Considering the early age of Herodotus, his remarks on the geological character of Egypt as a deposit of the accumulated mud by the Nile, appear to me most remarkable (ii, 8-14). Having no fixed number of years included in his religious belief as measuring the past existence of the earth, he carries his mind back without difficulty to what may have been effected by this river in ten or twenty thousand years, or “in the whole space of time elapsed before I was born,” (ii, 11).
About the lake of Mœris, see a little farther on.
[578] See note in [Appendix] to this chapter.
[579] Herodot. ii, 35. Αἰγύπτιοι ἅμα τῷ οὐρανῷ τῷ κατὰ σφέας ἐόντι ἑτεροίῳ, καὶ τῷ ποτάμῳ φύσιν ἀλλοίην παρεχομένῳ ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι πόταμοι, τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεα καὶ νόμους.
[580] Theokritus (Idyll, xvii, 83) celebrates Ptolemy Philadelphus king of Egypt as ruling over thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three cities: the manner in which he strings these figures into three hexameter verses is somewhat ingenious. The priests, in describing to Herodotus the unrivalled prosperity which they affirmed Egypt to have enjoyed under Amasis, the last king before the Persian conquest, said that there were then twenty thousand cities in the country (ii, 177). Diodorus tells us that eighteen thousand different cities and considerable villages were registered in the Egyptian ἀναγραφαὶ (i, 31) for the ancient times, but that thirty thousand were numbered under the Ptolemies.
[581] Respecting the monuments of ancient Egyptian art, see the summary of O. Müller, Archäologie der Kunst, sects. 215-233, and a still better account and appreciation of them in Carl Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Alten, Düsseldorf, 1843, vol. i, book ii, chs. 1 and 2.
In regard to the credibility and value of Egyptian history anterior to Psammetichus, there are many excellent remarks by Mr. Kenrick, in the preface to his work, “The Egypt of Herodotus,” (the second book of Herodotus, with notes.) About the recent discoveries derived from the hieroglyphics, he says: “We know that it was the custom of the Egyptian kings to inscribe the temples and obelisks which they raised with their own names or with distinguishing hieroglyphics; but in no one instance do these names, as read by the modern decipherers of hieroglyphics on monuments said to have been raised by kings before Psammetichus, correspond with the names given by Herodotus.” (Preface, p. xliv.) He farther adds in a note, “A name which has been read phonetically Mena, has been found at Thebes, and Mr. Wilkinson supposes it to be Menes. It is remarkable, however, that the names which follow are not phonetically written, so that it is probable that this is not to be read Mena. Besides, the cartouche, which immediately follows, is that of a king of the eighteenth dynasty; so that, at all events, it cannot have been engraved till many centuries after the supposed age of Menes; and the occurrence of the name no more decides the question of historical existence than that of Cecrops in the Parian Chronicle.”
[582] Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, 1, p. 403. The opinion given by Parthey, however (De Philis Insulâ, p. 100, Berlin, 1830), may perhaps be just: “Antiquissimâ ætate eundem populum, dicamus Ægyptiacum, Nili ripas inde a Meroë insulâ usque ad Ægyptum inferiorem occupâsse, e monumentorum congruentiâ apparet: posteriore tempore, tabulis et annalibus nostris longe superiore, alia stirps Æthiopica interiora terræ usque ad cataractam Syenensem obtinuit. Ex quâ ætate certa rerum notitia ad nos pervenit, Ægyptiorum et Æthiopum segregatio jam facta est. Herodotus cæterique scriptores Græci populos acute discernunt.”
At this moment, Syênê and its cataract mark the boundary of two people and two languages,—Egyptians and Arabic language to the north, Nubians and Berber language to the south. (Parthey, ibid.)
[583] Compare Herodot. ii, 30-32; iii, 19-25; Strabo, xvi, p. 818. Herodotus gives the description of their armor and appearance as part of the army of Xerxês (vii, 69); they painted their bodies: compare Plin. H. N. xxxiii, 36. How little Ethiopia was visited in his time, may be gathered from the tenor of his statements: according to Diodorus (i, 37), no Greeks visited it earlier than the expedition of Ptolemy Philadelphus,—οὕτως ἄξενα ἦν τὰ περὶ τοὺς τόπους τούτους, καὶ παντελῶς ἐπικίνδυνα. Diodorus, however, is incorrect in saying that no Greek had ever gone as far southward as the frontier of Egypt: Herodotus certainly visited Elephantinê, probably other Greeks also.