Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Monuments reported by ancient authors for destination: "FAROS Island EGYPT".
Pharos or Pharus, a lighthouse. The most celebrated lighthouse of antiquity was
that situated at the entrance to the port of Alexandria. It was built by Sostratus
of Cnidos on an island, which bore the same name, by command of one of the Ptolemies,
and at an expense of 800 talents (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. § 83; Steph. Byz. s. v. Pharos;
Achill. Tat. v. 6). It was square, constructed of white stone, and with admirable
art; exceedingly lofty, and in all respects of great dimensions (Caesar, Bell.
Civ. iii. 112). It contained many stories (poluorophon, Strabo, xvii. p. 791),
which diminished in width from below upwards (Herodian, iv. 3). The upper stories
had windows looking seawards, and torches or fires were kept burning in them by
night in order to guide vessels into the harbour (Val. Flacc. vii. 84; see Bartoli,
Luc. Ant. iii. 12).
Pliny (l. c.) mentions the lighthouses of Ostia and Ravenna, and says
that there were similar towers at many other places. They are represented on the
medals of Apamea and other maritime cities. The name of Pharos was given to them
in allusion to that of Alexandria, which was the model for their construction
(Herodian, l. c.; Sueton. Claud. 20). The Pharos of Brundusium, for example, was,
like that of Alexandria, an island with a lighthouse upon it. (Mela, ii. 7, §
13; Steph. Byz. l. c.). Suetonius (Tiber. 74) mentions another pharos at Capreae.
Trajan's breakwater at Centum Cellae (Civita Vecchia) had a lighthouse at each
end (Plin. Ep. vi. 31), to which Merivale (Hist. vii. 253) seems to refer the
Pharos Tyrrhena in Juv. xii. 75. This is, however, probably the lighthouse at
the Portus Romanus or Portus Augusti formed by Claudius two miles N. of Ostia
and improved by Trajan (Suet. Claud. 20; Dio Cass. lx. 11; Mayor's note ad Juv.
l. c.).
The annexed woodcut shows two phari remaining in Britain. The first
is within the precincts of Dover Castle. It is about 40 feet high, octagonal externally,
tapering from below upwards, and built with narrow courses of brick and much wider
courses of stone in alternate portions. The space within the tower is square,
the sides of the octagon without and of the square within being equal, viz., each
15 Roman feet. The door is seen at the bottom (Stukeley, Itin. Curios. p. 129).
A similar pharos formerly existed at Boulogne, and is supposed to have been built
by Caligula (Sueton. Calig. 46; Montfaucon, Supplem. vol. iv. L. vi. 3, 4). The
round tower here introduced is on the summit of a hill on the coast of Flintshire
(Pennant, Par. of Whiteford and Holywell, p. 112).
Baumeister (Denkmaler, fig. 1688) shows a relief from the Torlonia
Museum of the lighthouse at the Roman Port, a round tower at the edge of the quay
with beacon flames rising from its summit. A tower without flames is shown on
a denarius of Sext. Pompeius as the lighthouse at Messina
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