Orationes 48
Orationes 48 Imperial Aelius Aristides Greek- The question you put to me the other day about the Nile — since I answered you only briefly and on the surface, and since at the same time the people who came in upon us cut me short — I have decided to take it up and go through it all with you, and to discharge the whole account as though it were a debt I owed; though even this will be said as briefly as I can manage. For after I had travelled as far as the land of Ethiopia, and had explored Egypt itself thoroughly, four times over in all, leaving nothing uninvestigated — neither the pyramids, nor the labyrinth, nor a temple, nor the canals — but, where the measurements were to be found in the books, supplying myself from those, and, where they were not ready to hand, measuring them out myself together with the priests and prophets of each place; and after all this, since I could not preserve those records for you, because the notes I had instructed my servants to make were destroyed — at least I can settle this one small question, namely, how the Nile rises, and what is the reason why it behaves, with respect to the seasons of the year, in the opposite way to all other rivers. Now you will remember that even then I answered you at once: that with regard to the Nile no one is likely to have anything clear to say, but that men talk nonsense at random — some insisting on what seems good to them, others not even themselves quite convinced, but keeping up appearances before the crowd, so as to be thought to know something about matters that are unclear. And even now I shall set out for you in this same way not the cause by which this comes about, but that it does not come about for the reasons each of them alleges.
I must mention some of the very arguments that Herodotus refutes in opposing them. First, that it is not the Etesian winds that hold back the stream and so produce the flood. For if the cause lay with the Etesians,
it is surely plain that, when they did not blow, the flood would not occur — whereas it is very far from happening that way. Again, if the Etesians, blowing toward the south, held back the current of the Nile, then surely the winds that blow toward the north ought to do this same thing to the rivers beyond — I mean the Tanaïs and the Phasis and all that come after these. But often, time and again, both south winds and the winds that blow from Libya near them have continued for long stretches, in summer and in winter alike, and none of these rivers has suffered this — none, that is, of the notable ones. For if they shall reply that it is the continuity of the Etesians that drives the Nile back, I pass over the fact that the winds I mentioned have a thousand times persisted for no shorter time; but in any case the Nile is filled not when the Etesians are at their height, nor when they are near their ending — that we might grant the excess to time — but often even when they are just beginning, and even before they begin. So the continuity of the winds could not be the cause, since the river has already begun to stir before they exist. Moreover, the Etesians do not blow straight against the mouth of the Nile at all, but against the eastern bank; for most of them, surely, are westerlies, and these stretch from the west toward the rising sun. So it is impossible that the river should be checked by the Etesians; and if it were checked by them, why on earth do not all those rivers that flow in the same direction as the Nile suffer the same? Besides, the whole business of the Etesians becomes downright laughable. For if we admit this argument, we must go on to believe this too: that the east winds, when they blow, stop the Eridanus and all the rivers that mingle with the Ionian Sea in the same way; that when the west winds blow the Rhine flows inland and does not make its way out to the outer sea; that of the rivers about the north, those that flow southward swell, and that with the south winds those toward the north do likewise — and so the very thing whose cause we are seeking, why on earth it happens in one river alone, we shall be ascribing to them all in a circle. And how is it not extraordinary — or rather, wholly forgetful — to ask why the Nile of all rivers does this, and then to declare that all of them suffer the same thing from the same cause? Indeed, if no other
river is subject to the same conditions, the argument is false; but if all are, why must it be said that the Nile alone? For either one must not seek a cause at all, or the cause is not this.
But this too, surely, is plain: that the Nile is not among the feeblest of rivers, nor so much more easily handled than all the rest that its mouths alone are beaten back and shifted by the winds. For when not even the smallest rivers are entirely shut off, but keep an outflow, how is it likely that the Nile — which is able to flood all Egypt — should do this, overcome by the winds? We see that not even the shores of the sea, nor the shallows and lagoons, are so far held back by the winds, even by the many and habitual ones — no, not even by how much they pass beyond their own bounds; rather, the waves wash up and then retreat, while the shallows remain undisturbed; and yet what lies on the level is easier to be tilted than what flows downhill is to be turned back. Nor again can it be said that the Etesians strike most violently upon these places; but whether one is to grant that they are westerlies or northerlies or whatever they may be, they fall more sharply and forcibly upon the regions nearer them and full in their path; and since none of those regions suffers the same, how is it likely that the Nile alone — which, besides lying farthest from the onset of the Etesians, is also so much greater in its stream — should suffer it? Furthermore, the thing is altogether shameless. For it is not the case that, because they think fit to make the Etesians the cause, the Nile therefore does not issue into the sea; rather, to one who comes to the very mouths it will everywhere appear flowing brilliantly amid brilliant Etesians. This argument ought never to have been put forward to people who know even a little about the Nile. So they wrangle about distant things without having seen the absurdities at their feet, and reduce the plain to the obscure, instead of confirming the obscure by the plain, wherever that is possible. The mouths, then — whether the sophists say so or not — all of them discharge; and this is judged by the eye, not by argument; and not just slightly, like this, nor only as far as those of other rivers, many though they are, but as far as it is natural for the greatest of rivers to reach; and far more, again, in summer than in winter. I myself, at least,
- heard this from a man no more capable of lying than Demosthenes — Dion, our companion, a man experienced both in affairs and in words — who said that, sailing toward Egypt in the season of summer, when land was not yet in sight but was still so far off that one could not even guess at it, the sailors drew up water — whether under stress, or else wishing to show the passengers clear, drinkable water from far below — so far out beyond the land, and above the surface of the sea itself, does the Nile pour. And yet, if its mouths were stopped by the Etesians, how was it likely that men putting in to harbour in mid-sea, while the Etesians were at their height, should take up the water of the Nile? Moreover, the lagoons too, when the land has been sufficiently watered, are released again into the sea by the Egyptians. How, then, would they flow out, if the Etesians were preventing them? For this surely is impossible: that at the mouth, and where the river is naturally disposed to flow and is at its most forcible, it should itself be able to ward off its own opposing winds, but that where it has spread into the lagoons and lies still, the winds should nowhere prevent it, when it needs to flow out.
