Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1169

 THEBAE AEGYPTI. liorders of the stream as far as Herniopolio Jlagiia, the northern boundary of the ThebaiJ, generally ex- tend inland on the E. side about one mile and a half, on the W. about twomilfs. They do not indeed ob- serve an unbroken line, but the alluvial soil, where the mouths of the collateral valleys permit, occa- sionally stretches much farther into the country. Canals and dykes in the Pharaonic period admitted and retained the Nile's deposit to an extent unknown either in Grecian, Roman, or modern eras. Seen from the river the Thebaid. in the flourishinj; jieriods of Aegypt, presented a wide and animated spectacle of cultivation and industry, wherever the banks admitted of room for cities or villages. Of the scenery of the Nile, its teeming population and mul- titudinous river-craft, mention Las already been made in the article KiLUS. Among many others, the fol- lowing objects were beheld by those who travelled from Syene to Ilermopolis. At tirst the general appearance of the shores is barren and dreary. Koum-Omhns, the ancient Onibi, would first arrest attention by the brilliant colours of its temples, and, at certain seasons of the year, by the festivals held in honour of the crocodile-headed deity Sevak. At times also, if we may credit the Koman satirist (Juvenal, Sat. xv.), the shore at Ombi was the scene of bloody frays with the crocodile exlcnni- nators from Tentyra. Sixteen miles below Ombi was the seat of the special worship of the Nile, which at this point, owing to the escarjied form of its sand- stone banks, admits of a narrow mad only on either .side, and seems to occupy the whole breadth of Aegypt. Here too, and on the eastern bank especially are the vast quarries of stone which supplied the Theban architects with their durable and beautiful materials. Various landing-places from the river gave access to those quarries; the names of suc- cessive sovereigns ;uid princes of the xviiith dynasty, their wars and triumphs, are recorded on the rocks; and blocks of stone and mouolithal shrines are still visible in their galleries. Ihe temples of Apollino- polis Magna (^Edfii), the hypogaea of Eilithya, Thebes occupying either bank, Coptos, long the seat of Aegyptian commerce with India, the temples of Athor and Isis at Tentyra, the mouth of the ancient branch of the Nile, the canal of JustiJ' at Diospolis Parva, the necropolis of Abydos, near which runs the highroad to the greater Oasis, the linen-works and stone- masons' yards of Chemmis or Panopolis (^E/chmin), the sepulchral chambers at Lycopolis, and, finally, the superb portico of Hermopolis Magna, all evince, within a compass of about 380 miles, the wealth, enterprise, and teeming population ot Upper Aegypt. The vegetation of this region announces the ap- proach to the tropics. The productions of the desert, stunted shrubs and trees, resemble those of the Ara- bian and Libyan wastes. But wherever the Nile fer- tilises, the trees and plants belong rather to Aethiopia than to the lower country. The .sycamore nearly dis- appears: the Theban palm and the date-palm take its place. The lotus (^Nymphaea Lotus and Ni/mphaea caerulea) is as abundant in the Thebais as the papyrus in the Delta. It is the symbol of the Upper Land : its blue and white cups enliven the pools and canals, and representations of them furnished a frequent and graceful ornament to architecture. Its bulb afforded a plentiful and nutritious diet to the poorer classes. The deserts of the Thebais, ■which in Christian times swarmed with monasteries and hermitages, contained the wolf, hyaena, and THEBAE BOEOTIAE. lU.') jackal : but the larger carnivorous animals of Libya were rarely seen in Aegypt. (Herod, ii. 6.5.) In the Pharaonic times the hippopotamus was found in the Nile below the Cataracts : more recently it has sel- dom been found N. of them. The crocodile, being an object of worship in several of the Theban nomes, was doubtless more abundant than it is now. From both papyri and sculptures we know that the The- ban landowners possessed horned cattle and sheep in abundance, although they kept the latter for their wool and milk principally; and the chariots of Thebes attest the breeding and training of horses. From extant drawings on the monuments we know also that horticulture was a favourite occupation in Upper Aegypt. The population of the Thebais was probably of a purer Aegyptian stamp than that of the Delta ; at least its admixtures were derived from Arabia or Meroe rather than from Phoenicia or Greece. Its revolutions, too, proceeded from the south, and it was comparatively unaffected by those of the Lower Country. Even as late as the age of Tiberius, a.d. 14 — 37, the land was prosperous, as is proved by the extension and restoration of so many of its pub- lic monuments ; and it was not until the reign of Diocletian that its ruin was consummated by the in- road of the Blemmyes, and other barbarous tribes from Nubia and the Arabian desert. [W. B. D.] THEBAE (0fi§ai, orig. 07jer), Dor. @ri§a : Eth. ©Tj^alos, fem. ©T/Sais, Thebanus, fern. Thebais), the chief city in Boeotia, was situated in the southern plain of the country, which is divided from the northern by the ridge of Onchestus. Both these plains are surrounded by mountains, and contained for a long time two separate confederacies, of which Orchomenus in the north and Thebes in the south were the two leading cities. I. History. No city in Greece possessed such long continued celebrity as Thebes. Athens and Sparta, which were the centres of Grecian political life in the historical period, were poor in mythical renown; while Argos and BIycenae, whose mythical annals are full of glorious recollections, sank into compa- rative insignificance in historical times, and My- cenae indeed was blotted out of the map of Greece soon after the Persian wars. But in the mythi- cal ages Thebes shone pre-eminent, while in later times she always maintained her place as the third city of Greece; and after the battle of Leuctra was for a short period the ruling city. The most cele- brated Grecian legends cluster round Thebes as their centre; and her two sieges, and the fortunes of her royal houses, were the favourite subjects of the tragic muse. It was the native city of the great seer Teiresias and of the great musician Amphion. Jt was the reputed birthplace of the two deities Dionysus and Hercules, whence Thebes is said by Sophocles to be "the only city where mortal women are the mo- thers of gods (o5 5?; ii.6vov TiKTOuffiu at ^f-qTa] ^eovs, Fragm. ap. Dicaearch, § 17, cd. Miillcr; Mure, Tour in Greece, vol. i. p. 253.) According to the generally received tradition, Thebes was founded by Cadmus, the leader of a Phoenician colony, who called the city Cadmkia (KaS^ei'a), a name which was afterwards confined to the citadel. In the Odyssey. Amphion and Ze- thus, the two sons of Antioj* by Zeus, are repre- sented as the first founders of Thebes and the first