Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
98. Of these Anthylla is a city of note and is especially assigned to
the wife of him who reigns over Egypt, to supply her with sandals, (this
is the case since the time when Egypt came to be under the Persians):
the other city seems to me to have its name from Archander the
son-in-law of Danaos, who was the son of Phthios, the son of Achaios;
for it is called the City of Archander. There might indeed be another
Archander, but in any case the name is not Egyptian.
99. Hitherto my own observation and judgment and inquiry are the
vouchers for that which I have said; but from this point onwards I am
about to tell the history of Egypt according to that which I heard, to
which will be added also something of that which I have myself seen.
Of Min, who first became king of Egypt, the priests said that on the
one hand he banked off the site of Memphis from the river: for the whole
stream of the river used to flow along by the sandy mountain-range on
the side of Libya, but Min formed by embankments that bend of the river
which lies to the South about a hundred furlongs above Memphis, and thus
he dried up the old stream and conducted the river so that it flowed in
the middle between the mountains: and even now this bend of the Nile is
by the Persians kept under very careful watch, that it may flow in the
channel to which it is confined, 83 and the bank is repaired every year;
for if the river should break through and overflow in this direction,
Memphis would be in danger of being overwhelmed by flood. When this Min,
who first became king, had made into dry land the part which was dammed
off, on the one hand, I say, he founded in it that city which is now
called Memphis; for Memphis too is in the narrow part of Egypt; 84
and outside the city he dug round it on the North and West a lake
communicating with the river, for the side towards the East is barred by
the Nile itself. Then secondly he established in the city the temple of
Hephaistos a great work and most worthy of mention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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