But this argument, as it were under formal objection, is struck down and rendered powerless by the fact that everyone may see the river flowing — and, as I say, far more strongly in summer, as one would expect from its fullness, than in winter. For if one had deliberately to state the opposite of what occurs, one could not find a better way. There is another man, and another argument, to be examined, who says: "Behold the fair-virgined streams of Nile, / which, in place of heaven's drizzle, water the plain of Egypt's land / when the white snow is melted." How then, O wisest Euripides, does the Nile water the fields of Egypt by the melting of white snow? Where is this snow that melts? Is it the snow in Scythia? And what has that to do with the Nile? Or the snow in Ethiopia, or still farther off? But that is more absurd than the other. For the Nile, surely, rises from the hottest regions of the inhabited world, and as it goes forward it passes ever into less hot country; and of the lands we know, Egypt — being, one might say, the hottest of all — is where it first becomes familiar to us. How then is snow able to fall in a country of such a nature, especially in such quantity as would rouse the Nile? For where
they say it is no longer even habitable for the heat, what kind of snow is it likely to be, by which so great a flood is produced? This is as if one were to insist that the craters in Etna are an outflow of ice, or were to undertake to say that snow warms and fire cools. For when one places snow in the very land of heat, how does it not amount to this — to setting the Nile in motion as though from the Odrysae or the Bisaltae, and not from the place whence we cannot so much as say, except that it ever comes from hotter and hotter regions, until there is no resisting? And so it seems that the Egyptians who have not travelled abroad have not even seen snow, nor can they learn of it even when another describes it — we, at any rate, could not teach it, as though recounting some strange thing, but, just as with whatever needed an interpreter altogether for those of them who spoke a foreign tongue, so this was unknown to them — and yet are these people, at the beginning of the south, to have more snow than heat? And what falsehood could be more theatrical than this, whether Euripides or Aeschylus composed it? For even Egypt's own first parts differ from its last more, one might say, than another nation differs from Egypt itself; so much do the upper regions surpass in heat. The things, then, that neither occur nor were ever heard of about the farthest parts of Egypt toward us, and the sea-coast nearest Egypt — how is it likely that anyone should say they ever exist at the beginning of the south? Cold, and snow in such quantity that the water from it is greater than the river's own proper stream? And we know that the south winds are the hottest of all winds, and that the sun itself, standing at the south, scorches the interior; yet this thing, which belongs to the extremity of frost and storm and to the season among us when it is most wintry — this we are not ashamed to set down as so abundant for those people: if we ourselves advance the argument, we are shamelessly lying; and if we believe others who say it, we are easily deceived. I am almost ready to say that this thing alone is not even imported into the country, like a hostile nature. And indeed, that
summer is the season most prized, we all know in common; yet you would find everything in the great city of Alexandria except this. And indeed, one might most aptly call it the very hem of Egypt, in Euripides' phrase. Then is what is not even imported to them by summer's law to lead the Nile up in such abundance in the season of summer? Least of all, it seems to me. And against Euripides and Aeschylus perhaps even these arguments are not merely sufficient but beyond the sufficient, the refutation being so clear and right before our feet, and showing the thing wholly impossible, as in what was said above about the outflow.
But let us go on now to the opinion of the many, and to the clever men who have made it: who say that it rains about the upper regions when the Etesians blow, and that the clouds, driven there from our parts, burst, and that the Nile, filled from these rains, is naturally greater in summer than in winter. You must, then, learn the whole of what happens with regard to the rising. For the Nile, when its season is upon it, comes down from the heights; but it comes down not by a visible increment, nor in such a way that the eye can perceive the water being brought on; rather, beginning from a few fingers' breadth, it gives so much increase that in nearly four months it fills those fourteen or fifteen cubits about Memphis, all the while presenting its increase as imperceptible and signalling it by this one thing only — by laying hold of the land in succession. And to what end do I say this? Because they say that, just as our rivers are swollen by the rains of winter, so the Nile is swollen in summer by the rains. Now if this were true, first of all the river ought to appear coming down suddenly, raised up. For just as when a stream is borne over earth or solid ground, so upon the old water the water from the rains runs on, arched and swelling. Why then does not this same thing happen with the Nile? For surely they cannot at one and the same time refer it to the other rivers and judge it by the same signs, and yet not use the same signs in both cases. For if it had once happened so, there might be something in it; but if it always rises in this manner, what could they say? First, then, and greatest, is this sign of which I speak,
that it does not rise from rains — that it is not borne along erratically, nor sharply, nor at random, but, as the Egyptians say, works like some craftsman, and the work always proceeds for it according to measure. Then, whenever the rains cease, the great mass of the rivers, surely, naturally subsides before long. How then shall we say that the Nile holds out so long from such a cause? For in likening it in one way we make it unlike, and we mix together the two most absurd things, supposing at one moment that it is not in the same condition as the others, and then trying to declare it like them, and again, supposing it like them, showing it to be in an unlike condition. For if its full height were reached in three or four days, or even twice that, or if such a span were not a small fraction of the whole time of the rising, perhaps something neat might be found; but to go on, day by day, raising itself for nearly four months — what account of this can be given by rains? Indeed, not even our rivers are continuously swollen in winter; rather, it rained, and they came up; it ceased, and they sank; they keep becoming greater and smaller in proportion to the rains, by the very changes of winter. So the Nile too, if it rose from rains, ought not to have a continuous increase, nor to advance steadily toward its greatest and largest from its smallest and first, until it reached its full; but to have an uneven and shifting increase and recession by turns. And so what is called the rising of the Nile would not be this one thing at all, but there would be many risings, and again recessions every summer, just as it fell out from the rains. Furthermore, just as in winter the rivers do not have continuous swellings, so too in summer they sometimes increase, beyond the state they are in, whenever it rains. And so whatever happens to them would happen to the Nile in turn, and the Nile would sometimes rise in winter just as these rise in summer. Thus these rivers would alike become greater than themselves, now in summer, now in winter, and alike the
Nile — except that it would be greater and smaller in each season by no more than each of these. But in fact, if the Nile is never heard to have risen in winter, while our rivers may be seen becoming greater than themselves in summer whenever rains take hold, then one must seek some other cause of the rising — if indeed there is one — since the explanation from rains nowhere holds.
Moreover, the Nile not only rises by fixed measure, but also subsides again in due order, and is restored to its original state in scarcely less time than it took, in rising, to come to its full. And yet the rivers swollen from rains nowhere suffer this, nor is there any order in either of their behaviours — naturally, since there is none even in the rains themselves. So both the fact that it rises once a year, while the others rise each as it chances; and the fact that it does not leave off before reaching its full, and that, having filled, it flows back again, and the stillness of the stream after this — all these do not allow the explanation to seem to lie with the rains. And, if this too must be said, when one has passed the cataracts there is sand on either side of the Nile, on the Libyan side wholly desert dunes. So that if it did rain, no streams would be likely to arise, since the sand would receive the rains into itself. The other great sands we know we know to suffer this; for indeed the sands about the passes from the land of the Arabs into Egypt would not, however much it rained, let a stream of water pass. But the sands toward Libya slope plainly down to the far side away from the river, without the alternation of both sides; and, considering both the quantity of this sand compared with the other sands we know, and the level of the stream in the river rising so high — even if it were over solid ground, it would be a marvel. And they say that it rains about Meroë; and if this were the cause of the rising, it surely would not have escaped those who see it and dwell near it, nor would they themselves be inquiring whence it comes down, but it would be plainly seen rising from that very spot. But there is no such thing, nor can the Ethiopians say that it rains among them. At any rate, I heard both these things from them. How, then, does it rise from rains? Furthermore,
- the lower parts of Egypt too are often brilliantly rained upon — for though even the upper parts have a drizzle, at long intervals, the parts toward the sea, and as a regular thing, have much rain — and yet not in the least is any effect of it apparent in the Nile. And yet how is it likely that the rains which fall in Egypt, however much they may be, do not stir it, but that the water suffers the very same thing as the water poured into the sea, namely to be invisibly consumed, while from the secret places, it seems, of the inhabited world the river gets its increase — as though the Nile were playing the sophist, or were afraid of appearing to rise for this reason? But if these things are laughable, such are the things said by those who attribute the cause to the rains.
