twenty thousand
years? indeed for my part I am of the opinion that it would be filled up
even within ten thousand years. How, then, in all the time that has
elapsed before I came into being should not a gulf be filled up even of
much greater size than this by a river so great and so active? As regards
Egypt then, I both believe those who say that things are so, and for
myself also I am strongly of opinion that they are so; because I have
observed that Egypt runs out into the sea further than the adjoining land,
and that shells are found upon the mountains of it, and an efflorescence
of salt forms upon the surface, so that even the pyramids are being
eaten away by it, and moreover that of all the mountains of Egypt, the
range which lies above Memphis is the only one which has sand:
besides which I notice that Egypt resembles neither the land of Arabia,
which borders upon it, nor Libya, nor yet Syria (for they are Syrians
who dwell in the parts of Arabia lying along the sea), but that it has soil
which is black and easily breaks up, seeing that it is in truth mud and
silt brought down from Ethiopia by the river: but the soil of Libya, we
know, is reddish in colour and rather sandy, while that of Arabia and
Syria is somewhat clayey and rocky. The priests also gave me a strong
proof concerning this land as follows, namely that in the reign of king
Moiris, whenever the river reached a height of at least eight cubits it
watered Egypt below Memphis; and not yet nine hundred years had
gone by since the death of Moiris, when I heard these things from the
priests: now however, unless the river rises to sixteen cubits, or fifteen
at the least, it does not go over the land. I think too that those Egyptians
who dwell below the lake of Moiris and especially in that region which
is called the Delta, if that land continues to grow in height according to
this proportion and to increase similarly in extent, will suffer for all
remaining time, from the Nile not overflowing their land, that same
thing which they themselves said that the Hellenes would at some time
suffer: for hearing that the whole land of the Hellenes has rain and is
not watered by rivers as theirs is, they said that the Hellenes would at
some time be disappointed of a great hope and would suffer the ills of
famine. This saying means that if the god shall not send them rain, but
shall allow drought to prevail for a long time, the Hellenes will be
destroyed by hunger; for they have in fact no other supply of water to
save them except from Zeus alone. 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 the 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.
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
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