[573] Strabo, xvi, pp. 766, 776, 778; Pliny, H. N. vi, 32. “Arabes, mirum dictu, ex innumeris populis pars æqua in commerciis aut latrociniis degunt: in universum gentes ditissimæ, ut apud quas maximæ opes Romanorum Parthorumque subsistant,—vendentibus quæ a mari aut sylvis capiunt, nihil invicem redimentibus.”
The latter part of this passage of Pliny presents an enunciation sufficiently distinct, though by implication only, of what has been called the mercantile theory in political economy.
[574] To give one example: Herodotus mentions an opinion given to him by the γραμματιστὴς (comptroller) of the property of Athênê at Sais, to the effect that the sources of the Nile were at an immeasurable depth in the interior of the earth, between Syênê and Elephantinê, and that Psammetichus had vainly tried to sound them with a rope many thousand fathoms in length (ii, 28). In mentioning this tale (perfectly deserving of being recounted at least, because it came from a person of considerable station in the country), Herodotus expressly says: “This comptroller seemed to me to be only bantering, though he professed to know accurately,”—οὗτος δ᾽ ἐμοίγε παίζειν ἐδόκεε, φάμενος εἰδέναι ἀτρεκέως. Now Strabo (xvii, p. 819), in alluding to this story, introduces it just as if Herodotus had told it for a fact,—Πολλὰ δ᾽ Ἡρόδοτός τε καὶ ἄλλοι φλυαροῦσιν, οἷον, etc.
Many other instances might be cited, both from ancient and modern writers, of similar carelessness or injustice towards this admirable author.
[575] Οἱ ἱρέες τοῦ Νείλου, Herod. ii, 90.
[576] The seven mouths of the Nile, so notorious in antiquity, are not conformable to the modern geography of the country: see Mannert, Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. x, 1, p. 539.
The breadth of the base of the Delta, between Pelusium and Kanôpus, is overstated by Herodotus (ii, 6-9) at three thousand six hundred stadia; Diodorus (i, 34) and Strabo, at thirteen hundred stadia, which is near the truth, though the text of Strabo in various passages is not uniform on this matter, and requires correction. See Grosskurd’s note on Strabo, ii, p. 64 (note 3, p. 101), and xvii, p. 186 (note 9, p. 332). Pliny gives the distance at one hundred and seventy miles (H. N. v, 9).
[577] Herod, i, 193. Παραγίνεται ὁ σῖτος (in Babylonia) οὐ, κατάπερ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, αὐτοῦ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἀναβαίνοντος ἐς τὰς ἀρούρας, ἀλλὰ χερσί τε καὶ κηλωνηΐοισι ἀρδόμενος· ἡ γὰρ Βαβυλωνίη χώρη πᾶσα, κατάπερ ἡ Αἰγυπτίη, κατατέτμηται ἐς διώρυχας, etc.
Herodotus was informed that the canals in Egypt had been dug by the labor of that host of prisoners whom the victorious Sesostris brought home from his conquests (ii, 108). The canals in Egypt served the purpose partly of communication between the different cities, partly of a constant supply of water to those towns which were not immediately on the Nile: “that vast river, so constantly at work,” (to use the language of Herodotus—ὑπὸ τοσούτου τε ποτάμου καὶ οὕτως ἐργατικοῦ, ii, 11), spared the Egyptians all the toil of irrigation which the Assyrian cultivator underwent (ii, 14).
Lower Egypt, as Herodotus saw it, though a continued flat, was unfit either for horse or car, from the number of intersecting canals,—ἄνιππος καὶ ἀναμάξευτος (ii, 108). But lower Egypt, as Volney saw it, was among the countries in the world best suited to the action of cavalry, so that he pronounces the native population of the country to have no chance of contending against the Mamelukes (Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. i, ch. 12, sect. 2, p. 199). The country has reverted to the state in which it was (ἱππασίμη καὶ ἁμαξευομένη πᾶσα) before the canals were made,—one of the many striking illustrations of the difference between the Egypt which a modern traveller visits, and that which Herodotus and even Strabo saw,—ὅλην πλωτὴν διωρύγων ἐπὶ διώρυξι τμηθεισῶν (Strabo, xvii, p. 788).