In 297 Diocletian, augustus since 284, campaigned in Egypt to suppress the revolt of the usurper Domitius Domitianus. After a long siege, Diocletian captured Alexandria and executed Domitianus's successor Aurelius Achilleus in 298. In 302 the emperor returned to the city and inaugurated a state grain supply. The dedication of the column monument and its statue of Diocletian, describes Diocletian as polioúchos. In the fourth century AD this designation also applied to Serapis, the male counterpart of Isis in the pantheon instituted by the Hellenistic rulers of Egypt, the Ptolemies. The sanctuary complex dedicated to Serapis in which the column was originally erected, the Serapeum, was built under King Ptolemy III Euergetes in the third century BC and probably rebuilt in the era of the second century AD emperor Hadrian after sustaining damage in the Kitos Wars; in the later fourth century AD it was considered by Ammianus Marcellinus a marvel rivalled only by Rome's sanctuary to Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, the Capitolium. The column was the largest of its type constructed outside the imperial capitals of Rome and Constantinople. The monument stands some 26.85 m high, and originally would have supported a statue some 7 m tall. The only known free-standing column in Roman Egypt which was not composed ofdrums, it is one of the largest ancient monoliths and one of the largest monolithic columns ever erected. The monolithic column shaft measures 20.46 m in height with a diameter of 2.71 m at its base, the socle itself is over 6 m tall. The column and socle are of lapis syenites, a pink granite cut from the ancient quarries at Syene, while the column capital of pseudo-Corinthian type is of grey granite. The weight of the column shaft, a single piece of red granite, is estimated to be 285 tonnes. The column is 26.85 m high including its base and capital. Other authors give slightly deviating dimensions. The surviving and readable four lines of the inscription in Greek on the column's socle relate that a Praefectus Aegypti called Publius dedicated the monument in Diocletian's honour. The monument commemorated the victories of the augustus on one of his visits to Egypt, commemorating either the institution of the Alexandrian state grain supply, the victory over Domitius Domitianus, or another of Diocletian's Egyptian campaigns. A praefectus aegypti named Publius is attested in two papyri from Oxyrrhynchus; his governorship must have been held in between the prefectures of Aristius Optatus, who is named as governor on 16 March 297, and Clodius Culcianus, in office from 303 or even late 302. Since Publius's name appears as the monument's dedicator, the column and stylite statue of Diocletian must have been completed between 297 and 303, while he was in post. The governor's name is largely erased in the damaged inscription; the remaining rendering of Publius as ΠΟΥΠΛΙΟΣ was confused with the Greek spelling of the Republican general of the first century BC Pompey, ΠΟΜΠΗΙΟΣ. The porphyry statue of Diocletian in armour is known from large fragments that existed at the column's foot in the eighteenth century AD. From the size of a 1.6 m fragment representing the thighs of the honorand, the original size of the loricate statue has been calculated at approximately 7 m tall. While some fragments of the statue were known to be in European collections in the nineteenth century, their whereabouts were unknown by the 1930s and are presumed lost. It is possible that the large column supporting Diocletian's statue was accompanied by another column, or three smaller columns bearing statues of Diocletian's co-emperors, the augustusMaximian and the two caesaresConstantius and Galerius. If so, the group of column-statues would have commemorated the college of emperors of the Tetrarchy instituted in Diocletian's reign.
Ascents
Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta visited Alexandria in 1326 AD. He describes the pillar and recounts the tale of an archer who shot an arrow tied to a string over the column. This enabled him to pull a rope tied to the string over the pillar and secure it on the other side in order to climb over to the top of the pillar. depicting Pompey's pillar and satirizing the Napoleonic Egyptian campaign. In early 1803, British naval officer Commander John Shortland of HMS Pandour flew a kite over Pompey's Pillar. This enabled him to get ropes over it, and then a rope ladder. On February 2, he and John White, Pandours Master, climbed it. When they got to the top they displayed the Union Jack, drank a toast to King George III, and gave three cheers. Four days later they climbed the pillar again, erected a staff, fixed a weather vane, ate a beef steak, and again toasted the king. An etymology of the nickname "Pompey" for the Royal Navy'shome port of Portsmouth and its football team suggests these sailors became known as "Pompey's boys" after scaling the Pillar, and the moniker spread; other unrelated origins are also possible.
