Strabo, mother. It was called the Troglodytic Berenice, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name. He also built four public inns or watering-houses, where the caravans might find water for the camels and shelter from the noonday sun, on their twelve days' journey through the desert from Coptos on the Nile to this new port. He also rebuilt and at the same time renamed, the old port of Cosseir, lib. xvii. or Enum, as it was before called, and named it Philotera, after his younger sister. By this route and by the coasting vessels on the Red Sea Philadelphus hoped to regain part of the trade that the country had lost by the disturbed and rebellious state of Ethiopia, which very much separated Egypt from the gold mines. The trade which thus passed down the Nile from Syene, from Berenice, cides, ap. and from Philotera, paid a toll or duty at the custom-house station of Phylake, a little below Lycopolis, on the west bank of the river, where a guard of soldiers was encamped; and this station gradually grew into a town. Agathar Photium. Cailliaud, l'Oasis. (24) The route before spoken of, from Coptos to Berenice, passed near the emerald mines, on the mountain range of red granite and porphyry which runs about Voyage à thirty miles from the sea. This part of the range was called Mount Smaragdus, now Mount Zabarah, and the precious stones, of brightest clearest green, received their name from the mountain. They were found in veins of micaceous schist, and their number and value repaid the labour of three or four hundred miners. The ruins of two small towns still mark the dwelling-places of the workmen ; while the Roman, Greek, and Egyptian styles of architecture in the temples fix the ages in which the mines were worked for emeralds or the quarries for porphyry and Breccia verde. Pliny, (25) In the number of ports which were then growing into the rank of cities, we see full proof of the great trade of Egypt at that time; and we may form some opinion of the profit which was gained from the trade of the Red lib. vi. 36. Sea from the report of Clitarchus to Alexander, that the people of one of the islands would give a talent of gold for a horse, so plentiful with them was gold, and so carce the useful animals of Europe; and one of he three towns named after the late queen, on that coast, was known by the name of the Nubian or Golden Berenice, Lib. vi. 34. from the large supply of gold which was dug from the mines in the neighbourhood. This was the port of the Nubian gold mines, perhaps the town before called Ophir by Solomon's Tyrian sailors, and not many miles from that now named Souakin. (26) Philadelphus also built a city on the sands at the lib. vi. 33. lib. ii, 158. head of the Red Sea, near where Suez now stands, Pliny, and named it Arsinoë, after his sister; and he again opened the canal which Necho II. and Darius had begun, by which ships were to pass from the Nile to this city on the Red Sea. This canal began in the Pelusiac Herodotus, branch of the river, a little above the city of Bubastis, and, passing by the city of Thoum or Patumus, was carried to the Lower Bitter Lakes in the reign of Darius. Thus far it was thirty-seven miles long. Pliny, From thence Philadelphus wished to carry it forward to the Red Sea, near the town of Arsinoë, and moreover cleared it from the sands which soon overwhelmed it and choked it up whenever it was neglected by the government. But his undertaking was stopped by the engineers finding the waters of the canal several feet lower than the level of the Red Sea; and that if finished it would become a salt-water canal, which could neither water the fields nor give drink to the cities in the valley. lib. vi. 33. He also built a third city of the name of Berenice, Lib. vi. 34. called the Berenice Epidires, at the very mouth of the Red Sea on a point of land where Abyssinia is hardly more than fifteen miles from the opposite coast of Arabia. This naming of cities after his mother and sisters was no idle compliment; they probably received the crown revenues of those cities for their maintenance. We know that this was the case with the revenues of the Arsinoite nome, and that it was so with the city at the head of the Red Sea is made probable by its name changing with that of the queen. In this reign it was named Arsinoë and afterwards Cleopatris. Lib. vi. 21. (27) With a view further to increase the trade with the East, Philadelphus sent Dionysius on an expedition overland to India, to gain a knowledge of the country and of its means and wants. He went by the way of the Caspian Sea through Bactria, in the line of Alexander's march. He dwelt there, at the court of the sovereign, soon after the time that Megasthenes was there; and he wrote a report of what he saw and learned. But it is sad to find, in our search for what is valuable in the history of past times, that while the deeds of conquerors who have laid waste the world, and the freaks of tyrants who have made nations unhappy, are recorded with careful accuracy, the discovery of useful arts, and the spread of the most valuable branches of commerce, are often unnoticed or forgotten. The information gained on this interesting journey of discovery is wholly lost. But by the help of such scientific travellers many valuable foreign plants were brought lib. xii. 31, 37. into the valley of the Nile during this and the following reigns; and some of the gums and scents of Arabia were successfully cultivated there for several centuries. Pliny, Agathar Photium. (28) In latitude 17°, separated from the Golden Berenice by one of the forests of Ethiopia, was the new city of Ptolemais, which, however, was little more than a post from which the hunting parties went out to catch elephants for the armies of Egypt. Philadelphus tried to command, to persuade, and to bribe the neighbouring cides, ap. tribes not to kill these elephants for food, but they refused all treaty with him; these zealous huntsmen answered that, if he offered them the kingdom of Egypt with all its wealth, they would not give up the pleasure of catching and eating elephants. The Ethiopian forests, however, were able to supply the Egyptian armies with about one elephant for every thousand men, which was the number then thought best in the Greek military tactics. Asia had been the only country from which the armies had been supplied with elephants before Philadelphus brought them from Ethiopia. Hieronymus in Dan. xi. Wilkinson, Thebes. Denon, (29) The temple of Isis among the palm-groves in Philæ, a rocky island in the Nile near the cataracts of Syene, was begun in this reign, though not finished till some reigns later (see Fig. 222). It is still the wonder of travellers, and by its size and style pl. 70, 71, proves the wealth and good taste of the priests. But its ornaments are not so simple as those of the older temples; and the capitals of its columns are varied by the fullblown papyrus flower of several sizes, its half-opened buds, its 72. closed buds, and its leaves (see Figs. 223-227), and by palmbranches (see Fig. 228). It seems to have been built on the site of an older temple, which may have been overthrown by the Persians. The priests of lower rank lived in twelve small cells, only ten feet deep, ranged along the right-hand side of the courtyard, while the chief priest dwelt in the larger rooms on the opposite side of the same court. But when the outer courtyard was afterwards built, there was added on its right side a row of fifteen rather larger cells for a further number of priests, who with the former passed their lives in the worship of the Trinity of the place, Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus. This island of Philæ is the most beautiful spot in Egypt; where the bend of the river just above the cataracts forms a quiet lake surrounded on all sides by fantastic cliffs of red granite. Its name is a corruption from Abou-lakh, the city of the frontier. lib. i. 22. This temple was one of the places in which Osiris was said to be buried; and here the priests every day made use of three hundred and sixty sacred vessels, as they poured out three hundred and sixty libations of milk in his honour, Diod. Sic. and in token of their grief for his sufferings. No oath was so binding as that sworn in the name of Him that lies buried in Philæ. None but priests were allowed to set foot on this sacred island, and one of their duties was to throw a piece of gold once a year into the river in order to purchase Seneca, of it its annual blessing of a bountiful overflow. Nat. Quæst. The gold was usually in the form of a ring, and hence perhaps the Venetians borrowed their custom of wedding the lib. iv. Adriatic. The statues of the goddess in the temple were all meant for portraits of the Queen Arsinoë. The Manetho, priests who dwelt in the cells within the courtyards Apotelesm. of the temples, of which we see the remains in this temple at Philæ, were there confined for life to the service of the altar by the double force of religion and the stone walls. i. 235. |