I wish also to relate to you a little about the clouds. For when I was sailing up into Egypt the second time, on my voyage to the summit, there fell in with us, about the Theban region, in a district named Hermonthis, a man who was an exile from the lower city, Draucus by name, introduced to me by a friend and companion who sailed with us, who had seen him there. And when it happened that his exile was lifted and he came down to the sea, he often came to us, and we treated him, as was fitting, with familiarity. And once we were walking about, like this, toward late afternoon, in the great avenue along the porticoes, and the Etesians were blowing brilliantly; and so we looked off toward the clouds, and one of those present said, "These, now, are the winds of the Nile" — for so he named them. And he laughed. When I asked what he meant by this, "Do you not know," he said, "that I spent three years running on the borders of Egypt?" "I know," I said, "but what of that?" "That in all that time which I wore away there, looking everywhere, I could not see a single cloud there in summer, but the air stood unmoving, like things in a painting. And yet I think," he said, "that I see what there is to see; but I saw no cloud — none of those which you," he said, "imagine to be driven up from here and to burst and fill the Nile." This, when I heard it then, I marvelled at and was pleased; and now, recalling it, I have reported it to you, so that you may know how far from the truth are those who both abuse this argument
and have believed it; and that you may altogether understand this about the affair of the Nile — that it runs the risk of being the only river never the same as itself, but flowing evenly in waxing and waning, or, if you like, unevenly, in a manner most resembling that of the days and nights and of the moon. For beginning to go up to its height, ever bringing on one increase after another, it advances thus, adding to its increase, until it is grown to its greatest; and, all gathered together, like the circle of the moon, it begins again to wane, having turned back, as though rendering some second turn to the other side; and the other period, that of the inflow, takes hold again; and often it has remained in the former state only so far as not to be perceived. So it is not the same throughout the rising — for it is ever increasing, until the perfect height is reached — nor again throughout the recession, for it is ever waning, until it has given back the whole. Thus, then, the affair of the Nile seems to be something more divine and more peculiar than the way of other rivers and streams; and if we seek causes for this, let us also seek the causes of what I spoke of — why on earth it is ordained that day should exceed day a little, until the longest is crowned, and then fall short, until it comes to the shortest, becoming less first than its own self, and then less than the night, after the equinox; while night, taking up the increase in turn, suffers these same things, advancing by addition and returning by subtraction, until it is restored to that point — as the geometers call it — from which it began its course, ever suffering the same things as the day, and the opposite. For even if one should say that these things, at least, are evident, assigning the cause to the sun's course, yet he will surely not show the cause of the very order of that course, nor why these things were thus shut up from the beginning by necessities — as, if you will, that the changes should be bounded by periods of three months, that to night and day the whole of this time should be apportioned, and that there should be fixed limits set for the god toward the north and toward the south, which it is not possible to overpass — of none of these will he show the cause, except by pretending to. And yet this much, at least, is
to the purpose of the example: that of the sun we see the motion to be twofold, as one may say of the limits of the whole, from which it is possible to reckon up the lengths and the shortnesses of each of the times; but when this very thing is agreed about the Nile — that it has not even yet, to this day, been discovered whence it sets out and what its southern limit is — how is it possible to seek the cause, or how to say whence it rises? But perhaps not only in this case, as I said, but in others too, it is hard to find out the causes. Having made, over and above all, four signs that neither the clouds nor the Etesians draw up the stream, I shall then conclude my discourse on this matter. Of these, one is that the river often rises before the Etesians come on; the second, that it does so even when they do not come at all; the third and the fourth, following on these, the one, that it does not come on greatest at the time when the greatest Etesians put in and stir the most clouds; the other, conversely, that it is not then smallest, when the winds happen to be light — all of which, in all likelihood, would not be as they now are, if either the Etesians were masters of the stream, by stopping it at the mouth, or were filling it from heaven.
But that we may not altogether dishonour Herodotus' opinion, as though it were not at all worth even contradicting, come, let us consider what seems good to him too about these matters. He says — if we remember rightly — that the sun, driven off by the storms in these parts, goes to the upper regions of Libya and melts the water, and by melting it makes the Nile smaller in winter than in summer. But this is not to say how the Nile rises, but to fabricate how it diminishes. For that it is purest in winter is agreed by all; and this being so, it would rise in summer, when it is at once greater and more turbid. So the thing sought remains, until someone shows this — how the stream is raised; for its proper and prior stream appears to be the winter one. And apart from these things, if the difference made by the sun's winter course were so great as to make summer about that land, when winter sets in here, and again winter, when summer sets in among us, perhaps it might be
- admitted. But as it is, that those parts surpass ours not a little in heat in winter no one denies; yet nothing prevents that, even among those very people, the sun has less power in winter than in summer. For surely we shall not say that in summer it has power about the north and the land in that quarter, but withdraws from Egypt and Libya; rather, it burns there even more — most of all, I think, in Ethiopia, and then, as is likely, in Egypt; most of all in the uppermost parts, and then in succession according to reason; since even about the Scythian land and the Pontus nothing prevents summer from being colder, and by much, than the summer among us, although the sun is then driving the northern part of the whole heaven. And yet, if the seasons of the year were reversed in these regions, then, just as when the sun goes off toward the south and makes winter there, it would be summer in Egypt and at the ebbing of the Nile, so likewise, when it came back toward the north, the northern parts would have the advantage in heat — which is very far from appearing to be the case. Naturally; for the north, I think, is set in motion, but it is not filled up to it. So then, when the Nile is plainly rising in summer, it is clear that in winter it cannot possibly be melting. For if the sun were the cause, it would hinder the rising still more in summer, being then and there much stronger than itself; so the argument refutes itself. For if it melted it then, it would still less allow it to be filled now; and if it does not melt it in winter, it is not on that account that the Nile is greater in summer. And it seems to me much the same thing to say that the sun is driven off by the storms, and that the Nile is melted by the sun. But neither do the storms drive off the sun, O best of tale-tellers — for they do not even reach the region of the sun, but the sun, withdrawing according to its own course and nature, makes it possible for the winds to become still colder and more violent — nor does the Nile, being melted, like Xanthus by Hephaestus, contract its stream by the sun.
