Pompey’s Pillar

The massive 30m column that looms over the debris of the glorious ancient settlement of Rhakotis, the original township from which Alexandria grew, is known as Pompey’s Pillar. For centuries the column, hewn from red Aswan granite, has been one of the city’s prime sights, a single, tapered shaft, 2.7m at its base and capped by a fine Corinthian capital. The column was named by travellers who remembered the murder of the Roman general Pompey by Cleopatra’s brother, but an inscription on the base (presumably once covered with rubble) announces that it was erected in AD 291 to support a statue of the emperor Diocletian.