We know that he must have passed the city of Am on his way from Bubastis to Daphnæ, and his expedition to the desert in search of the winged serpents shows that he stopped there. On the other hand, his account of the floating island of Khemmis was derived from his predecessor Hekatæos, and when he states that the Butô with which it was connected was built on the Sebennytic branch of the Nile, “as one sails up it from the sea,” it would seem certain that his account of this Butô was also quoted from the older writer. And yet it is difficult to believe that his description of the monolithic shrine which stood there is not given at first-hand. Perhaps the best explanation would be that Herodotos really made an excursion to the city, but has so skilfully mingled what he himself [pg 238] saw there with the description of Hekatæos as to make it impossible to separate the two.
The site of Paprêmis is absolutely unknown, and we have no clue even to its relative position. But Prosôpitis may be the fourth nome, Sapi-ris or “Sapi of the south.” In Byzantine times its capital bore the name of Nikiu, which Champollion long ago identified with the Coptic Pshati and the modern Abshadi, not far from Menûf. Menûf stands in a straight line due westward of Benha, and would have lain directly in the path of the traveller on his way from Naukratis to Memphis.
It was in the island of Prosôpitis that the Athenian fleet was blockaded by the Persians under Megabazus, and captured only when the river was turned into another channel, after the blockade had lasted for a year and a half. Immediately westward of Menûf, in fact, an island is formed by the Rosetta and Damietta branches of the Nile which unite at the southern end of it, and are joined together towards the north by the Bahr el-Fara'-unîyeh. But the island is twenty-seven miles long by fifteen wide, and it is difficult to understand how this could have been blockaded by the Persian army, much less defended by the crews of seventy vessels, for the space of a year and a half. Herodotos indeed asserts that the island of Prosôpitis [pg 239] was nine skhœnœ, or about sixty miles in circumference, and that it contained many cities; but this only makes the difficulty the greater.
Lastly, we come to Busiris, which is described by the Greek traveller as “in the centre of the Delta.” This description exactly suits the position of Pa-Usar or Busiris, “the temple of Osiris, the lord of Mendes,” and the capital of the Busirite nome. Its modern representative is Abusir, a little to the south of Semennûd or Sebennytos, on the railway line from Tanta to Mansûrah. If Herodotos really visited this place, he must have done so from Sais, to the west of which it lies in a pretty direct line. But the distance was considerable, and there is nothing in the language he uses in regard to it which obliges us to believe that he was really there. His description of the festival held there in honour of Isis is not that of an eye-witness; indeed, the remark he adds to it that “all the Karians who live in Egypt slash themselves on the forehead with swords” in their religious exercises goes to show that it could not have been so. All he knows about the festival is that, after sacrificing, men and women strike themselves in honour of Osiris. The Karians, however, who cut their heads like the Persian devotees of Huseyn in modern Cairo, were not Egyptians, and therefore would not have been [pg 240] allowed to join in the mysteries of the worship of Osiris; moreover, they did not live in Busiris, but in the Karian quarter of Memphis. What Herodotos tells us about them plainly comes from his Karian dragoman, and refers to some native Karian festival.
There was more than one Pa-Usar or Temple of Osiris in Lower Egypt. Next to that in the Busirite nome, the most famous was that of the Ur-Mer or the bull Mnêvis, in the environs of Heliopolis. This latter Herodotos would have seen when he paid his visit to the city of the Sun-god, and this too was near Memphis, where the Karians lived.
There was yet another Busiris a little to the north of Memphis itself. According to Pliny, its inhabitants made their living by climbing the pyramids for the amusement of strangers, like the Bedouin of Gizeh to-day. Its name has been preserved in the village and pyramids of Abusir. But neither the Busiris of Memphis nor the Busiris of Heliopolis was “in the centre of the Delta,” and it would seem that in this instance also Herodotos is either quoting from other travellers or is mixing their experiences with his own. With the Busiris of Memphis and the Busiris of Heliopolis he was doubtless acquainted: with the Busiris of the middle Delta we must conclude he was not. Hence his [pg 241] scanty notice of the festival that was celebrated there; hence also his reference to the Karian settlers in Memphis and their religious ceremonies. We must remember that Herodotos was not the first Greek tourist in Egypt, and that he too had his Murray and his Baedeker like the tourist of to-day.
Chapter VIII. Memphis And The Fayyûm.
We have followed Herodotos in his travels through the Delta, have seen him make his way from Kanôpos and Naukratis to Memphis and back again to Pelusium, and it is now time to accompany him through Memphis itself and the Fayyûm. There are no longer any uncertain sites to identify; from Memphis southward all is clear and determined.