But indeed, though Herodotus has spoken most auspiciously and most beautifully about Egypt and the Nile, he runs the risk of having said few of the true things — not that he exaggerates,
I do not say in everything, since indeed there are some things which he has even understated, of which there is no need now to speak; but those things he has stated otherwise than they are: as, for instance, that beyond Heliopolis a journey of four days, Egypt becomes broad again — Egypt which is ever closed up into so narrow a space, and toward an angle, that the Nile is thrust into it through both the mountains, which have by then met together; and this is the cataracts, the descent of the river through the mountains, like the very summit of all Egypt. So that, still sailing up to the harbour at Elephantine, you would suppose the stream to be shut in; for you would say that, far from Egypt being broad there, even the stream of the Nile is now narrow, flowing on beneath the rock. And you might see, even before completing the journey to Elephantine — at how many schoeni's distance I do not know — the mountains coming together so that there is nothing between but the very stream, and this is here the breadth of Egypt, which is the breadth of the river. Or, as for refuting his other statements, how great a task it would be to go through them — who says even about the sources, surely, of the Nile that he learned from the scribe of Saïs that there were two mountains between Syene and Elephantine, and that from the middle of these mountains the sources flowed, and that half the stream flowed toward Ethiopia and the south wind, the other half toward Egypt and the north. And yet Elephantine, up to which he says he sailed, is almost beneath the very cataracts of the Nile, distant at most seven stades. For I myself, at any rate, sailed up and saw — more accurately, they say, than I needed to. And, if I must digress in Herodotus' own manner, for the sake of charm, while leading the discourse nowhere outside the matter in hand, this is how it fell out. As I was going up to the altars where the Ethiopians keep their guard, drawing far off from the river-bank, having crossed over to the harbour which is the first above the Catadupa, I passed across to Philae. This is an island on the boundary of Egypt and Ethiopia, as great in size as the city upon it; and the Nile flows round it, making it exactly the middle of itself. And when I went back, I returned again by the same way from Philae, and expected now
at least to see the cataracts. And I kept asking the guides, but they did not know. So, being again in Syene — which the Nile divides from Elephantine — I asked the commander of the garrison, although I was wretchedly disposed from sickness, to send me back, giving me some light boat, for the sake of seeing the cataracts, and to send along with me those who would compel the men on the island of the cataracts — these are sailors familiar with the stream — to show us both themselves and the spectacle, whatever the boatmen's display might be; for I inquired of the people there. He said it was a very laborious thing, and marvelled at the notion, and said he himself would not have dared so far; he did not, however, refuse outright, but since, trying to dissuade me, he could not persuade me, he sent me off, being in other respects friendly and wishing to oblige me. So I sailed up, and saw, from the tip of the island — which, rising out of the middle, makes the cataracts visible on every side — those men launching themselves over the rocks, as was their custom; and besides, I myself desired to embark in the skiff and make trial of the voyage, not only through the same places by which I had seen them carried down — these were the parts to the east of the island — but, beginning from that very spot, to sail round in a circle all that was visible, and along the other side of the island to let myself go down with the stream toward the cities. So what I say I know not by hearsay but by accurate sight: that Elephantine is beneath the very cataracts, and that between Syene and Elephantine there is nothing but the river's channel, and that each of these two cities dwells upon the bank. If, then, Herodotus ever came to Elephantine, as he has said, how is it that, first, he related as hearsay what he had seen; and then, told falsehoods so gross that, inquiring about the ancient sources of the Nile and saying he had as yet heard the truth from no one — "but this I heard from the scribe," he writes, and that the scribe in the Saïtic nome, about the things at Elephantine — or, if he had remembered, if he had had nothing of what he heard to pass over in silence, he would have used other refutations against the argument than these I have now stated. As it is, he says that the scribe seemed to him to be jesting, but the points by which it was likely he should refute him,
he left out: first, that the scribe began by describing the sources to him from a very small fraction of the way — for the Nile is known by a voyage of many months above this place; then, that it is impossible, where the river cannot flow in the usual way, but bursts over the rocks, forcing its descent, that there half the stream should be borne upward, like birds toward the heights. For the saying, surely, would not be that rivers flow upward, but that the sources of rivers run up the mountains! But neither having gone to Elephantine, nor knowing anything clear about these matters, he has used an argument welcome to those who are persuaded, but for the doubters offering a way out.
Then, in addition to what he has said before, he says that, if these things are true, it seems to him there are whirlpools there and back-currents of the river. And what need is there to speak of back-currents and whirlpools, neglecting the facts: that the Nile does not even set out from that spot, but the upper region is far more its source than the part toward the sea; and that it is not possible for the water to leap over the cataracts, unless one supposes, in Aeschylus' words, that it is truly hurled down from the upper air, like a dart; and that there is no mountain between Syene and Elephantine, but rather Syene and Elephantine themselves lie between the mountains? Not, however, that all that has been said is false; but the sources truly are between Syene and Elephantine — two great rocks rising in the midst of the channel, and the Egyptians say the space between them is the sources. But these are not the sources of the whole river, but tributary to its lower, Egyptian part — not the ancient ones. And indeed they said that the depth was not to be reached by one who made trial, and that to make trial was not safe; this turned me back, though I was right at the spot — for the difference was not so great. These sources, then, flow somehow according to nature; and I am persuaded not by the argument alone that there are sources there, but by the very fact: the river is far greater from these onward, both in breadth and altogether, so to speak, and as it goes forward it admits larger vessels — and not only larger,
- but by much. And yet the contrary happens to the rivers: as they go forward they become smaller, when no other water comes to their aid.
But if I must cross over even farther, I will tell you in brief what I heard from an Ethiopian, one of the powerful men there. For the prefect happened to be away when we entered the place, but there was a man holding the deputyship, who came to converse with me through interpreters. And all that is outside the present discourse I shall pass over; but he said that to Meroë — which is the greatest of the cities in Ethiopia, and where the royal seat of the Ethiopians is — it was a voyage of four months, I think he even said six, from that point; and that many other cataracts succeed one upon another, nearly six and thirty in all from above Pselchis as far as Meroë, and that all this was the known stream of the river. Beyond Meroë, after some distance I do not remember, he said the stream was not single, but that there were two streams, of which the one was earthy in colour, the other near to the colour of air; and that these, coming together and mingling, become this Nile; but the parts above he said that neither he himself any longer knew, nor any other of the Ethiopians at all, but that there were black men, ever blacker than themselves and than their neighbours the farther up they were; while to the topmost he could not carry it back — whence and through what regions the river is borne, toward its sources. And yet how is it not strange and monstrous that the Ethiopians should confess they cannot tell the sources of the Nile, while we, with this ever being sought and not yet to this day discovered, should be concerned about what the cause of the rising is — and, the first thing being unknown, as they say, should seek the second? And these things I have gone through not in order to censure Herodotus offensively — for I am not otherwise one who has practised such a thing, nor do I rejoice with those who do; and to Herodotus there is gratitude even for the very passion which he first cast into us for Egypt, and in other respects, as the frank-spoken say, the man is a friend — but because the truth has not yet been told about these things. I proceed farther in my refutations, that, as if shut up under a summary, the argument may be made firm. The rising begins at the summer solstice, or a little later; and at that time, over the parts of Egypt toward
Ethiopia, and the parts of Libya toward Egypt, the sun stands overhead. This is clear from two of the greatest signs, neither of which occurs about the rest of the land which we inhabit. For there being two townships, which I mentioned just now at the borders of Egypt — for I call Philae, above the cataracts, the boundary of Egypt and Ethiopia — at Elephantine everything is lit up, both temples and men and pillars, and nothing has a shadow at midday, when the sun fills out the greatest day; while at Syene, on the same day and hour, the disc of the sun appears in the middle of the middle of the sacred well, like a lid, equal on every side, shining down to the brim. And yet this is a sign of both things: that the sun does not come nearer to Libya in winter than in summer — if indeed, of the two parts of Egypt, Elephantine is built on the Libyan side; for there everything has by then met together, Egypt, Arabia, Libya, Ethiopia, the one from here, the other from there, coming to the same point. Then, even if one grants him to the full that the sun, drawing near to Libya, melts the water, this very thing tells against him. For if it melted the river in winter by approaching, it is plain that in summer, when it stood over it, it would have snatched it utterly away and been gone. For there is surely no other way in which the sun can be said to come nearer to the earth than when it is raised to the vertical; since that the sun never comes near to Libya, nor to any other part of the earth, one might readily learn. For it surely does not come over the parts of the earth, some in summer and some in winter; rather the earth is, by turns, within its revolution. But it is always equally distant from all the earth; and to those over whose head the midday sun stands, it brings the most flame. It appears, then, not checking nor stopping the river then, nor snatching it up, nor making it smaller from greater, but looking on as it increases and ever takes addition to its stream — the thing that you wonder at. And yet when, after this, shall we say the Nile is melted by the heat, if it is seen rising under such a peak of heat?
