[591] Herodot. i, 165-166; Diodor. i, 73.
[592] Diodor. i, 73.
[593] Besides this general rent or land-tax received by the Egyptian kings, there seem, also, to have been special crown-lands. Strabo mentions an island in the Nile (in the Thebaid) celebrated for the extraordinary excellence of its date-palms; the whole of this island belonged to the kings, without any other proprietor: it yielded a large revenue, and passed into the hands of the Roman government in Strabo’s time (xvii, p. 818).
[594] Herodot. ii, 30-141.
[595] Herodot. ii, 164.
[596] Diodor. i, 74. About the Egyptian castes generally, see Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part ii, 2, pp. 572-595.
[597] See the citation from Maillet’s Travels in Egypt, in Heeren, Ideen, p. 590; also Volney’s Travels, vol. i, ch. 6, p. 77.
The expression of Herodotus—οἱ περὶ τὴν σπειρομένην Αἴγυπτον οἰκέουσι—indicates that the portion of the soil used as pasture was not inconsiderable.
The inhabitants of the marsh land were the most warlike part of the population (Thucyd. i, 110).
[598] Herodot. ii, 59-60.