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BOOK II.

circuit of the seasons is made to return with uniformity.") The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first erected altars, images, and temples to the gods; and also first engraved upon stone the figures of animals. In most of these cases they proved to me that what they said was true. And they told me that the first man' who ruled over Egypt was Mên,2 and that in his time all Egypt, except the Thebaic canton, was a marsh, none of the land below lake

This at once proves they intercalated the quarter day, making their year to consist of 365 days, without which the seasons could not return to the same periods. The fact of Herodotus not understanding their method of intercalation does not argue (as Goguet seems to think) that the Egyptians were ignorant of it. Their having fixed the Sothic period in 1322 B. C., and ascertained that 1460 Sothic were equal to 1461 vulgar or "vague" years, as well as the statements of ancient authors, decide the question. But for the date of a king's reign they used the old year of 360 days; and the months were not reckoned from his accession, but were part of the current year. Thus, if he came to the throne on the 10th of the last month of the year, or Mesóré, he would date in the 1st year, the 12th month, the 10th day; and his second year would be in the following month Thoth, or 25 days after his accession. The Jews appear to have done the same. (See the Appendix to this Book, cu. ii.)-[G. W.]

10 Some suppose these to be the twelve gods of Olympus, the same as the Consentes of the Romans, given by Varro,

"Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovi, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo,"

and that they do not refer to any arrangement of the Egyptian Pantheon; but in ch. 145 Herodotus distinctly mentions the three orders of Egyptian gods, the first two consisting of eight and twelve, and the third "born of the twelve." He also shows how much older some were considered in Egypt than in Greece; Pan being one of the eight oldest, and Hercules of the twelve; and says (ii. 43) that Neptune was a "god quite unknown to the Egyptians." Again in ch. 4 he distinctly states they had twelve gods. The Etruscans had twelve great gods; the Romans probably derived that number from them.-(See note in Appendix, CH. iii. § 1.)— [G. W.]

1

According to the chronological tables of the Egyptians the gods were represented to have reigned first, and after them Menes the Thinite; and the same is found recorded in the Turin Papyrus of Kings, as well as in Manetho and other writers. Manetho gives them in this order:-1. Vulcan (Pthah); 2. Helios (Re), the Sun; 3. Agathodæmon (Hor-Hat, or possibly Noum); 4. Chronos (Seb); 5. Osiris; 6. Typhon (properly Seth); and 7. Horus. In the Papyrus there remain only Seb, Osiris, Seth, Horus, Thoth, Thmei (or Mei "Truth "), and apparently Horus (the Younger), who was "the last god who reigned in Egypt." (See n. ch. 43, n. 5 ch. 99, and Tn. P. W., p. 7-11. Menes (Menai) is represented by some to have been a conqueror; not that the Egyptians then obtained possession of the valley of the Nile for the first time; for he was from This, and their early immigration from Asia happened long before. But the establishment of royalty introduced luxury into Egypt, and Tnephachthus (Technatis of Plut. de Is. 8), the father of Bocchoris of the 24th dynasty, put up a curse "against Meinis" (Menes) in a temple at Thebes for having led the Egyptians from their previous simple and frugal habits. Diodorus (i. 45) says also that Menas was the first who introduced the worship of the gods, and sacrifices, the use of letters, couches, and rich carpets. Cp. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 35 on Frugal Repasts. See App. сн. viii.-[G. W.]

2 Herodotus does not call this king Menes, or Menas (as Diodorus, i. 45), but Mên. The Egyptian form is Mna according to Bunsen and Lepsius.

3

Note, besides the improbability of such a change, the fact that Menes was the

CHAP. 5.

EGYPT AN ACQUIRED COUNTRY.

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Moris then showing itself above the surface of the water. This is a distance of seven days' sail from the sea up the river.

5. What they said of their country seemed to me very reasonable. For any one who sees Egypt, without having heard a word about it before, must perceive, if he has only common powers of observation, that the Egypt to which the Greeks go in their ships is an acquired country, the gift of the river. The same is true of the land above the lake, to the distance of three days' voyage, concerning which the Egyptians say nothing, but which is exactly the same kind of country.

The following is the general character of the region. In the first place, on approaching it by sea, when you are still a day's sail from the land, if you let down a sounding-line you will bring up mud, and find yourself in eleven fathoms' water, which shows that the soil washed down by the stream extends to that dis

tance.5

reputed founder of Memphis, which is far to the north of this lake; and that Busiris, near the coast, the reputed burial-place of Osiris, Buto, Pelusium, and other towns of the Delta, were admitted by the Egyptians to be of the earliest date.-[G. W.]

Vide infrà, ch. 10, and note ad loc. The theory had been started by Hecatæus, who made use of the same expression. (See Arrian. Exp. Al. v. 6.)

