side is about a plethron in length and the same in height. The king buried there is called Ismandes."[174] "The labyrinth," remarks Pliny, "is still existing in Egypt, though it is said to have been erected more than 3,600 years. Lykeas calls it the tomb of Moeris; some authorities assert that it is a shrine of the Sun-god, and this is the general belief. The entrance was built of Parian marble, which is astonishing to me, the remainder of joined blocks of granite, which centuries have not been able to destroy, albeit assisted by the inhabitants of Heracleopolis, who regard this structure with the greatest detestation, and treat it accordingly. The plan of the whole and the various parts it is impossible to describe. It is divided according to the districts and prefectures, which they call nomes; these are twenty-five in number, and their names are given to an equal number of large buildings. Besides this it contains a temple of all the gods of Egypt, and includes above 1,500 small buildings. The chambers are lofty, and each colonnade is ascended by a flight of ninety steps. Within are pillars of porphyry, images of the gods, statues of the kings, and monstrous shapes. Through the greater part you pass in darkness. From the wing attached to the labyrinth, passages lead through the rock to underground chambers, and there is also a pyramid belonging to it."[175] As we have seen, Diodorus in one passage ascribes the building of the labyrinth to the ancient king Menas, and in another to king Mendes, whom other authorities call Marrhus, and at last he says that the twelve kings, who reigned in Egypt after the dominion of the Ethiopians, built the labyrinth for their common sepulchre. Four hundred years before his time Herodotus had stated that the twelve kings built it as a common memorial of their reign. Lykeas mentioned king Moeris as the builder, and Strabo told us that the king buried in it was Ismandes, a name which would agree with the Mendes of Diodorus. According to the lists of Manetho, it was the fourth ruler of the twelfth dynasty--Lacharis in the excerpt of Africanus, and Lamaris in that of Eusebius--who built the labyrinth in the province of Arsinoe for his own sepulchre. The Menas of Diodorus may be an abbreviation of Amenemha, and this supposition becomes the more probable because the king called Moeris by the Greeks is mentioned as a builder of the labyrinth. The remains of the building, on the north side of which the pyramid is still standing, raise this supposition into a certainty. At the entrance to this pyramid, on the pillars and architraves in the ruins, the name of Amenemha III. is repeatedly found.[176]