So, then, the sun, turning back from the solstice, goes toward the Ethiopians — I use the word somehow after Herodotus. So that it ever proceeds, holding this same posture toward the upper regions. But these are the river's course; so that it would ever be taking away no small portion of the water, and would little by little be drying it up — the very opposite of which it plainly does; if, indeed, one must say so — or rather, it is not the sun, I think, that plainly does this, but the Nile that plainly does the opposite, whether one must say doing or suffering. For though the river ought to wane little by little in step with the sun's motion, having begun to increase, it increases its very growth little by little, and the one furnishes the same beginning and the same peak of heat, the other of inflow.
But come now, change the subject: sing the array of Ephorus the philosopher and sage, with which the man has adorned both himself and his treatise. And yet I fear lest the one who tries to refute him may be more laughable than he who claims to have found the answer. For if the Nile brought down its increase not far above the Catadupa, and far from the regions we know, perhaps one might admit the suspicion that the water, withdrawing from the Libyan mountain and the Arabian into the lowland, fills Egypt, which is central and hollow — the very things he says, blaming the heat. But as it is, even those who have never so much as heard the name of Ephorus know this — that the river comes down from above, lofty, from a voyage of many days, and is wonderfully raised about the Catadupa themselves, and in the space between Syene and Elephantine — whence, of the parts of Egypt, begins what the Greeks would call Hermes — passes through with a wonderful crash, and fills thirty cubits, to put it at a middling figure. How then is the water from the mountains that close in Egypt on either side, so far below the rising, the thing that produces the rising; and how does the same water at once fill Egypt by flowing beneath it, and at the same time appear, over the summit of Egypt, borne so high upon the back of the ancient water — unless Ephorus shall say this too, and add
to his wisdom, that just as the water runs down from the higher places into the hollow, so again it turns back from the hollows toward the heights, and the river, beginning from the sea, turning back again, is borne upward toward the cataracts and Meroë, like one running a long race uphill? But these things he could not, I think, persuade even his own fellow-citizens by saying. And indeed this strong point I let go — though they say that even thefts must be refuted only so far that one prove the man holding the stolen goods in his two hands. But there is another piece of folly: this very thing first, the supposing that either this Arabian mountain-country or the Libyan is full of water — what sense is there in it? For what springs are there, here or there? What thought even of water in these regions? Which are drier and more barren than anything one could guess at; so that in the Arabian country lies even this famous porphyry quarry. They work it, like the other quarries surely, with convicts; but these, as they say, no one guards, so utterly is it destitute of water — by which very thing it has been made desolate — but for fear of being burned alive, which is what one must suffer if caught in flight, those of the miners who stay, stay. And nevertheless there are some who choose even this rather than to be burned for all time. For in truth this is what it is to be burned alive. So utterly is the place all sandy and thirsty. And, in general, why on earth do not all rivers too become greater than themselves in summer, by this argument? For if the sun thrusts the water into the hollows of the earth, and the earth, becoming full, ends by being flooded by its own self, why on earth are the rivers not greatest at the peak of the heat, all being in the hollows each of its own land? But, instead of being greatest then, they are then smallest. And indeed about other rivers too, surely, there are other mountains — and not only not smaller than these, but, besides being clearly greater, also moister, and by much, as is plain from the trees growing upon them and from the moisture flowing out into the open. How then is it that things unmixable are mixed, if the water shall be driven into the depth of the earth, and then, for this very reason, shall be raised on high? And, it seems, the same sun squeezes out the Arabian and Libyan mountain and thrusts the water down,
but in Egypt looks on while this same water is raised up. And where, O summit of wisdom, does the land become full from below? It which is so split and gaping, straight from the spring solstice, that the whole of it is all but chasms and ravines, and the journey is not safe even for beasts of burden. "How then," he says, "are the lagoons far from the Nile filled, if it rises from rains or melted snow?" But if this is altogether possible, it agrees no more with Ephorus' own argument. For it is possible both that the river does not rise from rains or from snow, and that this is not the cause — namely, that the moisture seeps down into it. And yet to me it seems entirely the opposite of what seems good to him: that this argument no more forbids the inflow from above, but utterly refutes the filling from the spot itself as laughable. For the river, so long as the other hindrances are absent, is likely to come down increased both by the snow and from rains; and as it comes down, the land, being filled and swelling, gives off moisture below into the side parts — not because of the heat, nor from being dried — for it is absurd that the same land, not having the necessary water, should send the superfluous elsewhere — but, on the contrary, furnishing to what is overflowing the channels it can hold, unseen. But if the hollowness of the land shut in by the mountains supplied the cause, the lagoons far from the river surely would not be filled; and of this Ephorus himself is witness. For he says, in fleeing the refutation, that this cannot happen about the rest of the land, because it is neither hollow nor acquired, like Egypt, but ancient and, as he has called it, self-compacted. Let us grant this to be true, at least up to a point; but it is no more so. The lagoons, then, near the river and in Egypt itself do not begin from themselves, surely, but all from the river, and canals lead into them, whether Ephorus says so or not. So that there is nothing strange in these sharing in the cause, whatever it may be, of the river's rising; and the
lake of Moeris, and those down by the marshes, and Marea — which was formerly above Pharos, but now lies behind the city of Alexandria — are from the beginning gulfs of the Nile, and share in the rising, whenever the portion of the stream falls into them along the canals. But the Serbonian lake is plainly outside these mountains. For when one has passed beyond Pelusium and the other of the mountains that close in Egypt, on the way toward Ostracine — which is roughly in the middle of the unsown Arabian land — there it is. Now if into this too some outflow of the Nile comes from the upper regions, I need say nothing; but that it escapes the limits of Ephorus is clear from what I have said. So that he falls into one of two difficulties: for if he does not accept this argument, nor admit to refutation that which shows the lake to be outside the hollow land, why did he not show that this same thing happens over the whole earth, if the cause lies with the heat alone? But if he does not think fit to seek this same thing elsewhere, on the ground that the nature of the land is not the same, then the lake is outside these mountains. So how does it rise? Therefore, before considering what was first proposed — how the Nile rises — one must consider, second, how the lake rises, on these arguments. And indeed that he is not otherwise speaking the truth in abusing this pretext is easy to know. For many other lands, surely, have come into being from rivers in the world, which must necessarily be both hollow and porous, by these same arguments. And the others I pass over; but one, O Zeus, was straight before the gates of his own fatherland and before his eyes. For that the plain about Larisa was anciently sea, many things give proof. And that the Hermus is a tiny fraction of the Nile I set down for another argument; but that on the same grounds it too ought to rise in summer is refuted by itself. For one sees the mountains surrounding the land in a circle, and the river flows through it, porous as it is, and itself having made it from the beginning. For what reason, then, does it not only not rise in summer, but even fall short of many rivers that are not even near to it in winter? And often it does not have even enough to flow. And one might mention countless other such things.
