Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/443

 Chap. 9.] ACCOUNT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 409 fifty miles in length, upon which there is a city, called the ' City of Hercules.' There are two places called Arsiuoites^ : these and Memphites^ extend to the apex^ of the Delta ; ad- joining to which, on the side of Africa, are the two Nomes of Oasites"*. Some writers vary in some of these names and substitute for them other Nomes, such as Heroopolites^ and Crocodilopolites^ Between Ai-sinoites and Mem- phites, a lake^ 250 miles, or, according to what Muci- anus says, 450 miles in circumference and fifty paces deep, has been formed by artificial means: after the king by whose orders it was made, it is called by the name of Moeris. The distance from thence to Memphis is nearly sixty-two miles, a place which was formerly the citadel of the kings of Egypt ; from thence to the oracle of Hammon it is twelve days' journey. Memphis is fifteen miles from the spot where the river Nile di^ddes into the diff'erent channels which we have mentioned as forming the Delta. nome of Arsinoites, formed by the Nile and a canal. After Memphis and HeHopolis, it waa probably the most important city couth of the Thebaid. Its ruins arc inconsiderable ; a portion of them are to be seen at the modern hamlet of Amasieh. 1 He probably means Arsinoe or Arsinoitis, the chief to^vn of the nome of that name, and the city so called at the northern extremity of the HeroopoUte Gulf in the Eed Sea. Tho former is denoted by the modem district of El-Fayoom, the most fertile of ancient Egypt. At this place the crocodile was worshipped. The Labyrinth and Lake Moeris were in this nome. Extensive ruins at IVIedinot-el-Fayoom, or El-Fares, represent its site. The modem Ardscherud, a village near Suez, corresponds to Arsinoe on the Red Sea. There is some lit tie doubt however whether this last Arsinoe is the one here meant by Phny. 2 Memphis was the chief city of this nome, which was situate in Middle Egypt, and was the capital of the whole country, and the resi- dence of the Pharaohs, who succeeded Psammctichus, B.C. 616. This nome rose in importance on the decline of the kingdom of Thobais, but was afterwards echpsed by tho progress of Alexandria under the suc- cessors of Alexander the Great. 3 At which Middle Egypt terminates. and included under the name of llammonium. , . r 5 Its chief town was Iloroopohs, a principal scat of tho worship of Typhon, the evil or destroying genius. , /. i •, » •. was originally called Crocodilopohs. 7 Now known as Birket-el-Keroum. This was o vast lake on tho western side of the Nile hi Middle Egypt, used for the reception and
 * They are more generally looked upon as forming one norae only,
 * 6 The same as the nome of Arsinoites, the capital of which, Arsinoe,