СНАР. 14.

TREADING IN THE GRAIN

17

his plot of ground, and after sowing turns his swine into itthe swine tread in the corn 2-after which he has only to await

The furrows were not deep; and Diodorus and Columella say that they were contented to "trace slight furrows with a light plough on the surface of the land," a mode of tillage resembling the scarificatio of the Romans, continued in Egypt at the present day. After the plough followed the hoe to break the clods; and the land having been prepared, the sower was sent in, who threw the seed broadcast over the field. The land was all open, having no hedge-rows, but merely simple landmarks to define the boundaries of a farm or field, as with the Jews (Deut. xix. 14), and sometimes an estate was separated from its neighbour by a large canal, from which smaller channels distributed the water in proper directions through the fields.

When the Nile was low, the water was raised by the pole and bucket, the shadóof of modern Egypt, and by other means; and this attention to artificial irrigation, instead of depending for it on rain, is alluded to in Deuteronomy xi. 10. There is one instance, and one only, of men drawing the plough in Egypt. The painting, which is from a tomb at Thebes, is preserved in the Louvre. Two men are at the end of the pole, and two others pull a rope attached to the base where the handle, pole, and share unite; another holds the plough as usual, and the rest of the scene is like that in other agricultural scenes, with the hoeing, sowing broadcast, and the harvest operations.-G. W.]

2 Plutarch, Elian (Nat. Animal. x. 16, on the authority of Eudoxus), and Pliny, mention this custom of treading in the grain "with pigs" in Egypt; but no instance occurs of it in the tombs, though goats are sometimes so represented in the paintings. It is indeed more probable that pigs were turned in upon the land to eat up the weeds and roots; and a painting at Thebes, where pigs are introduced with water-plants, seems to point to this fact; their habits were ill suited to benefit the farmer after the seed had been sown; and to muzzle each pig, when goats or VOL. II.-2

the harvest. The swine serve him also to thrash the grain,' which is then carried to the garner.

other animals abounded, would have been lost labour. In the district of Gower, in South Wales, corn is trodden in by sheep to this day.-[G. W.]

3 The paintings show that oxen were commonly used to tread out the grain from

BOOK II.

CHAP. 15.

NOTIONS OF THE IONIANS

19

15. If then we choose to adopt the views of the Ionians concerning Egypt, we must come to the conclusion that the

the ear at harvest-time, and occasionally, though rarely, asses were so employed; but pigs not being sufficiently heavy for the purpose, are not likely to have been substituted for oxen. This process was

performed, as it is still in Italy, Spain, and other countries, by driving the oxen (horses or mules) over the corn strewed upon the ground, or upon a paved area near the field; and the Jews, who also adopted it, were forbidden to muzzle the

ox when treading out the corn (Deut. xxv. 4). In later times the Jews appear also to have used "threshing instruments," and the word dus, " treading," in the sentence "Ornan was threshing wheat" (1 Chron. xxi. 20, 23), may merely have been retained from the earlier custom of tritura

ting by oxen. Another more distinct mention of a "new sharp threshing instrument having teeth" is found in Isaiah (xli. 15), which calls to mind the Nóreg, or corn-drag, of modern Egypt, a name closely resembling the Hebrew Moreg, applied to the threshing instruments of Ornan (as in Isaiah), and the oxen he offered to David were doubtless those that had been yoked to it. The modern Egyptian Nóreg is drawn by two oxen, and consists of a wooden frame, with three axles, on which are fixed circular iron plates, the first and last having each four, the centre one three plates; and these not only force out the grain but chop the straw as the machine is dragged over it. It appears to be very similar to the tribulum of the Romans mentioned by Varro (de Re rusticâ, i. 52), who describes it as "a frame

20

CONCERNING EGYPT.

BOOK II.

4

Egyptians had formerly no country at all. For the Ionians say that nothing is really Egypt but the Delta, which extends along shore from the Watch-tower of Perseus, as it is called, to the Pelusiac Salt-pans," a distance of forty schoenes, and stretches

6

made rough by stones, or pieces of iron, on which the driver or a weight was placed, and this being drawn by beasts yoked to it pressed out the grain." The "plostemum Pœnicum " was doubtless introduced into Spain by the Phoenicians.-[G. W.]

Under the general expression of "Ionians" in this passage, Herodotus has been thought to mean principally, if not solely, Hecatæus. (Müller ad Hecat. Fragm. Fr. 295 and 296.) Col. Mure shows satisfactorily (Literature of Greece, vol. iv. p. 148, note 1) that this is not the case, since the persons here spoken of divided the world into three parts (infrà, ch. 16), Hecatæus into two. (See the map, note to Book iv. ch. 36.) Perhaps the allusion is to Anaximander, who as a geographer had preceded Hecatæus. (Strab. i. p. 10; Agathemer. i. 1.)

