Mr. W. R. Cooper remarks, with regard to these two obelisks, that according to tradition, they “were set up at Memphis by King Pepi Merira (Apappus of Eratosthenes), of the sixth dynasty, a monarch who is recorded on the hieroglyphic texts to have reigned for one hundred years, less one hour.” They were removed from Egypt to Rome by Claudius Cæsar, A.D. 57, and placed in front of the mausoleum of Augustus. Then sharing the universal fate of all the obelisks at the fall of Rome, they became buried in the earth, and when disinterred had lost the pyramidion, and were otherwise broken. The smaller of the two was dug out by Pius VI. so recently as 1786; “but it occupies, perhaps, a finer position than any of its companions in the city of Rome, except the obelisk of the Vatican, since the architect Antinori erected it on the place of the Monte Cavallo, between the two splendid bronze horses called Castor and Pollux, which once adorned the centre of the Baths of Constantine, and are now the glory of Rome.” In the British Museum, Dr. Birch mentions the existence of a fragment which would appear to be part of an obelisk of Liliputian dimensions. And he further observes that several such small obelisks are known. Mr. Bonomi likewise includes in his list a small obelisk which formerly stood at Constantinople, and quotes from the work of Petrus Gyllus, or Pierre Gilles,[47] as follows:— [47] Born 1490; died 1555. “Antiquities of Constantinople, written originally in Latin,” by Petrus Gyllus, a Byzantine Historian. Translated by John Ball. London, 1729. “It is very probable that Constantinople had more obelisks than one. When first I arrived at Constantinople I saw two of them: one in the Circus Maximus, another in the Imperial Precinct, standing on the north side of the first hill. This last was of a square figure, and was erected near the houses of the Grand Seignor’s Glaziers. A little time after I saw it lying prostrate without the Precinct, and found it to be thirty-five feet in length. Each of its sides, if I mistake not, was six feet broad; and the whole was eight yards in compass. It was purchased by Antonius Priolus, a nobleman of Venice, who sent it thither, and placed it in St. Stephen’s Market. The other is standing in the Hippodrome to this day.” But, according to Long, writes Mr. Cooper, “this obelisk was never removed, but is identical with one of red granite, which still stands in the Sultan’s gardens, on the most northern eminence there. From its dimensions, this obelisk is probably of the period of the middle empire;[48] but as a copy of its inscriptions has not yet reached Europe, or been elsewhere published, all speculation as to its original place of erection, or the monarch who erected it, would be useless.”