After This You Will Disembark And Make A
Journey By Land Of Forty Days; For In The Nile Sharp Rocks Stand Forth
Out Of The Water, And There Are Many Reefs, By Which It Is Not
Possible For A Vessel To Pass.
Then after having passed through this
country in the forty days which I have said, you will embark again in
another vessel and sail for twelve days; and after this you will come
to a great city called Meroe.
This city is said to be the mother-city
of all the other Ethiopians: and they who dwell in it reverence of the
gods Zeus and Dionysos alone, and these they greatly honour; and they
have an Oracle of Zeus established, and make warlike marches
whensoever the god commands them by prophesyings and to whatsoever
place he commands. Sailing from this city you will come to the
"Deserters" in another period of time equal to that in which you came
from Elephantine to the mother-city of the Ethiopians. Now the name of
these "Deserters" is /Asmach/, and this word signifies, when
translated into the tongue of the Hellenes, "those who stand on the
left hand of the king." These were two hundred and forty thousand
Egyptians of the warrior class, who revolted and went over to these
Ethiopians for the following cause: - In the reign of Psammetichos
garrisons were set, one towards the Ethiopians at the city of
Elephantine, another towards the Arabians and Assyrians at Daphnai of
Pelusion, and another towards Libya at Marea: and even in my own time
the garrisons of the Persians too are ordered in the same manner as
these were in the reign of Psammetichos, for both at Elephantine and
at Daphnai the Persians have outposts. The Egyptians then of whom I
speak had served as outposts for three years and no one relieved them
from their guard; accordingly they took counsel together, and adopting
a common plan they all in a body revolted from Psammetichos and set
out for Ethiopia. Hearing this Psammetichos set forth in pursuit, and
when he came up with them he entreated them much and endeavoured to
persuade them not to desert the gods of their country and their
children and wives: upon which it is said that one of them pointed to
his privy member and said that wherever this was, there would they
have both children and wives. When these came to Ethiopia they gave
themselves over to the king of the Ethiopians; and he rewarded them as
follows: - there were certain of the Ethiopians who had come to be at
variance with him; and he bade them drive these out and dwell in their
land. So since these men settled in the land of the Ethiopians, the
Ethiopians have come to be of milder manners, from having learnt the
customs of the Egyptians.
The Nile then, besides the part of its course which is in Egypt, is
known as far as a four months' journey by river and land:
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