And yet against the very men he opposes he produces a single example and so departs; and there is a case where, without even bringing in a name by which one might recognize either the river or the land, he nevertheless claims to win. For Egypt, he says, is porous and easily lets the springs pass through. But that no other land is so rich, and that this alone is enough to say, I let go; but what shall we say about that land outside Mount Casius which I mentioned just now? For this surely is not a work of the river, yet it shares in the matter; nor again would you say it was silted up by another river, for it is all waterless, alongside the lake. And indeed, those who try to persuade us of this do not try to persuade us about all Egypt, but except the part above the summit of the Delta, great as it is, holding it to be ancient — and not simply, nor as a common thing to say, but so distinctively ancient that it first bore men of those in Asia, that I may say nothing more. So then, if the rising happened in the Delta alone, it would be reasonable to believe this on some one ground; but if it happens in all Egypt, and so much earlier about the upper parts in proportion as the stream comes down, what reason is there in the Nile bringing or making new land?
Furthermore, the nature of Ethiopia and Egypt is not the same; rather the one is sandy and dry and finely compacted, the other so deep and firm-set that one could not easily find its like. Yet the same thing happens in both. How then is it possible to say that the same causes apply to both, things so different? For if the nature of Egypt is the cause, it is not, it seems, that of Ethiopia, whence it has been long since stirred; and if the nature of Ethiopia is the cause, what need is there to say that Egypt is hollow and closed in by the mountains? For neither in this lies the cause, nor, it seems, in that. And indeed, even in the parts above the cataracts about Pselchis, the ground slopes toward the west so much that the depth of the land is not even near to the channel. For there is a sandy ridge, walling off the river from all the lower land, and it ends, toward the
- west, in a far deeper level. So that if the water were the moisture of the land, it could not flow together into the river, but would be poured out to the far side of the river. And I myself heard, in Palestinian Syria, in the City of the Scythians, about the place that bears the famous dates of the palms and the balsam, that there is a lake which, whenever the Nile rises, gives a sign of it — for this was the very expression of the foreigners; and they said it does so as the Nile increases. Now if this land too is between Libya and Arabia, or is more hollow than all the rest, let us grant that Ephorus speaks the truth — though even so far he lies in saying one must not seek the same elsewhere, on the ground that it is not the same. But if there are many lands more hollow than this, even if not over a long stretch, yet at least over some, and nevertheless do not suffer this, then you must look for some other cause of the rising; since it appears one cannot allege either the porousness of the land or its hollowness, but these least of all. For if the filling came from the spot itself, it would not happen that the lakes outside the river rose, nor that the river itself was raised so high as to flood all the land within these mountains so brilliantly that sailors at night can in some places steer by the stars. For this is like persuading someone that the amphora is filled from the cup, the bare from the bare, the thing from itself. But rather, I think, the river coming down by a great measure, and the land not being sufficient, the water goes as far as what receives it, making for itself its own passage out. For this reason the outer springs take on rivulets from the river, and to the neighbouring peoples comes a perception of the rising, and the slack places receive it in succession, as when a chamber is filled.
So much, then, let it be said by us against the wisdom and novel opinion of Ephorus — who even says he alone has touched the truth. And I was delighted by a sweet sea flowing inland beyond Libya because of the Etesians, and by crocodiles here too, and by Massaliote tales in place of Sybaritic ones. For if you do not understand, O most charming Euthymenes — supposing Ephorus speaks the truth in saying it seems so to him — that you do not solve a difficulty, but
- raise a greater and more absurd one than the original, how shall someone not truly say, in mockery, that your mind is beyond the Pillars and Gadeira — just as they say the Thracian woman once said to Thales: if, fleeing a river, you do not know that you are falling into the sea, the mocker will say? For why on earth, if some one river of all the rest rises in summer, shall we marvel and seek the causes, but shall we not far more marvel at a sea, if some one of all of them is sweet? And indeed the rivers, even if they have the same nature, that of flowing, yet flow separately and each by itself, all those that do not, going forward, unite into the same; but the whole sea is, surely, blended and continuous in its nature, which if one shall divide in argument, what will he have left to marvel at? But one must, it seems, speak about these things too, having made a division. For there are, surely, four outflows of the outer sea. Of these, one comes in from the west to the Phasis through Gadeira and the neighbouring Libya, and this gulf is this sea of ours, which splits the earth in two, taking in the Maeotic lake and the river above it, the Tanaïs, and makes each section an island by the surrounding sea — unless you wish to say that the Phasis and indeed the Tanaïs are the boundary of the continents. But this gulf of the sea is as I say. There is another outflow, filled from the south, the so-called Red Sea, which makes Libya and Egypt and the Arabian peninsula adjoining them, separated from the inner and the outer sea by an isthmus of three days' journey. The third, above these, is the Persian gulf, to which, as one turns after the Red Sea, there is a peninsula — Arabia Felix and as much of the Persian land as lies within. The fourth is a sea that comes in from the north and the Caspian gate into our regions, which is called the Caspian, or, if you like, the Hyrcanian.
To what point, then, are these things? For I am not otherwise relating a tale of Alcinous. The point is, first, that these are all the regions of sea, and so many in number, and that besides these no men, Greek or barbarian, know any other sea — none truly, that is, of those within these
and of the sea that surrounds them; but as for whatever other water is poured out having gulfs, it is named lakes and marshes and shallows and such things. For the sea which some now call, in Phoenician Syria, the barren one — we shall presently say whence it has taken its name. Then it has happened, I think, that all these have this same nature, both with one another and with the source, and there is no one who has excepted any of them as being sweet, but they have spoken of it all alike as sea. And the nature of the water is plainly peculiar and belonging to the sea alone; so that even those of the wells which incline toward saltness most people call sea, and the lake I mentioned just now in Syria, its water having brine, has made for itself among most people the appellation of a sea of land. And it is not the case that the sea flowing round Libya is sweet and drinkable, while that at Gadeira itself is like ours through mingling. For first, it ought to be no more salt through the one than sweet through the other, if it mingles with that one too, and that in bulk, not through a strait. Then, from the testimony of those who still now sail out, it is plain that the argument is fabricated. For there are surely even now those who sail beyond the Pillars, no fewer than in those times; and not once or twice in long stretches, but daily and continuously, both merchantmen and traders are conveyed through both seas, as through one continuous sea, the whole lower region having been opened up and freedom to sail granted by the present empire. And as for us, when we had set out, the sickness overtook us first. And it is not possible to hear either the fishermen at Gadeira saying that the outer sea is sweet, or those who cross to the great island of the Iberians opposite; and yet armies of every kind cross to it on each occasion and withdraw at the proper times, and rulers and private men without number cross each time. For it is not reasonable that the whole should follow the part, but that the part should be such as the whole is in nature. And the outer sea does not flow off from
ours — both the whole, and that of which no boundary at all has been found toward the far side — but this gulf of ours flows in from the outer sea, bringing its nature from afar. And indeed, neither did those of the Carthaginians who sailed out beyond Gadeira and founded cities in the deserts of Libya bring home this report, nor did they write it down nor dedicate it in the temple, though they wrote many other strange things; whom it was surely not likely either to be ignorant, or, knowing, to conceal it. And these things they recorded on purpose, like men ambitious of what they had seen; yet all was a lesser thing than to be able to say that they had seen a sweet sea, as they saw it.
