In modern times considerable doubts have arisen as to which oasis was the objective of this army, and certainly the description of Herodotus is such as to admit of various conclusions being drawn. Rohlfs considers that Dakhla, not Siwa, was its goal, and remarks that, however light-headed Cambyses might have been, he could hardly have been so foolish as to have chosen Thebes as the starting-point of an army destined for Siwa. The same writer points out that a temple dedicated to Ammon does exist in Dakhla, and that the distance of the latter oasis from Thebes corresponds with the ten days mentioned by Herodotus. Vivien de St. Martin (“Le Nord de l’Afrique dans l’antiquité,” 1863, pp. 40-41) had, some twelve years previously, come to somewhat similar conclusions. Ascherson, on the other hand, regards it as highly improbable that Dakhla, which was hardly known and certainly of little importance in the time of Cambyses, could have been the objective of so dangerous and difficult an undertaking, and points out, moreover, that the temple of Ammon in that oasis dates from much later (_i.e._, Roman) times. He further remarks that Parthey (‘Das Orakel und die Oase des Ammon,’ Abhandl. der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, 1862, S. 131-194), in a contemporaneous work, had already met the objections raised by Vivien de St. Martin. According to the ancient maps the distance from Memphis to Siwa was much the same as that from Thebes to Siwa. No reliance, moreover, can be placed on the distances given by Herodotus. Judged with reference to Thebes, the country of the Ammonians certainly agrees more or less with the position of the oasis of Dakhla; but considered in relation to Augila (a place which has retained its name unchanged up to modern times), it corresponds with the modern Siwa, where the well-known oracular temple of Jupiter Ammon actually existed. It seems to me quite reasonable to suppose that Cambyses only decided on the despatch of this expedition after reaching Thebes, and from there the route, via Kharga, Dakhla, and Farafra, would be fairly direct, and have the advantage of passing through oases, well provided with water and food-supplies, separated by marches not exceeding four days. Possibly, moreover, the ‘oasis’ through which the army is recorded to have safely marched may not have been Kharga at all, but Baharia, or even Farafra, either of which would have been reached by striking into the desert along one of the roads leaving the Nile Valley in the neighbourhood of Assiut or Mellawi; this would have been quite a likely route for an army starting for Siwa from Thebes, as over a third of the distance would have been along the fertile plains bordering the Nile.