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, 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; 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. After this man the priests enumerated to me from a
papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in
number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians,
one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of
Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who reigned was the same as
that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris. Of her they said that
desiring to take vengeance for her brother, whom the Egyptians had
slain when he was their king and then, after having slain him, had
given his kingdom to her, - desiring, I say, to take vengeance for him,
she destroyed by craft many of the Egyptians. For she caused to be
constructed a very large chamber under ground, and making as though
she would handsel it but in her mind devising other things, she
invited those of the Egyptians whom she knew to have had most part in
the murder, and gave a great banquet. Then while they were feasting,
she let in the river upon them by a secret conduit of large size. Of
her they told no more than this, except that, when this had been
accomplished, she threw herself into a room full of embers, in order
that she might escape vengeance. As for the other kings, they could
tell me of no great works which had been produced by them, and they
said that they had no renown except only the last of them, Moiris: he
(they said) produced as a memorial of himself the gateway of the
temple of Hephaistos which is turned towards the North Wind, and dug a
lake, about which I shall set forth afterwards how many furlongs of
circuit it has, and in it built pyramids of the size which I shall
mention at the same time when I speak of the lake itself. He, they
said, produced these works, but of the rest none produced any.
Therefore passing these by I will make mention of the king who came
after these, whose name is Sesostris.
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