Mr. Linant's Expedition to Egypt. 299 



to the Persian usage, Josephus, in that strange chapter of his 

 Antiq. JucL, where he gives the account of the expedition of Moses 

 into ^Ethiopia, speaks distinctly and positively of the founding (or 

 re-founding rather, and new naming) of Meroe, by Cambyses, it 

 having before had the name of Saba. There is a large extent of 

 ruin (but without any thing grand or architectural) at Soba, con- 

 siderably south of Meroarat, near the junction of the Bahr el Abiad 

 ■with the Abyssinian Nile. These last remains, however, I am well 

 persuaded, are not upon the site of Meroe, and that Meroarat is its 

 tfue situation ; the position of this agreeing well with the distance 

 given by the ancient geographers to that city from the junction of 

 the Astaboras {Atbara) with the Nile-' 



The next observation that I have to make upon the drawings is 

 in confirmation of the report given by the spies sent up by Nero, 

 which is preserved in Pliny. They spoke of the principal temple at 

 Meroe being dedicated to Ammon (which is evidendy proved by 

 the sculptures on it), and that there were many lesser temples in 

 the country round about, which is also true ; that the city was in 

 those days become a small one, which is confirmed also by the very 

 little traces that remain of inferior buildings, or heaps of rubbish 

 about the temple. I had always cherished a faint hope that some 

 vestiges might be found of these Roman military spies, the custom 

 being very general, of recording upon the public edifices all along 

 the Nile, even the most ordinary visits. 



I was very anxious for any token of inscription from Meroe : there 

 are some scraps of Coptic, which are, perhaps, Christian, and seem 

 to promise nothing of interest, of which I have copies ; but there is 

 one also, which, I regret to say, seems to have been very ill copied, 

 which has a much more inviting appearance : it is certainly in 

 Latin; and, therefore, I take it for granted, not of Christian times. 

 All Egypt furnishes no more than two or three scanty instances of 

 inscriptions in Latin ; and to find tliis language at Meroe is, there- 

 fore, so unexpected, that I cannot help suspecting it to be the work 

 of the Tribune, or of some of his companions, sent up by Nero to 

 Meriic as spies : I can, however, make very little of it, for Linant, 

 seeming to have taken it for granted that (because it was cut ia a 



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