Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/454

 420 pliny's natural history. [Book V. miles across, and 150 in circumference, according to Claudius Caesar. Other writers say that it is forty schceni in length, making the schcenum to be thirty stadia ; hence, accord- ino" to them, it is 150 miles ^ in lensrth and the same in breadth. There are also, in the latter part of the course of the Nile, many towns of considerable celebrity, and more especially those which have given their names to the mouths of the piver — I do not mean, all the mouths, for there are no less than twelve of them, as well as four others, which the people call the False Mouths'. I allude to the seven more famous ones, the Canopic^ Mouth, next to Alexandria, those of Bol- bitine, Sebennys^ Phatnis^ Mendes, Tanis^, and, last of all, Pelusium^ Besides the above there are the towns of Butos^'^, 1 Its real dimensions were something less than 300 stadia, or thirty geogi'aphical miles long, and rather more than 150 stadia wide. 2 Or " Pseudostomata." These were crossed in small boats, as they were not navigable for ships of burden. 3 In the Pharaonic times Canopus was the capital of the nome of Menelaites, and the principal harbour of the Delta. It probably owed its name to the god Canobus, a pitcher full of holes, with a human head, which was worshipped here with pecuHar pomp. It was remarkable for the number of its festivals and the general dissoluteness of its morals. Traces of its ruins are to be seen about tln-ee miles from the modem Aboukir. that tliis place was noted for its manufactory of chariots. to one of the nomes, and the Sebennytic Mouth of the Nile. 6 Or the Pathinetic or BucoUc Mouth, said to be the same as the modern Damietta Mouth. ' The capital of the Mendesian nome, called by the Arabs Ochmoun. This mouth is now known as the Deibeh Mouth. ^ Now called Szan or Tzan. The Tanitic Mouth, which is sometimes called the Saitic, is at the present day called Omm-Faredje. 9 Its ruins are to be seen at the modern Tineh. This city in early times had the name of Abaris. It was situate on the eastern side of the most easterly mouth of the Nile, which, after it, was called the Pelusiac Mouth, about two miles from the sea, in the midst of morasses. Bemg the frontier city towards Syria and Arabia it was strongly fortified. It was the birth-place of Ptolemy the geographer. ^0 Butos or Buto stood on the Sebennytic arm of the Nile near its mouth, on the southern shores of the Butic Lake. It was the chief seat of the worship of the goddess Buto, whom the Greeks identified with Leto or Latona. The modern Xem Kasir occupies its site.
 * Corresponding to the modern Easchid or Eosetta. It is supposed
 * The town of Sebennys or Sebennytum, now Samannoud, gave name