Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/452

 436 NILUS. hippopotamus is represented on the monuments of the Thebaid, but not on those of Middle or Lower Aegypt. The crocodile was caught with a hook baited with the chine of a pig (H«rod. ii. 68), or with nets. (Diodor. i. 35.) It was an object of worship in some nomes [Arsinoe; Ombos], of ab- horrence in others [Tentyra.] The boats of the Nile, as represented on the monu- ments, exhibit a great variety of size and form. There was the canoe, made of a single trunk; the shallop of papyrus, rendered water-tight by bitumen; and there were even vessels constructed of light earthenware. (Juven. Sat. xv. 129.) The most usual species of craft, however, is a boat whose bow and stern are high out of the water, square rigged, •with sails either of canvass or papyrus, a single mast that could be lowered in high winds, and a shallow keel, in order to allow of easy extrication of the vessel should it run aground. But the most striking and capacious boat employed on the Nile was the large Baris, used for the transportation of goods. (Herod, ii. 96.) It was built of the hard wood of the Sont (Acanthe); the sails were made of papyrus, and the seams caulked with an oakum composed from the fibres of that plant. These barges were propelled by as many as forty rowers ranged on the same level, and their tonnage amounted to three, four, and even five hundred ton.s. These Baris were towed up the stream, if the wind were not strong enough to impel them against it, or floated down it, with combined action of sail and oars, and steered by one or more large paddles at the stern. Parties of pleasure, visits of ceremony, and marriage processions, alike added to the floating population of the river; but perhaps the most im- pressive spectacles which it presented were the pomp and circumstance of funerals. On the tombs of Speos Artemidos (^Benihassan) is depictured the barge of Amenemhe conveying the females of his house. It has an awning like a gondola, and is one of the half-decked boats (aKd.<pai baapLTi}-yoi) of which Strabo speaks (xvii. p. 800). In such a vessel Caesar intended, but for the indig- nant murmurs of his legions, to have ascended the Nile with Cleopatra from Alexandreia to the first Cataract. (Sueton. Jul. 58.) The tomb of Rameses IV. at Tiiebes exhibits a royal barge. The hall, the cabin (pdhaixos), the rudder, and the masts are painted of a gold colour; the sails are diapered and fringed with various brilliant hues; the phoenix and the vulture are embroidered upon them. The eye of O.siris is painted on the rudder, and its handles represent the royal emblems — the uraeus and the pschent, or head of a divinity. The splendour of the Baris on the monuments recalls that of the vessel which carried Cleopatra up the Cydnus to meet M. Antonius at Tarsus. (Plut. Anton, c. 26.) It was a favourite amusement of the Aegyptians, in later times especially, to row rapidly in boats, and hurl and thrust at one another as they passed blunt javelins or jerids. Such a scene is repre- sented on the tomb of Imai at Gizeli, one of the oldest monuments of Aegypt. They delighted also in sailing up and down the river-arms and lakes of the Delta, and feasting under the shadow of the tall reeds, and Aegyptian bean, which there attains a height of many feet. (Strab. xvii. p. 823, and generally Roselhni, Monwmnti Civill.) The Nile was also frequently the stage on which the great religious festivals or panegyries were celebrated. On such solemnities the population of NILUS. entu-e nomes poured themselves forth. On the day of the feast of Artemis at Bubastis, the inhabitants of the Delta thronged the canals and main streams, while thousands descended from the middle country and the Thebaid to be pre- sent at the ceremonies. The decks of the Baris were crowded with devotees of either sex, and the loud music of the pipe and cymbal was accom- panied by songs and hymns, and clapping of hands. As they neared any town the passengers ran the barges along shore and recruited their numbers with fresh votaries. As many as 700,000 persons, exclusive of children, were sometimes assembled at Bubastis, or at the equally popular festival of Isis at Busiris. Numerous sacrifices were offered in the temples of the goddesses, and, whether in libations or in re- velry, more wine was consumed on these occasions than in all the rest of the year. (Comp. Herod, ii. 61, 62, with Clemens Alexand. Cohort, vol. i. p. 17.) That the Nile should have been an object of wor- ship with the Aegyptians, and that its image and phenomena should have entered deeply into their whole religious system, was unavoidable. As re- garded its external aspect, it flowed between sand and rock, the sole giver and sustainer of life in that valley of death : it was, both in its increment and its decrease, in its course through vast solitudes, and thronged populations alternately, the most suggestive and expressive of emblems for a religion which re- presented in such marked contrast, the realms of creation and destruction, of Osiris and Typhon. The Nile — as Oceanus, or the watery element — was a member of the first Ogdoad of the Aegyptian theology (Diodor. i. 6 — 26), the opponent of Phtah, the elemental fire, and the companion of the earth (Demeter), the air (Neith), Zeus or Amiln, the quickening spirit, Osiris and Isis, the Sun and Moon. It was thus one of the primitive essences, higher than any member of the second Ogdoad, or the visible objects of adoration. (Heliod. Aethiop. ix. 9 ; Schol. in Find. Pytk. iv. 99.) It had its own hieratic emblem on the monuments, sometimes as the ocean embracing the earth, sometimes, as in the temple of Osiris at Philae, as the assistant of Phtah in the creation of Osiris. The wild crocodile was an emblem of Typhon (Plutarch, Is. et Osir.]). 371); but the tamed crocodile was the symbol of the gently swelling, beneficent Nile. (Euseb. Praep. Evangel. iii. 11.) Osiris is sometimes, but incorrectly, said (TibuU. Eleg. i. 7, 27) to be the Nile itself (Plut. Is. et Osir. c. 33) : there is no doubt, however, that it was personified and received divine honours. A festival called Niloa was celebrated at the time of the first rise of the waters, i. e. about the summer solstice, at which the priests were accustomed to drop pieces of coin, and the Roman prefect of the Thebaid golden ornaments, into the river near Philae (Senec. Nat. Quaest. iv. 2, 7) ; indeed there must have been a priesthood specially dedicated to the great river, since, according to Herodotus (ii. 101), none but a priest of the Nile could bury the corpse of a person drowned in its waters. Temples were rarely appropriated to the Nile alone; yet He- cataeus (a/). Steph. s. v. NfTAos) speaks of one, in the town of Neilus, which stood in the Heracleo- polite nome, near the entrance of the Fyoum. In the quarries at Silsihs several stelae are inscribed with acts of adoration to the river, who is joined with Phre and Phtah. Its symbol in hieroglyphics is read Moou, and the last in the group of the char- acters composing it, is a symbol of water. According