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Translated by G. Macaulay.
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86 pages - You are on Page 7
14. This has been rightly said by the Egyptians with reference to the Hellenes: but now let me tell how matters are with the Egyptians themselves in their turn. If, in accordance with what I before said, their land below Memphis (for this is that which is increasing) shall continue to increase in height according to the same proportion as in past time, assuredly those Egyptians who dwell here will suffer famine, if their land shall not have rain nor the river be able to go over their fields. It is certain however that now they gather in fruit from the earth with less labour than any other men and also with less than the other Egyptians; for they have no labour in breaking up furrows with a plough nor in hoeing nor in any other of those labours which other men have about a crop; but when the river has come up of itself and watered their fields and after watering has left them again, then each man sows his own field and turns into it swine, and when he has trodden the seed into the ground by means of the swine, after that he waits for the harvest; and when he has threshed the corn by means of the swine, then he gathers it in.
15. If we desire to follow the opinions of the Ionians as regards Egypt, who say that the Delta alone is Egypt, reckoning its sea-coast to be from the watch-tower called of Perseus to the fish-curing houses of Pelusion, a distance of forty schoines, and counting it to extend inland as far as the city of Kercasoros, where the Nile divides and runs to Pelusion and Canobos, while as for the rest of Egypt, they assign it partly to Libya and partly to Arabia,—if, I say, we should follow this account, we should thereby declare that in former times the Egyptians had no land to live in; for, as we have seen, their Delta at any rate is alluvial, and has appeared (so to speak) lately, as the Egyptians themselves say and as my opinion is. If then at the first there was no land for them to live in, why did they waste their labour to prove that they had come into being before all other men? They needed not to have made trial of the children to see what language they would first utter. However I am not of opinion that the Egyptians came into being at the same time as that which is called by the Ionians the Delta, but that they existed always ever since the human race came into being, and that as their land advanced forwards, many of them were left in their first abodes and many came down gradually to the lower parts. At least it is certain that in old times Thebes had the name of Egypt, and of this [23] the circumference measures six thousand one hundred and twenty furlongs. 16. If then we judge aright of these matters, the opinion of the Ionians about Egypt is not sound: but if the judgment of the Ionians is right, I declare that neither the Hellenes nor the Ionians themselves know how to reckon since they say that the whole earth is made up of three divisions, Europe, Asia, and Libya: for they ought to count in addition to these the Delta of Egypt, since it belongs neither to Asia nor to Libya; for at least it cannot be the river Nile by this reckoning which divides Asia from Libya, [24] but the Nile is cleft at the point of this Delta so as to flow round it, and the result is that this land would come between Asia and Libya. [25]
[23] i.e. of the district of Thebes, the Thebaïs.
[24] {te Libue}.
[25] The meaning seems to be this: "The Ionians say that Egypt is the Delta, and at the same time they divide the world into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya, the last two being divided from one another by the Nile. Thus they have left out Egypt altogether; and either they must add the Delta as a fourth part of the world, or they must give up the Nile as a boundary. If the name Egypt be extended, as it is by the other Hellenes, to the upper course of the Nile, it is then possible to retain the Nile as a boundary, saying that half of Egypt belongs to Asia and half to Libya, and disregarding the Delta (ch. 17). This also would be an error of reckoning, but less serious than to omit Egypt together." The reasoning is obscure because it alludes to theories (of Hecataios and other writers) which are presumed to be already known to the reader.
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