Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/480

 458 THE DECLINE AND FALL that Egypt was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages ;i^^ that, exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects,!^^ or twenty millions of either sex and of every age ; that three hun- dred millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of the caliph. ^^-^ Our reason must be startled by these extrava- gant assertions ; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the compass and measure the extent of habitable ground : a valley from the tropic to Memphis, seldom broader than twelve miles, and the triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thou- sand one hundred square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of France. ^°* A more accurate research will justify a more reasonable estimate. The three hundi*ed millions, created by the error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers. 1^^ Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century, are circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand seven hundred villages and towns. i^*' After a long resi- 151 Maillet, Description de I'Egypte, p. 22. He mentions this number as the common opinion ; and adds that the generality of these villages contain two or three thousand persons, and that many of them are more populous than our large cities. i-52Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty millions are computed from the following data : one twelfth of mankind above sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of men to women as seventeen to sixteen (Recherches sur la Popu- lation de la France, p. 71, 72). The president Goguet (Origine des Arts, &c. tom. iii. p. 26, &c. ) bestows twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seven- teen hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day. i'3Elmacin, Hist. Saracen, p. 218; and this gross lump is swallowed without scruple by d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient, p. 1031), Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 262), and De Guignes (Hist, des Huns, tom. iii. p. 135). They might allege the not less extravagant liberality of Appian in favour of the Ptolemies (in prsefat. ), of seventy-four myriads 740,000 talents, an annual income of 185, or near 300, millions of pounds sterling, according as we reckon by the Egyptian or the Alexandrian talent (Bernard de Ponderibus Antiq. p. 186). 154 See the measurement of d'Anville (M6m. sur I'Egypte, p. 23, &c.). After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw (Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom i. p. 118-121) can only enlarge his reckoning to 2250 square leagues. issRenaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who calls the common reading or version of Elmacin error librarii. [Elmacin gives 300,300,000.] His own emendation of 4,300,000 pieces, in the ixth century, maintains a probable medium between the 3,000,000 which the Arabs acquired by the conquest of Egypt (idem, p. 168), and the 2,400,000 which the sultan of Constantinople levied in the last century (PietrodellaValle, tom. i. p. 352 [p. 219 in French translation] ; Th^venot, part i. p. 824). Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p. 365-373) gradually raises the revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Ctesars, from six to fifteen millions of German crowns. 156 The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 5) contains 2396 places ; that of d'.^nville (M^m, sur I'Egypte, p. 29), from the divan of Cairo, enumerates 2696.