Why didn't Roman Emperors build Pyramids?

This is the Great Pyramid of Giza, built by the pharaoh Khufu in the 27th century BC. It consists of an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks with an average weight of more than two tons. For nearly 4,000 years, until it was overtopped by a medieval cathedral tower, it was the tallest structure ever built by humans. It was the oldest of the Seven Wonders, and the only one that still survives today. The Romans were awestruck by the Great Pyramid. Although some, like Pliny the Elder, dismissed the pyramids as megalomaniacal, every Roman who toured Egypt stopped to see them. A few were so impressed that they built pyramid tombs of their own. No Roman emperor, however, was buried in a pyramid. As far as we know, no emperor even contemplated building one, for the excellent reason that it would have been a public relations disaster. An imperial pyramid would have been seen as a hallmark of tyranny, a wild extravagance, an utter rejection of Roman principles. But let's imagine that, for some reason, an emperor decided to build a monument in Egypt on the scale of the Great Pyramid. Let's imagine, further, that this Roman pyramid would not be built at Alexandria, the provincial capital, but near its model, in the vicinity of Memphis. A Roman emperor would have had to contend with many of the same basic constraints that Khufu faced two and a half millennia before. The most immediate problem would have been assembling and feeding a vast workforce. The pharaohs of the Old Kingdom built their pyramids during the flood season, when the fields were underwater and most agricultural workers were unemployed. An emperor would doubtless have followed suit. Many craftsmen could have been recruited from Memphis, still a substantial city in the Roman period. Laborers would also have been readily available. Farmers in Roman Egypt were obligated to spend several days each year repairing dikes, canals, and other public works. The corvee system could have been extended to pyramid building. Construction might also have been facilitated by the guild-like associations into which the craftsmen of Roman Egypt were organized. The government often called upon these organizations to produce goods for the military. Their services could just as easily have been deployed in the Even if the Romans had set out to imitate the Great Pyramid, they would never have created an exact replica. Khufu's pyramid reflected an essentially Egyptian, and specifically Old Kingdom, conception of divine kingship. It was designed to perpetuate the pharaoh's role as a living god and guardian of his people. Roman architects, unaware of or indifferent to the pyramid's original significance, would almost certainly have simplified its design. We'll discuss how this might have been done after a quick word about this video's sponsor. As a YouTuber, I spend most of my day, sometimes 10 hours or more, at a desk. I used to use this chair. 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Some clues are provided by the Pyramid of Cestius, built at Rome during the reign of Augustus as the tomb of a wealthy magistrate. The pyramid is 100 Roman feet, 30 meters square, and 125 Roman feet, 36 meters tall. Although the casing is white Italian marble, the bulk of the pyramid consists of Roman concrete. The tomb chamber is a simple rectangular room crowned by a barrel vault. To judge from this example and general Roman practice, a Roman replica of the Great Pyramid would likely have featured arches and vaults of brick-faced concrete in place of the huge granite slabs that supported the ceilings of chambers and passageways in Khufu's pyramid. I doubt, however, that a Roman replica of the Great Pyramid would, like the Pyramid of Cestius, have been made primarily of concrete. Although it would have been easier to lay than millions of limestone blocks, Roman concrete dried slowly and deformed under great weight. Masonry was more reliable. Khufu's workmen cored limestone with wooden mallets and copper chisels, which had to be sharpened frequently. The Romans, using iron tools, would have cut and shaped stone much more efficiently. They would also have produced more regular blocks, which would have been easier to lay than the often roughly cut backing stones of Old Kingdom pyramids. We'll assume that our Roman pyramid, like Khufu's, would have been built primarily of limestone from the immediate vicinity. The casing stones, however, would have had to be shipped down the Nile by a process virtually unchanged since the time of the pharaohs. Blocks would have been hauled to the river on wooden sledges over tracks of compacted stone ships. The barges that carried them would have landed as close as possible to the building site, perhaps, as in the case of the Great Pyramid, via an artificial basin that filled during the annual flood. Greek and Roman authors speculated about how the stones of the pyramids were lifted into place. Herodotus believed that the blocks were heaved heavenward with levers. Diodorus, that they were hauled up over mounds of earth. Pliny the Elder speculated that the pyramids were surrounded with ramps of natural salt, which dissolved when touched by floodwater. A Roman emperor would have done well to disregard such theories and rely on local expertise. Although many centuries had passed since the construction of the last pyramid in Egypt, the builders of Roman Egypt were familiar with the techniques of monumental masonry. Unlike their Old Kingdom predecessors, they were also familiar with the use of cranes, which would undoubtedly have been used to raise a pyramid's stones. The construction of the Great Pyramid had involved tens of thousands of craftsmen and laborers, working seasonally for at least two decades. Within the constraints of Bronze Age technology, only the exceptional fertility of the Nile Valley and the pharaoh's absolute power made a project of this scale possible. The Romans had many technological advantages over the pharaohs, most notably cranes and iron tools. In combination with the sophisticated methods of social organization at their disposal, they would, in theory, have been able to build a replica of the Great Pyramid relatively quickly. But of course, they never did. One might imagine scenarios in which Alexandria became the center of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar, had he escaped assassination, would likely have settled there. So would Mark Antony, had he been victorious at Actium. Ovidius Cassius, the general who tried to raise the eastern provinces against Marcus Aurelius, orchestrated his rebellion from Alexandria. Bobolathus, son of the rebel queen Zenobia, could easily have made Alexandria the center of a new eastern Roman Empire. Yet even if the Roman Empire had come to be centered on Egypt, it's difficult to imagine an emperor being buried in a pyramid. Leaving aside the political and practical considerations mentioned earlier, and the fact that any motivated ruler could simply have reused an existing pyramid, it simply wouldn't have made cultural sense. Although they ruled Egypt, the Roman emperors were not of Egypt. They stood outside the sacred bond between pharaoh and subjects that had given meaning to the pyramids and justified the effort of creating them. Lacking that, a pyramid was just a pile of stone. For more on the relationship between Roman emperors and their Egyptian subjects, check out my new Artifact of the Month video, coming next week, which is centered on a statue of Caracalla as pharaoh. I'd like to thank History for Granite, a channel dedicated to the Egyptian pyramids, for helpful comments on my script. I recently brought a group to some of Egypt's most iconic sites. If you'd like to join me on a historical tour next year, visit my Trips page, linked in the description. You'll find more content on my Patreon, home to my series, Rome in Review, and on my other channels, Told-in-Stone Footnotes and Scenic Routes to the Past. Thanks for watching.