Furthermore, I myself marvel how this man set out so far from the known, and what his power was, and what the pretext of his journey. For it is not likely that he sailed out alone, and, having arrived with many, it was not likely that he alone adorned the account; nor, again, that he wrote it in a book as sufficient, nor merely related it to his intimates, but proclaimed and announced it publicly — dedicating this too, I mean, as the Carthaginian commanders dedicated records about these matters in one of the common temples. And indeed, if these things were true, whom of the Greeks would they henceforth escape? For it would be possible for all, by sailing to Massalia, to learn, and to be rid of this one difficulty at least through the Massaliotes. But neither do the Massaliotes say these things, nor is the Massaliote equally pleasant to tell of and trustworthy, but rather some ancient and poetical figure. And it is not because he has set crocodiles and river-horses into the account that on this account anything deserves belief; but here, precisely, the fabrication is best caught out, and that he is playing the sophist. For it was not that he saw the crocodiles and the river-horses and then reported them; but that the rest might seem to be told truly, he added the crocodiles and the river-horses, taking refuge in the familiar and drawing belief to the fabrication by the addition of another fabrication composed to look like truth. But such tales and fables, I think, it is better to leave to the nurses to relate to the little children, whenever they need sleep —
some sweet sea, and river-horses, and the sea flowing into the river, and such drugs for sleep. By others a mixed argument has been stated. For the one part needs no seer, but the other not even any seer could make convincing. That the sources of the Nile are in the hottest regions is plain, if indeed it sets out from the south. He says that these, being burned in summer, draw to themselves the neighbouring moisture, and, much water coming together, are filled, and that this is the rising of the river. Now I do not say that it would be likely that all rivers in hot regions should suffer this same thing; but how is it not absurd to say that the sources are in the hottest places, yet to insist that the waters near them are not in other such places? When they are in like places, then, they must necessarily suffer the same. Why then is it more likely that the sources of the Nile draw the other waters to themselves than that the other waters themselves need the inflow from there? But indeed, if all are to be more deficient than they, first, all will be smaller in summer than in winter; then, they will not be able to help one another, being separated by the heat and becoming each by itself. So that it would befit them to go to the smaller and to the lower, not to be raised. And indeed, let one grant it true, and not contend, that the sources draw the neighbouring moisture to themselves by their dryness; but that they not only take up so much as to fill the original stream, but also overflow by so much as to send the Nile onward as far as the sea, so far beyond the others — and, what is greater than this — does it stand to reason to concede these things? For where shall we say they still melt away, if they give such increase each day, and for so long a time? Therefore either they are at once used up and could not let the stream go forth, or, if so much remains over for them, how do they draw by reason of dryness? For even if they drew at the beginning, once filled it is likely they would slacken; and if again the sun melted them away, they could not for this very reason carry over to a height, what was being filled ever giving way, like the jar in the poets' tale. So that it would befit them to be smaller the more of the time, rather than continuously greater.
Another talks other nonsense; but to me all these seem each to have sought to state a position, and to be so far from speaking the truth that even the greater part, conscious that they are lying, contend for what they have supposed, and then, as though shooting in the dark, each from a different quarter, miss the mark. But I do not think it so wise to be anxious about things unclear, nor do I count it dullness if one stands off; rather I hold that not lightly to believe those who insist on things unclear is the mark of a man of sense. And if I must say a common thing to all of them, I say to those who lie by means of the Etesians, that in winter far greater and more violent north winds blow together and stir all the clouds, and stirring them drive them, according to nature, toward the south. And then, and before, anything may be said sooner than that the Nile ever rose in winter. And yet why would it rise more in summer than in winter, if it took its beginning from the winds? And to all in order I say this: that all are refuted by one another as being raw in their arguments. For when some say it is from the winds, others from rains, others from snow, others that it is the winter sun that melts, others the summer sun that drives off the water, others that the rising comes from wherever one wishes to allege — and all conjecture, while no one knows — they are refuted not only from the particulars, surely, but all in common, about one another, that they have not found the truth, but each has wished to state a position. And now I run the risk, while seeming to contradict all, of having all as witnesses to this. For the things by which each refutes the others, these are mine against them all. So that, in so far as they are right, I confirm them; and in so far as, like men in battle, they bring forward folly, this I take away. So that, not only by the better, but also by the many times more, I cast my vote with each man singly and with all in common; for each of them at once brings forward his own and contends against all the rest. And if we have not found out fewer things than they wasted beforehand, perhaps we are not deserving of blame. And indeed not even Homer is trustworthy, who says "back to Egypt, the heaven-fed river." For I, holding that one would add and ought to add everything to Zeus,
would grant that the Nile too is heaven-fed, and his work, since we even call him father of men and of gods, when Homer says this very phrase — and yet of the gods, not of all of them, he is the father of the gods themselves, according to the poets themselves; and surely one would not on this account force Poseidon to be the son of Zeus and Hera his daughter, and that too on Homer's view; for Homer himself, not so holding, shows it. And indeed, if Zeus is father of men and of gods, he would be also of rivers and of the things that come to be in this whole; and it is fitting that he be called father of the Nile no less than of Trojan Xanthus. So then I would say, as I said, that the Nile too is the work and child of Zeus. But if, as about the Scamander, Homer or another shall make his account of this one too, or of the Simoïs, or of the Granicus, he would pardon us if we should say that he knows the things in Troy better than those in Egypt; since Homer in his verses has expressly said that Pharos is a day's sail distant from Egypt, and, as though that were not enough, but setting his seal upon the licence, he added, "when a clear breeze blows from behind" — meaning, that is, the ship as it sails. And yet Pharos is at most seven stades from the mainland, and is itself, as it were, the boundary of the Libyans and the Egyptians. But that a ship runs so far in a whole day, even if a clear breeze blows behind, I for one cannot believe; and yet some of those who readily make excuses for the others say that Pharos was then, it seems, far from Egypt, but now the river has cut the distance short, ever silting up. And so this is now so, they say, and those statements Homer made rightly. But to these Homer himself now plainly contradicts. How? Because he too knows, somewhere, of Menelaus' voyage with Helen to Egypt. Now Canobus is the name of Menelaus' helmsman, as Hecataeus the tale-writer says and the common report has it, on whose death about this place the name is left — these things I say as the Greeks say them, since I myself heard
in Canobus itself, from one of the priests, and no mean one, that the place was so named ten thousand years before Menelaus put in there. And he did not exactly state the name itself so as to write it in Greek letters, but it was, as it were, carried along and circling, Egyptian and rather ill-written. This, then, he said meant in our tongue "golden ground" — it being a custom for the Egyptians to bestow such names on the places among them, like Elephantine, and again City of Zeus, and City of the Sun; so he said this name too meant, to tell a Greek, "golden ground." But I let this go; though it is likely that the Egyptians know their own affairs more accurately than Homer in Smyrna and Hecataeus in Miletus — not only by that which one might simply call likely and common, but by what is proper to say against these men: that, through the antiquity of time and the fact that nothing from heaven has befallen their country, they are themselves the witnesses and trustworthy recorders even of what is famous among others, and they keep everything on pillars in the temples in place of other possessions. But nevertheless I let this strong point too go. But let it be, according to our own tale-writers, the helmsman of Menelaus who gave the place its name, as he died. If, then, one must believe this account, Canobus is a hundred and twenty stades distant from Pharos. And yet a ship running the whole day under a wind blowing astern — I will add, a clear one — will not accomplish a hundred and twenty stades at most, but perhaps rather twelve hundred. And we have often accomplished so much in fair sailing, dividing up the whole afterward according to the days.
