[799] The Nile valley was parcelled out into a number of cantons, varying in size and number. Each of these cantons was called a nome (νομὸς) by the Greeks, “præfectura oppidorum” by the Romans. Each had its civil governor, the Nomarch, who collected the crown revenues, and presided in the local capital and chief court of justice. Each nome too had its separate priesthood, its temple, chief and inferior towns, its magistrates, registration and peculiar creed, ceremonies and customs; and each was apparently independent of every other nome. At certain seasons, delegates from the various cantons met in the palace of the Labyrinth, for consultation on public affairs (b. xvii. c. i. § 37). According to Diodorus, the nomes date from Sesostris. But they did not originate from that monarch, but emanated probably from the distinctions of animal worship; and the extent of the local worship probably determined the boundary of the nome. Thus in the nome of Thebaïs, where the ram-headed deity was worshipped, the sheep was sacred, the goat was eaten and sacrificed: in that of Mendes, where the goat was worshipped, the sheep was a victim and an article of food. Again, in the nome of Ombos, divine honours were paid to the crocodile: in that of Tentyra, it was hunted and abominated: and between Ombos and Tentyra there existed an internecine feud. Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra: summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus, cum solos credat habendos Esse deos, quos ipse colit. Juv. xv. 35. The extent and number of the nomes cannot be ascertained. They probably varied with the political state of Egypt. See _Smith_, art. Ægyptus. [800] See b. xvi. c. ii. § 24. [801] In the text ὀστράκινα πορθμεῖα “earthenware ferry boats.” The translation is not literal, but a paraphrase. Hac sævit rabie imbelle et inutile vulgus Parvula fictilibus solitum dare vela phaselis, Et brevibus pictæ remis incumbere testæ. Juv. xv. 126. [802] In the text κειρίᾳ ψυχομένῃ ἐπὶ μῆκος, which is evidently corrupt. Kramer proposes to read ἀναπτυσσομένῃ or ἀνεπτυγμένῃ, and Groskurd reads αὐξομένῃ for ψυχομένῃ “lengthened out.” Alii alia proposuerunt, infelicia omnia. [803] The Mediterranean. [804] Od. iv. 581. [805] ἐγὼ γοῦν ἀπορούμενος ἀντιγράφων εἰς τὴν ἀντιβολὴν ἐκ θατέρου θάτερον ἀντέβαλον. Casaubon, who narrates a similar circumstance which occurred to himself, thus explains the passage: Our author, being in want of codices to correct imperfections in his own, and to form a complete copy, availed himself of another author whose account was identical, being either, as he says, the original or a transcript from the first. [806] The words “Sostratus of Cnidus, son of Dexiphanes, to the gods preservers,” are rejected by Kramer as being introduced from the margin. [807] Od. xvii. 266.