The Pyramide

In the town of Vienne, near the Rhône river,
stands a Roman monument: it remains almost intact,
and is affectionately known as l’Aiguille
(‘the needle’).
It is a fine white stone pyramid,
standing atop a solid plinth made
from four columns and four arcatures.
" It has stood there for nearly two thousand years.
Its eroded peak is held in place by iron hooks,
but its edges are still very well-defined.
"For hundreds of years under Christianity,
it was a source of naïve fear,
a holy horror to pilgrims making their way
to Rome or Jerusalem. They believed it to be the tomb
of Pontius Pilate, the cold-blooded judge of Jesus!
Until the day when the stones were pulled up in search
of the profane bones of the man who ‘washed his hands’...
in vain. The Pyramid is solid. It never has been a tomb.
"We now know what its true purpose was.
Like Rome and Arles, Vienne was home to
a great circus which stretched for half a kilometre
along the banks of the Rhône.
The axis of the circus was demarcated by a series
of narrow constructions – the Spina – which formed
the centre of the oval chariot-racing track.
At the centre stood a monument intended to ensure
that the circus was visible from a distance.
"The fashion for Egyptian culture, which was very
widespread from Caligula to Hadrian, meant that such
monuments often took the form of obelisks transported
at great cost from Egypt. For example, Nero’s circus
in Rome had an obelisk at its centre; this still
stands outside St. Peter’s Basilica.
"In Vienne, however, a contracted pyramid was constructed.
It was a masterpiece of stonecutting.
The blocks were cut with such painstaking accuracy
that they held together without cement,
and united to form the perfect figure of a pyramid
stretching towards the sky.”