A full and just account of the present state of the Ottoman Empire in all its branches; with the government, and policy, religion, customs, and way of living of the Turks in general ... from a serious observation, taken in many years travesl thro' those countries / [Aaron Hill].

Aaron Hill

Date:: 1710

Credit: A full and just account of the present state of the Ottoman Empire in all its branches; with the government, and policy, religion, customs, and way of living of the Turks in general ... from a serious observation, taken in many years travesl thro' those countries / [Aaron Hill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

301/406 page 245

$Yet is this Sparta now a Dunghill grown, And proud Mycenas Tow’rs are overthrown \ What but a Fable does of Thebes remain, Where Royal Oedipus, once held his Reign ? Or where Survives the Great Pandiorfs Fame, But in loft Athens, now an empty Name ? '!i . ■' NOW let us haften from the Ruins of thefe fallen Cities, to fome more lafting Structures, which in fpite of Time, have proudly ftood from Age to Age, and baffled ftrangely all the Shocks of Age or Accident. Jl ». : n, i }} . . . ] S CHAP. XXXIV. Of the Pyramids of Egypt, and of feveral New Difcoveries therein, which were never yet 'Publifh’d, PON the Wejlern Side of the aforefaid Memphis\ near the Bor-T}iapyr3m;j3 dersof the Lybian Defart, ftand thofe vaft and tow’ring Pyramids, of Egypt. which have lo long amus’d the World, with ftrange Reflections on the ftrong Ambition, and vain- glorious Aim of their afpiring Foun- ac> .> . But before I enter on a full Defcription of their Building, Number, Form and Situation, ’twill not be amifs to tell my Reader, that I look upon it, as a needlefs trouble, to repeat the many various Notions and receiv’d Opinions of the anciemt World, concerning the Original Defgn of fuch Stu¬ pendous Fabricks. FOR it is now an uncontefted and apparent Truth, that they were whatde- firft defign’d, as lafting Sepulchres, wherein fuch Monarchic as might claim for, by Interment in thofe lofty MaufoUums, were induc’d to hope, they might out- Foua* live their Dissolutions, and continue known to after Ages, by the ftriking Grandeur of their barbarous Monuments. T O this Opinion, not to mention Pliny, Strabo, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and many other ancient Writers, Lucan leems to be a ftriCt Adherer, efpecialiy in his eighth Book, where he exclaims againft the bafe Injuftice of King Ptolemy, upon the account of Pompef s Murder in the following Yerfes. Vltima Lage# fiirpis perituraq\ Proles, Luean j Degener, incest# fceptris ceSfure for oris, Cum tibi facrato Mace don fervetur in antro, Ft regum cineres extruclo monte quiefcant, Cum Ptolemaorum manes feriemq; pudendam Py ram ides claudant, indignaq; Maufolea j LittoraPompQ)umfenunty trim cuff v ado (is Hue illuc jaclatur aquis. Dege-$