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This we remembered, not because it was imposing, or because it had a dromos of noble-faced sphinxes the only hawk-faced ones in Egypt or because of its prehistoric writings, on dark boulders; or because it had been used as a Christian Church: but owing to the fact that the ladies bought rag dolls from little Nubian girls, who wore their hair in a million greased braids.
"Through a dromos of sphinxes and couchant double-winged lions she was borne, and set down before Oraetes sitting on a throne specially erected at the sculptured pylon of the palace. He raised her up, gave her place by his side, clasped the uraeus upon her arm, kissed her, and Ne-ne-hofra was queen of all queens.
The route of the pageant could be seen from afar, cleanly outlined by humanity. It extended from Karnak to Luxor and, turning in a vast loop at the Nile front, countermarched over the dromos and ended at the tremendous white-walled temple of Amen. Between the double ranks of sightseers there was but chariot room.
A file of mules and wagons was ploughing through the multitude with marble for some new building. Every instant the noise grew. Pandora’s box had opened, and every clamour had flitted out. At the northern end, where the porticos and the long Dromos street ran off toward the Dipylon gate, stood the shop of Clearchus the potter.
The side Kenkenes approached sloped sharply from the dromos toward the river, and the rearmost spectators had small opportunity to behold the pageant. The multitude here was less densely packed. Kenkenes joined the crowd at this point. Here was the canaille of Thebes.
The dromos, or avenue of sphinxes, was carpeted with palm and nelumbo leaves, and copper censers as large as caldrons had been set at equidistance from one another, and an unceasing reek of aromatics drifted up from them throughout the day.
Six very large slabs of rough unhewn limestone, which had obviously come from Jebel Dukhan, lay on the top of the tomb, forming a roof. One of these was 6 feet in length, and 2 feet 2 inches in depth. The tomb itself was composed of two chambers, one immediately over the other, and approached by a long passage, like the dromos of rock-cut Greek tombs, which was full of earth and small stones.
Before he could extricate himself, the runners preceding the pageant returning the great god to his shrine, beat the multitude back from the dromos and once again Kenkenes was imprisoned by the hosts. And once again after the procession had passed, he did fruitless battle with a tossing human sea. But when the street had become freer, he stood before the closed portal of the great temple.
Behind the peplus in less careful array went thousands of citizens of every age and station, all in festival dress, all crowned with flowers. They followed the car up the Dromos Street, across the cheering Agora, and around the southern side of the Acropolis, making a full circuit of the citadel.
The foot-race was the oldest of the Greek institutions, and in the first of the Olympiads the "dromos," a course of about 200 yards, was the only contest; but gradually the "dialos," in which the course was double that of the dromos, was introduced, and, finally, tests of endurance as well as speed were instituted in the long-distance races and the contests of racing in heavy armor, which were so highly commended by Plato as preparation for the arduous duties of a soldier.
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