There is no appearance of the name Egypt" on the ancient monuments, where the country is called " Chemi," represented in hieroglyphics by the tail of a crocodile. Chemi, "the black land," "the land of Ham," or of Khem (the Egyp tian god Pan, or the Generative principle of Nature) is said by Plutarch to have been so called from the "blackness of the soil." Khem is singularly like the Greek xauaí. Ham (Kham), the Hebrew name of the patriarch, signifies also "soot," and is like the Arabic hem, hami, "hot ;" and the Hebrew hom (or khóm), signifying brown (or black), as in Gen. xxx. 32, 40, is also "burnt up." Egyptus was in old times the name of the Nile, which was so called by Homer (Odys. iv. 477; xiv. 257); and Strabo (xvii. p. 691) says the same was the opinion of Nearchus. Manetho pretends that the country received the name from Egyptus, a surname of King Sethos (or Sethi). Aristotle thinks that "Egypt was formerly called Thebes," and Herodotus states, in opposition to the opinion of the " Ionians," that "Thebes (i. e. the Thebaid) had of old the name of Egypt." And if this is not confirmed by the monuments, the word " Egypt" was at all events connected with Coptos, a city of the Thebaid. From Kebt, Koft, or Coptos the modern inhabitants have been called Copts: its ancient name in hieroglyphics was Kebt-hor; and Mr. Poole is evidently right in supposing this to be the same as the Biblical Caphtor. He thinks the name to be composed of Ala, "land," and rúros; and to be traced in the AiCaphtor, "land (or coast) of Caphtor," in Jeremiah (xlvii. 4). The word Coptitic is found in a Gnostic papyrus, supposed to be of the second century (see note on ch. 83). Egypt is said to have been called originally Aetia, and the Nile Aetos and Siris. Upper Egypt, or the Thebaid, has even been confounded with, and called, Ethiopia; perhaps too by Pliny (vi. 35; see note on ch. 110); Nahum (iii. 9) calls Ethiopia and Egypt the strength of No (Thebes); and Strabo says (i. p. 57) that Menelaus' journey to Ethiopia really meant to Thebes. The modern name Musr or Misr is the same as the Biblical Mizraim, i. e. "the two Misrs" applied to Egypt, which corresponds to "the two regions" of the sculptures; but the word Misr does not occur on the monuments. Mr. Poole notices the meaning of the Arabic Misr, "red mud," and the name Rahab, "the proud," given to Egypt in the Bible. Of Caphtor, see Deut. ii. 23; Amos ix. 7. See note on ch. 106.-[G. W.]

6

3

This tower stood to the W. of the Canopic mouth; and, as Rennell supposes, on the point of Aboukir, not, as Strabo thinks, on a sandy point at the Bolbitine mouth. The Canopic was by some called the Heracleotic mouth, from the city of Hercules (see n.' ch. 113). The name Canopus, written more correctly by Herodotus Κάνωβος, said to signify χρύσεον ἔδαφος, has been derived from kahi noub, golden land." The term "Canopic," applied to sepulchral vases with a human head, is quite arbitrary.-[G. W.]

66

7 The Greek, like the modern, name of Pelusium, is thought to have been derived from the mud that surrounded it, ŋλòs in Greek, and Teen in Arabic, signifying "mud." It is now called Teeneh. It is, however, very probably taken from the old Egyptian name, and not Greek. Larcher considers the Tapixelar to be called from the embalmed mummies preserved there, but the name evidently applies to the

CHAP. 16.

REFUTATION OF THE IONIANS.

8

21

inland as far as the city of Cercasôrus, where the Nile divides into the two streams which reach the sea at Pelusium and Canôbus respectively. The rest of what is accounted Egypt belongs, they say, either to Arabia or Libya. But the Delta, as the Egyptians affirm, and as I myself am persuaded, is formed of the deposits of the river, and has only recently, if I may use the expression, come to light. If then they had formerly no territory at all, how came they to be so extravagant as to fancy themselves the most ancient race in the world? Surely there was no need of their making the experiment with the children to see what language they would first speak. But in truth I do not believe that the Egyptians came into being at the same time with the Delta, as the Ionians call it; I think they have always existed ever since the human race began; as the land went on increasing, part of the population came down into the new country, part remained in their old settlements. In ancient times the Thebaïs bore the name of Egypt, a district of which the entire circumference is but 6120 furlongs.

16. If then my judgment on these matters be right, the Ionians are mistaken in what they say of Egypt. If, on the contrary, it is they who are right, then I undertake to show that neither the Ionians nor any of the other Greeks know how to count. For they all say that the earth is divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya, whereas they ought to add a fourth part, the Delta of Egypt, since they do not include it either in Asia or Libya. For is it not their theory that the

salt-pans, as in ch. 113, where Herodotus mentions others near the Canopic mouth. -[G. W.] Lepsius suggests that Pelusium means "Philistine-town" (Chronologie der Egypter, vol. i. p. 341), and regards it as so called because it was the last town held by the Hyksos, whom he believes to have been Philistines, before their final expulsion from Egypt.

Or Cercasôrum. It is impossible to say which form Herodotus intended. Though Egypt really belongs to the continent of Africa, the inhabitants were certainly of Asiatic origin; and the whole of the valley of the Nile has been peopled by the primeval immigration of a Caucasian race. This seems to be indicated also by the Bible history, where the grandsons of Noah are made the inhabitants of Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, and Canaan; and Juba, according to Pliny, affirms with reason that the people of the banks of the Nile from Syene to Meroe, were not Ethiopians (blacks) but Arabs. Till a later time half Egypt was ascribed to Africa, "which extended to the sources of the Nile" (Strabo, ii. p. 170), and “the Tanais and Nile were the limits of Asia" (Plin. iii. Prooem.); but more reasonable people, says Strabo (i. p. 51), think the Arabian Gulf the proper separation of the two continents rather than the Nile. Ptolemy gives both banks of the Nile to Africa (iv. 5). Herodotus justly blames the inconsistency of making Egypt belong to neither continent, and of considering the country and its people a new creation. In Book iv. chs. 39 and 41, Herodotus does not mean to exclude Egypt both from Asia and from Libya, as he shows by mentioning the ships of Neco sailing from the Arabian Gulf round Libya to the Mediterranean coasts of Egypt (ch. 42); he treats Libya as a distinct region, lying W. of Egypt, and makes Egypt itself the division between it