And The Innumerable
Figures, Of Course, Are Here Too, Gesticulating On The Walls; And
Endless Representations Of The Lovely Goddess, Whose Swelling Bosom,
Which Has Preserved Almost Intact The Flesh Colour Applied In The
Times Of The Ptolemies, We Have Perforce To Graze As We Pass.
*****
In one of the vestibules that we have to traverse on our way out of
the sanctuary, amongst the numerous bas-reliefs representing various
sovereigns paying homage to the beautiful Hathor, is one of a young
man, crowned with a royal tiara shaped like the head of a uraeus.
He
is shown seated in the traditional Pharaonic pose and is none other
than the Emperor Nero!
The hieroglyphs of the cartouche are there to affirm his identity,
albeit the sculptor, not knowing his actual physiognomy, has given him
the traditional features, regular as those of the god Horus. During
the centuries of the Roman domination the Western emperors used to
send from home instructions that their likeness should be placed on
the walls of the temples, and that offerings should be made in their
name to the Egyptian divinities - and this notwithstanding that in
their eyes Egypt must have seemed so far away, a colony almost at the
end of the earth. (And it was such a goddess as this, of secondary
rank in the times of the Pharaohs, that was singled out as the
favourite of the Romans of the decadence.)
The Emperor Nero! As a matter of fact at the very time these bas-
reliefs - almost the last - and these expiring hieroglyphics were being
inscribed, the confused primitive theogonies had almost reached their
end and the days of the Goddess of Joy were numbered.
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