Pompey column

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Coordinates: 31 ° 10 ′ 57 ″  N , 29 ° 53 ′ 47.2 ″  E

Pompey column in Alexandria

The so-called Pompey column is a Roman column of honor in Alexandria, Egypt . The freestanding column is the largest to be erected outside the capitals of Rome and Constantinople . The column height including the base and Corinthian capital is 26.85 meters. The monolithic column shaft made of red Assuan granite is 20.46 meters high, the diameter at the base is 2.71 meters. The weight of the shaft is estimated at 285 tons, which makes it one of the largest monoliths of antiquity and the world's largest monolithic columns .

It is located in the southern part of the city, between Lake Mariut and the Mediterranean Sea, near the catacombs and the Arab cemetery - an area that is now called Amoud El-Sawary ("Pillar of the Rider") because the Arabs rose suspected an equestrian statue of the column. The Column of Pompey rises on the remains of an ancient wall, a hill covered with architectural fragments and rubble, above the ruins of the famous Serapeum .

The column is named after Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106–48 BC), over whose grave it is said to have been erected; at Appian and Cassius Dio , the information finds that Caesar is said to have buried the severed head of his enemy in Alexandria. After Plutarch , the ashes of the head were sent to Cornelia Metella , who she was buried in the ager Albanus .

Another tomb of Pompey in Pelusion , in which the cremated remains of his body are said to have been buried, was found during the Egyptian journey of the Emperor Hadrian (130/1 AD) together with the votive offerings and statues, the followers and former companions of Pompey had erected there. Pompey the Great shares the fate of having found the final resting place in a - today - unknown tomb in Alexandria with another great man in world history, with one who seemed to be similar to Pompey and with whom he was often compared during his lifetime: with Alexander the Great .

However, the column was not erected in honor of Pompeius, but in 297/8 AD by the governor of Egypt, [Aelius] Publius, in honor of the emperor Diocletian , after his victory over the Christian in 296 AD Achilles who had appropriated the title of anti-emperor from Lucius Domitius Domitianus . It is uncertain whether the Pompey column originally carried a statue of Diocletian. The so-called Nile mosaic from the 5th century, which was uncovered in the Israeli city of Sepphoris , shows a scene from Egypt with several buildings, including a column with a statue on top.

As the only largely intact evidence of the Greco-Roman antiquity of Alexandria in situ , a visit to the Pompeius column has been part of the “compulsory program” of every traveler to Egypt since the 18th century, which is also reflected in literature, for example in Herman Melville's Moby Dick , in It is noted that a spine of a whale piled up by means of a crane is reminiscent of the Pompey column. In 1803, the British Captain John Shortland had a rope ladder attached to the column and climbed the column several times.

See also

Remarks

  1. ↑ Thiel 2006, pp. 251-254.
  2. ^ A b c Jean-Pierre Adam: On the subject of the trilithon de Baalbek: Le transport et la mise en œuvre des mégalithes . In: Syria , Vol. 54, 1977, pp. 31-63 (50f.).
  3. ↑ Thiel gives slightly different values: According to his statements, the monolithic shaft is 20.75 m high (28.7 m including base and plinth ) with a diameter of 2.7-2.8 m (Thiel 2006, p. 252 f. ).
  4. ↑ Appian, bella civilia 2, 380.
  5. ↑ Cassius Dio 42, 8, 1.
  6. ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 80, 10.
  7. ↑ Lucan , Pharsalia 8, 834-835.
  8. ↑ Appian, bella civilia 2, 362.
  9. ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 46, 1.
  10. ^ Inscription on the base of the column: F. Kayser: Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines (non funéraires) d'Alexandrie impériale (Ier-IIIe s. Apr. J.-C.) (= Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Bibliothèque d'étude 108), Cairo 1994, pp. 52-57 No. 15.
  11. ↑ Herman Melville, Moby Dick . Chapter 103 - "Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton".

literature

  • Manfred Clauss : Alexandria. An ancient cosmopolitan city. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-608-94329-0 , p. 242.
  • Joachim Losehand: The last days of Pompey. From Pharsalos to Pelusion. Phoibos, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-901232-94-7 , p.?.
  • Wolfgang Thiel: The 'Pompeius column' in Alexandria and the four column monuments of Egypt. Thoughts on the tetrarchic culture of representation in North Africa . In: Dietrich Boschung , Werner Eck (ed.): The tetrarchy. A new system of government and its media presentation. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-89500-510-7 , pp. 249-322.

Web links

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