Page:Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians Volume 1.djvu/56

8 8 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. I.

Alexandria, the successor of the town of Racotis stood on the rock of the Libyan desert, which is still beyond the reach and above the level of the inundation ; and the distance from the line of the coast to Pharos is the same as in the days of Homer. The error respecting its having been a day's journey from Egypt originated in the misinterpretation of the word AiyuTrroSy which is used by the poet to designate both the Nile and Egypt ; and that the river was so called in ancient times is testified by the authority of Diodorus, who states that Nileus, one of the early monarchs* of the country, transferred his name to the stream, "which previously bore that of ^gyptus."t Arriant again justly observes, that "the river, now called by the Egyptians and others Nile, is shown by Homer to have been named ^gyptus, when he relates § that Menelaus anchored his fleet at the mouth of the ^gyptus ; " and the bare in- spection of the verse to which he alludes suffices to prove his remark to be correct. It is, then, to the Nile, not to the coast of Egypt, that Homer alludes : and thus the argument derived from his authority must cease to be brought forward in sup- port of the great encroachments of the Delta, and

the great p raiiiiil.
 * Diodorus places Iiim as tlic predecessor of Chembrcs, who erected

■- ISIanctlio says Kgypt took its name froiii Scthosis, who was also called yl^Liyptiis, and was brother of Annais. .losi-phus contra Ap. lil).i. c. 15. AmIiis (Jilliiis tells us I'>{:.V|)t was fornicrly named Aeria. (xiv. (i.)

X Arr. I'^xped. Alex. lib. v. and lib. vi.

§ Odyss. A. 477. and S. 257. : —

' Ilf/iTrrrtioi o' AiyvTTTOV nififinTij)' iKnitinOa,