But the poets, I think, know above all things how to compose fables, and to number off the names of rivers and cities, and to embroider such things, and they pursue them; but they are not sufficient witnesses about things that so need refutation. To take an instance, Pindar — who of the poets seems most of all to cling to truth about histories — has composed, and not from afar, but from the very places does this refutation come too: for he says "Egyptian Mendes by the cliff of the sea." And yet
there is no cliff there, nor does any sea resound nearby, but in a great and outspread plain, where the whole Mendesian nome is inhabited, and their city, which they name Thmuis; so that one cannot even take it in with the eye, neither from the edges to the far side, nor from the middle, nor in any other direction. But he, being full of Cithaeron and Helicon and the height of Phicium, and conjecturing those distant matters from the things at home and familiar to him, spoke very freely, neither having seen nor clearly heard, but composing according to his own fancy, by the ancient licence belonging to the poets from their fathers in these matters. And what wonder, if about things that not even the natives themselves know, and they Egyptians at that, the poets, who are so far off, have nothing solid to say? But indeed the affair of the Nile runs the risk of being altogether, as I said a little before, peculiar, and wholly separated from the other rivers. For why, if you please, does it alone of rivers send up no vapours? And yet, if it rose from snow or rains, it would not alone of rivers fail to send up vapours, but would send up the most and greatest, in proportion as it is the greatest. For where even bare earth, when wetted, sends up vapours, what shall we say the Nile would suffer, if it rose so great from rains, or, by Zeus, from melted snow, as the others' argument has it? And what would you say of the order and music of its rising? That at Syene and Elephantine it rises eight and twenty cubits, but about Coptos, the Indian and Arabian emporium, one and twenty, and again, taking seven and four from these, it brings the well-known fourteen at Memphis — those by which the Greeks already reckon — and lower down, in the marshes, it descends to seven, then to two, I have heard. Does the Ister or the Phasis or the Strymon devise such things — are these not the devices of the Nile alone? It silts not by the nature of the land . . . And what river that we know furnishes water that outlasts time with so great a stream? For it neither rots there for one who keeps it, nor
when it has been carried abroad. But the merchantmen sailing to Italy from Egypt, when they have sailed up from there, keep what remains of their store safe, and the second water they draw is spoiled first, as being corrupted in the length of the voyage, before the old water shipped along with them. And the Egyptians alone of those we know fill earthen jars with water, as others with wine, and keep it within for three and four years and even more, and pride themselves on its age, as we do on wine. Or will someone say the cause of this too is that it rises from rains? And why on earth has the same not befallen all rivers? For all are rained upon. And we do not need to conjecture that they are rained upon, but we are ourselves present at the rains and dwell, so to speak, on their banks. And some of them, taking on the rain-water added to a very small original stream and being swollen, nevertheless, even from prevailing, do not furnish the same usefulness. But this one both rises in summer and in winter is at its own best, and even then is the best. And by how much do you think this water surpasses in sweetness? By more than you could say. And yet what is the cause of this? And of that, again, what would one say — that the stream which splits off from it runs the risk, in a way, of being always equal to the principal and the whole? And what of its marvels is not a wonder? Or how is it not all gathered from paradoxes? For no water aids it, but even the rocks are split by the dryness and the mountains all but send forth flame; yet it, flowing in the midst of these difficulties, confines all the lakes and all the gulfs by the quantity of its water, not only at the time of the rising but at all other times. And it has been established as, in place of one spring, for all the land; and neither city nor house nor any place escapes its use and power, but it avails the same to the inland cities and to those at the extremities as to those settled on the banks — or rather, to those very ones who sail the middle channel.
And when the harvest comes and it must go up to its height, to pass over the rest, which is past telling — those sands and chasms of the earth, in place of glens and marshes, present it nowhere any hindrance; but plainly, like the stars that walk the opposite way to the whole, it rises against both the seasons and the nature of the land. And yet who, seeing this too, would not judge it one of the incredible things — to suffice for the chasms and to fill the gaps, or rather, even before this, to have passed through the upper sand? But it, as though contending against its opposites, works out its passage. And first it filled the hollows and the ravines, going under, submerged, like divers under the surface, turning the first of the rising downward; then it stands above both them and the land, advancing ever toward its greatest, now measurable. But if one knew the unseen part of the work, he would marvel at it more than at the seen. For many rivers, I think, of those now counted among the first, would not suffice for the lower parts of the land, but, falling in, would be hidden there — as the Euphrates, advancing, is said to vanish. But as it is, just as, seeing the summits of the pyramids, we are amazed, while the counterpart, equally great, beneath the earth, has been ignored — I mean the things I heard from the priests — so too the Nile, when it has reached its crest, is bounded by all Egypt, and against the thing proposed we judge the Egyptian deep, so great it comes on; but how it comes to this, and whence it began its rising, has escaped inquiry. And that this land alone of all lands has been established, like some living creature, with reference to both states by the river — at one time being dry land and on itself upon the dry, at another dwelling in the water — to what must one ascribe these things, except to the great wisdom and providence of the god, who, where it was least going to rain, brought on the Nile as a kind of imitator of himself, to be in place of rains for those . . . of this gift, then, at that time
he brought it on, when it was most going to be in season for men and to present to the land its produce not only not less than sufficient but even wonderful in abundance? This is the only cause I can conceive for which the Nile flows through Egypt and the lands there, and is greatest in summer. And I see that we enjoy our cures too from the saviour gods, of whom one is he that bears the same name as the Nile; and the sum and the absolute cause we all know in common — that they wish to save us and to make us whole; but the conception itself, and the reason of what they prescribe on each occasion, who was ever able to find out? They who, through the very things that seem most contrary, and which one would most guard against, have wrought their cures. And let these things be said only so far, uttered not from forethought nor deliberated from the beginning, but as the discourse carried me this way, like a stream. The Nile is no less the fairest than the greatest of rivers, far surpassing in usefulness and in the pleasure of the sight and in all things; and it passes through the best and fairest land, and the air about it is the fairest of airs and purest for the eyes to take in; and the whole land, being full of water, presents the upper part the driest of all lands. And that the country is, through it, proof against earthquakes and plagues and the floods from heaven, did not escape even the Greeks before us. These things the Egyptians too, I think, having observed, hold the matters concerning it in greater honour. So that I myself once heard from another of those who seem to know something about these things, that most of their customs concerning festivals and sacrifices too refer to the Nile.