[Herodotus observes that the same might be said of the country above for three days' sail; and exactly the same appearance might have struck him throughout the whole valley of the Nile. But though the depth of the soil has greatly increased, and is still increasing, in various ratios in different parts of the valley, the first deposit did not take place after man existed in Egypt; and as marine productions have not been met with in boring to the depth of 40 feet in the Delta, it is evident that its soil was deposited from the very first on a space already above the level of the Mediterranean. The formation of the Delta of Egypt is not like that of some other rivers, where the land has been protruded far into the sea; on the contrary, the Nile, after pursuing its course through the alluvial soil, enters the sea at the same distance north of the Lake Moeris as it did in the age of the early kings of Egypt. The sites of the oldest cities are as near the sea-shore as when they were inhabited of old; and yet the period now elapsed since some of them were built is nearly double that between Menes and Herodotus. I have already in another work explained the mistake respecting the Pharos I. having once been distant from Egypt (At. Eg. W. vol. i. p. 7), owing to the name AyurTos in Homer signifying (not the country, but) the "Nile; " and the Pharos I. and the coast of Alexandria being both rock, the distance between them has always been the same. Another great reason for the Delta not encroaching on the sea is that the land is always sinking along the north coast of Egypt (while it rises at the head of the Red Sea); and there is evidence to show that the Mediterranean has encroached, and that the Delta has lost instead of gaining, along the whole of its extent from Canopus to Pelusium. -G. W.]

The distance you see the Mediterranean discoloured by the Nile during the inundation is very great, and the same takes place in a minor degree at the mouths of rivers on the Syrian coast, but without forming any deltas; nor is the shallow sea off the coast of Egypt more a part of the Delta of the Nile now than when sounded in Herodotus' time, about 2300 years ago; and 11 orgyies (or fathoms) at a day's sail from the coast would alarm a sailor even at the present day. For you only come into 11 fathoms water at about 12 or 13 miles off the coast, about Abookir; and at 25 or 30 miles you have 60, 70, 80, and 90 fathoms, with sand and mud. At 5 or 6 miles from the mouth of the Nile the water on the surface is nearly fresh, and the bottom

6

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6. The length of the country along shore, according to the bounds that we assign to Egypt, namely from the Plinthinêtic gulf to lake Serbônis, which extends along the base of Mount Casius, is sixty schoenes. The nations whose territories are scanty measure them by the fathom; those whose bounds are less confined, by the furlong; those who have an ample territory, by the parasang; but if men have a country which is very vast, they measure it by the schoene. Now the length of the parasang is thirty furlongs,' but the schoene, which is an Egyptian measure, is sixty furlongs. Thus the coast-line of Egypt would extend a length of three thousand six hundred furlongs.

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7. From the coast inland as far as Heliopolis the breadth of Egypt is considerable, the country is flat, without springs, and full of swamps. The length of the route from the sea up to

mostly a stiff mud. The longest day's sail, according to Herodotus (iv. 86), is 700 stadia, about 794 Eng. m., or (infra, ch. 9) 540 stadia, about 61 miles, where the soundings would be at least the same number of fathoms.-[G. W.]

• Plinthiné was a town near the Lake Mareotis (Strabo, xvii. p. 1133; Ptol. iv. c. 5; Scylax. Perip. 105). From it the lake, as well as the bay, was sometimes called "Plinthinetan." The name "" 'Arapotes," given in Pliny (v. 10) to this lake is evidently a false reading. It should be Racotis, and applies to Alexandria. —[G. W.]

The schoene, an Egyptian measure, varied from 30 and 32 to 40 stadia, according to Pliny (v. 10, xii. 14); and Strabo distinctly says (xvii. p. 1140) it was of various lengths in different parts of Egypt. Herodotus says it was equal to 60 stadia, making the length of the coast 3600 stadia, which, at 600 feet to the stadium, would be more than 400 Eng. m. The real length of the coast from the Bay of Plinthiné at Taposiris, or at Plinthiné, even to the eastern end of the Lake Serbonis, is by the shore little more than 300 Eng. m. Diodorus estimates the breadth of Egypt by the coast at 2000 stadia; and Strabo gives only 1770 stadia from the Temple of Jupiter Casius at the Serbonic Lake to Pharos, which, added to 200 stadia to Taposiris, make 1970 stadia. The real distance from Casius to Pharos is about 1944 stadia, and from Pharos to Taposiris or to Plinthiné, nearly 260, being a total of about 2204 stadia.-[G. W.]

Some might imagine this to be confirmed by modern custom; the English measuring by miles, the French by leagues, the Germans by the "meile," of more than four times our mile in length; but this will not hold good generally, and the Russian werst is only about two-thirds of an English mile, or 1167 yards.[G. W.]

• See note on Book v. ch. 53.

1 This would be more than 36,000 English feet, or nearly 7 miles. The Greek σχοῖνος, "L 'rope," is the same word which signifies rush, of which ropes are still made in Egypt and in other countries, and it has been singularly transferred to the skein of our modern measure for thread and silk.-[G. W.]

2

Heliopolis stood on the edge of the desert, about 4 miles to the E. of the apex of the Delta; but the alluvial land of the Delta extended 5 miles farther to the eastward of that city, to what is now the Birket-el-Hag. The mountains to the S. of Heliopolis closing in to the westward towards the Nile make the valley narrow in that part, and throughout the rest of its course from the S. The southern point of the Delta appears formerly to have extended further up the river (i. e. south) than at present, and to have been nearly opposite the modern village of Shoobra (see M. Eg. W. vol. i. p. 401). At the time and long after Cairo was founded, the Nile ran more to the eastward, as Mr. Lane has shown, under its western walls.