Cleopatra | Page 3

site for the
twin statues. He was anxious to select the most suitable one; the master
who had created this work of art had been his friend, and had closed his
eyes in death shortly after its completion.
The sanctuary whence Gorgias commenced his survey was in one of
the fairest portions of the Bruchium, the Alexandrian quarter, where
stood the royal palace with its extensive annexes, the finest
temples--except the Serapeum, situated in another part of the city-and
the largest theatres; the Forum invited the council of Macedonian

citizens to its assemblies, and the Museum afforded a resort for the
scholars.
The little square closed in the east by the Temple of Isis was called the
"Corner of the Muses," on account of the two marble statues of women
before the entrance of the house, which, with its large garden facing the
square northward and extending along the sea, belonged to Didymus,
an old and highly respected scholar and member of the Museum.
The day had been hot, and the shade of the Temple of Isis was very
welcome to the architect.
This sanctuary rested upon a lofty foundation, and a long flight of steps
led to the cella. The spot afforded Gorgias a wide prospect.
Most of the buildings within his vision belonged to the time of
Alexander and his successors in the house of the Ptolemies, but some,
and by no means the least stately, were the work of Gorgias himself or
of his father. The artist's heart swelled with enthusiastic delight at the
sight of this portion of his native city.
He had been in Rome, and visited many other places numbered among
the world's fairest and most populous cities; but not one contained so
many superb works of art crowded together in so small a space.
"If one of the immortals themselves," he murmured, "should strive to
erect for the inhabitants of Olympus a quarter meet for their grandeur
and beauty, it could scarcely be much more superb or better fitted to
satisfy the artistic needs which we possess as their gift, and it would
surely be placed on the shore of such a sea."
While speaking, he shaded his keen eyes with his hand. The architect,
who usually devoted his whole attention to the single object that
claimed his notice, now permitted himself the pleasure of enjoying the
entire picture in whose finishing touches he had himself borne a part;
and, as his practised eye perceived in every temple and colonnade the
studied and finished harmony of form, and the admirable grouping of
the various buildings and statues, he said to himself, with a sigh of
satisfaction, that his own art was the noblest and building the highest of
royal pleasures. No doubt this belief was shared by the princes who,
three centuries before, had endeavoured to obtain an environment for
their palaces which should correspond with their vast power and
overflowing wealth, and at the same time give tangible expression to
their reverence for the gods and their delight in art and beauty. No royal

race in the universe could boast of a more magnificent abode. These
thoughts passed through Gorgias's mind as the deep azure hue of sea
and sky blended with the sunlight to bring into the strongest relief all
that the skill and brains of man, aided by exhaustless resources, had
here created.
Waiting, usually a hard task for the busy architect, became a pleasure in
this spot; for the rays streaming lavishly in all directions from the
diadem of the sovereign sun flooded with dazzling radiance the
thousands of white marble statues on the temples and colonnades, and
were reflected from the surfaces of the polished granite of the obelisks
and the equally smooth walls of the white, yellow, and green marble,
the syenite, and the brown, speckled porphyry of sanctuaries and
palaces. They seemed to be striving to melt the bright mosaic pictures
which covered every foot Of the ground, where no highway intersected
and no tree shaded it, and flashed back again from the glimmering
metal or the smooth glaze in the gay tiles on the roofs of the temples
and houses. Here they glittered on the metal ornaments, yonder they
seemed to be trying to rival the brilliancy of the gilded domes, to lend
to the superb green of the tarnished bronze surfaces the sparkling lustre
of the emerald, or to transform the blue and red lines of the white
marble temples into lapis- lazuli and coral and their gilded decorations
into topaz. The pictures in the mosaic pavement of the squares, and on
the inner walls of the colonnades, were doubly effective against the
light masses of marble surrounding them, which in their turn were
indebted to the pictures for affording the eye an attractive variety
instead