Rhodes Memorial on Devil's Peak in Cape Town, South Africa, is
a memorial to English-born South African politician Cecil John Rhodes
(1853–1902).
Sir Herbert Baker was the architect of this memorial and he allegedly modelled it after the Greek temple at Segesta. It consists of a massive staircase with 49 steps (one for
each year of Rhodes's life) leading from a semi-circular terrace up to a
rectangular U-shaped monument formed of pillars. The memorial is built
of Cape granite quarried on Table Mountain.
At the bottom of the steps is a bronze statue of a horseman, Energy by George Frederic Watts. Eight bronze lions by John Macallan Swan
flank the steps leading up to the memorial, with a bust of Rhodes (also
by JM Swan). The inscription on the monument is "To the spirit and life
work of Cecil John Rhodes who loved and served South Africa." Inscribed
below the bust of Rhodes are the last four lines of the last stanza
from the 1902 poem Burial by Rudyard Kipling in honour of Rhodes:
- The immense and brooding spirit still
- Shall quicken and control.
- Living he was the land, and dead,
- His soul shall be her soul!
The monument was completed and dedicated in 1912.
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| Rhodes Memorial |
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| The magnificent view from the memorial |
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| Cecil John Rhodes |
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| Energy by George Frederic Watts |
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| Bronze lion by John Macallan Swan |
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| Pillars of a Greek temple? |
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