferior that Winkelman long ago,