The Nile begins to increase at the next new moon after the summer solstice, and rises slowly and gradually as the sun passes through the sign of Cancer; it is at its greatest height while the sun is passing through Leo, and it falls as slowly and gradually as it arose while he is passing through the sign of Virgo. It has totally subsided between its banks, as we learn from Herodotus, on the hundredth day, when the sun has entered Libra. While it is rising it has been pronounced criminal for kings or prefects even to sail upon its waters. The measure of its increase is ascertained by means of wells[3538]. Its most desirable height is sixteen cubits[3539]; if the waters do not attain that height, the overflow is not universal; but if they exceed that measure, by their slowness in receding they tend to retard the process of cultivation. In the latter case the time for sowing is lost, in consequence of the moisture of the soil; in the former, the ground is so parched that the seed-time comes to no purpose. The country has reason to make careful note of either extreme. When the water rises to only twelve cubits, it experiences the horrors of famine; when it attains thirteen, hunger is still the result; a rise of fourteen cubits is productive of gladness; a rise of fifteen sets all anxieties at rest; while an increase of sixteen is productive of unbounded transports of joy. The greatest increase known, up to the present time, is that of eighteen cubits, which took place in the time of the Emperor Claudius; the smallest rise was that of five, in the year of the battle of Pharsalia[3540], the river by this prodigy testifying its horror, as it were, at the murder of Pompeius Magnus. When the waters have reached their greatest height, the people open the embankments and admit them to the lands. As each district is left by the waters, the business of sowing commences. This is the only river in existence that emits no vapours[3541].
The Nile first enters the Egyptian territory at Syene[3542], on the frontiers of Æthiopia; that is the name of a peninsula a mile in circumference, upon which Castra[3543] is situate, on the side of Arabia. Opposite to it are the four islands of Philæ[3544], at a distance of 600 miles from the place where the Nile divides into two channels; at which spot, as we have already stated, the Delta, as it is called, begins. This, at least, is the distance, according to Artemidorus, who also informs us that there were in it 250 towns; Juba says, however, that the distance between these places is 400 miles. [Aristocreon] says that the distance from Elephantis to the sea is 750 miles; Elephantis[3545] being an inhabited island four miles below the last Cataract, sixteen[3546] beyond Syene, 585 from Alexandria, and the extreme limit of the navigation of Egypt. To such an extent as this have the above-named authors[3547] been mistaken! This island is the place of rendezvous for the vessels of the Æthiopians; they are made to fold up[3548], and the people carry them on their shoulders whenever they come to the Cataracts.
CHAP. 11.—THE CITIES OF EGYPT.
Egypt, besides its boast of extreme antiquity, asserts that it contained, in the reign of King Amasis[3549], 20,000 inhabited cities: in our day they are still very numerous, though no longer of any particular note. Still however we find the following ones mentioned as of great renown—the city of Apollo[3550]; next, that of Leucothea[3551]; then Great Diospolis[3552], otherwise Thebes, known to fame for its hundred gates; Coptos[3553], which from its proximity to the Nile, forms its nearest emporium for the merchandise of India and Arabia; then the town of Venus[3554], and then another town of Jupiter[3555]. After this comes Tentyris[3556], below which is Abydus[3557], the royal abode of Memnon, and famous for a temple of Osiris[3558], which is situate in Libya[3559], at a distance from the river of seven miles and a half. Next to it comes Ptolemais[3560], then Panopolis[3561], and then another town of Venus[3562], and, on the Libyan side, Lycon[3563], where the mountains form the boundary of the province of Thebais. On passing these, we come to the towns of Mercury[3564], Alabastron[3565], the town of Dogs[3566], and that of Hercules already mentioned[3567]. We next come to Arsinoë[3568], and Memphis[3569], which has been previously mentioned; between which last and the Nome of Arsinoïtes, upon the Libyan side, are the towers known as the Pyramids, the Labyrinth[3570] on Lake Mœris, in the construction of which no wood was employed, and the town of Crialon[3571]. Besides these, there is one place in the interior, on the confines of Arabia, of great celebrity, the City of the Sun[3572].
(10.) With the greatest justice, however, we may lavish our praises upon Alexandria, built by Alexander the Great on the shores of the Egyptian Sea, upon the soil of Africa, at twelve miles’ distance from the Canopic Mouth and near Lake Mareotis[3573]; the spot having previously borne the name of Rhacotes. The plan of this city was designed by the architect Dinochares[3574], who is memorable for the genius which he displayed in many ways. Building the city upon a wide space[3575] of ground fifteen miles in circumference, he formed it in the circular shape of a Macedonian chlamys[3576], uneven at the edge, giving it an angular projection on the right and left; while at the same time he devoted one-fifth part of the site to the royal palace.
Lake Mareotis, which lies on the south side of the city, is connected by a canal which joins it to the Canopic mouth, and serves for the purposes of communication with the interior. It has also a great number of islands, and is thirty miles across, and 150 in circumference, according to Claudius Cæsar. Other writers say that it is forty schœni in length, making the schœnum to be thirty stadia; hence, according to them, it is 150 miles[3577] in length and the same in breadth.
There are also, in the latter part of the course of the Nile, many towns of considerable celebrity, and more especially those which have given their names to the mouths of the river—I do not mean, all the mouths, for there are no less than twelve of them, as well as four others, which the people call the False Mouths[3578]. I allude to the seven more famous ones, the Canopic[3579] Mouth, next to Alexandria, those of Bolbitine[3580], Sebennys[3581], Phatnis[3582], Mendes[3583], Tanis[3584], and, last of all, Pelusium[3585]. Besides the above there are the towns of Butos[3586], Pharbæthos[3587], Leontopolis[3588], Athribis[3589], the town of Isis[3590], Busiris[3591], Cynopolis[3592], Aphrodites[3593], Sais[3594], and Naucratis[3595], from which last some writers call that the Naucratitic Mouth, which is by others called the Heracleotic, and mention it instead[3596] of the Canopic Mouth, which is the next to it.
CHAP. 12. (11.)—THE COASTS OF ARABIA, SITUATE ON THE EGYPTIAN SEA.
Beyond the Pelusiac Mouth is Arabia[3597], which extends to the Red Sea, and joins the Arabia known by the surname of Happy[3598], so famous for its perfumes and its wealth. This[3599] is called Arabia of the Catabanes[3600], the Esbonitæ[3601], and the Scenitæ[3602]; it is remarkable for its sterility, except in the parts where it joins up to Syria, and it has nothing remarkable in it except Mount Casius[3603]. The Arabian nations of the Canchlæi[3604] join these on the east, and, on the south the Cedrei[3605], both of which peoples are adjoining to the Nabatæi[3606]. The two gulfs of the Red Sea, where it borders upon Egypt, are called the Heroöpolitic[3607] and the Ælanitic[3608]. Between the two towns of Ælana[3609] and Gaza[3610] upon our sea[3611], there is a distance of 150 miles. Agrippa says that Arsinoë[3612], a town on the Red Sea, is, by way of the desert, 125 miles from Pelusium. How different the characteristics impressed by nature upon two places separated by so small a distance!