In hac urbe inter delubra ingentia, diversasque moles, figmenta Aegyptiorum numinum exprimentes, obeliscos vidimus plures, aliosque iacentes et comminutos, quos antiqui reges bello domitis gentibus, aut prosperitatibus summarum rerum elati, montium venis vel apud extremos orbis incolas perscrutatis excisos, et erectos dis superis in religione dicarunt.
In this city, amid mighty shrines and colossal works of various kinds, which depict the likenesses of the Egyptian deities, we have seen many obelisks, and others prostrate and broken, which kings of long ago, when they had subdued foreign nations in war or were proud of the prosperous condition of their realms, hewed out of the veins of the mountains which they sought for even among the remotest dwellers on the globe, set up, and in their religious devotion dedicated to the gods of heaven.
final_alignments\Ammianus_Marcellinus_Book17.json