fragments of them remain, but two of them still maintain their positions
on each side of the entrance, with their faces towards the east. They
are each formed of a single block of red breccia from Syenê,* and are
fifty-three feet high, but the more northerly one was shattered in the
earthquake which completed the ruin of Thebes in the year 27 B.C. The
upper part toppled over with the shock, and was dashed to pieces on the
floor of the court, while the lower half remained in its place. Soon
after the disaster it began to be rumoured that sounds like those
produced by the breaking of a harp-string proceeded from the pedestal at
sunrise, whereupon travellers flocked to witness the miracle, and legend
soon began to take possession of the giant who spoke in this marvellous
way. In vain did the Egyptians of the neighbourhood declare that the
statue represented the Pharaoh Amenôthes; the Greeks refused to believe
them, and forthwith recognised in the colossus an image of Memnon the
Ethiopian, son of Tithonus and Aurora, slain by their own Achilles
beneath the walls of Troy--maintaining that the music heard every
morning was the clear and harmonious voice of the hero saluting his
mother.

* It is often asserted that they are made of rose granite,
but Jollois and Devilliers describe them as being of "a
species of sandstone breccia, composed of a mass of agate
flint, conglomerated together by a remarkably hard cement.
This material, being very dense and of a heterogeneous
composition, presents to the sculptor perhaps greater
difficulties than even granite."

Towards the middle of the second century of our era, Hadrian undertook a
journey to Upper Egypt, and heard the wonderful song; sixty years later,
Septimus Severus restored the statue by the employment of courses of