For This Reason Then, They
Say, It Became A Floating Island.
Such is the story which they tell; but as for Psammetichos, he was
king over Egypt for four-and-fifty years, of which for thirty years
save one he was sitting before Azotos, a great city of Syria,
besieging it, until at last he took it:
And this Azotos of all cities
about which we have knowledge held out for the longest time under a
siege.
The son of Psammetichos was Necos, and he became king of Egypt. This
man was the first who attempted the channel leading to the Erythraian
Sea, which Dareios the Persian afterwards completed: the length of
this is a voyage of four days, and in breadth it was so dug that two
triremes could go side by side driven by oars; and the water is
brought into it from the Nile. The channel is conducted a little above
the city of Bubastis by Patumos the Arabian city, and runs into the
Erythraian Sea: and it is dug first along those parts of the plain of
Egypt which lie towards Arabia, just above which run the mountains
which extend opposite Memphis, where are the stone-quarries, - along
the base of these mountains the channel is conducted from West to East
for a great way; and after that it is directed towards a break in the
hills and tends from these mountains towards the noon-day and the
South Wind to the Arabian gulf. Now in the place where the journey is
least and shortest from the Northern to the Southern Sea (which is
also called Erythraian), that is from Mount Casion, which is the
boundary between Egypt and Syria, the distance is exactly a thousand
furlongs to the Arabian gulf; but the channel is much longer, since it
is more winding; and in the reign of Necos there perished while
digging it twelve myriads of the Egyptians.
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