382 EAELY EGYPTIAN DATES CHAP. xix. 



in bays like that of Menzaleh, that any great amount of new 

 land has been gained, the general advance of the delta being 

 checked by a strong current of the Mediterranean, which, 

 running from the west, sweeps eastward the sediment brought 

 down by the great river, and prevents the land from en 

 croaching farther on the sea. The slow subsidence also of 

 the land is another cause which checks the advance of the 

 delta, and the raising and desiccation of the inland country. 



Aristotle remarks, that as Homer does not mention Mem 

 phis, the city either had no existence in the time of the poet, 

 or was less considerable than Thebes. 



This observation is no doubt just, so far as regards the com 

 parative splendour of the two cities, the one the metropolis 

 of Upper and the other of Lower Egypt in former times. 

 But it has no bearing whatever on the question of the 

 existence of Memphis, for Thebes is only alluded to inciden 

 tally as the grandest city known to Homer. Achilles is 

 made to exclaim, 'Not though you were to offer me the 

 wealth of Egyptian Thebes, with its hundred gates,' &c. &c., 

 ' would I stir ; ' * and the allusion to Thebes in the Odyssey is 

 equally a passing one. f If a work like Strabo's ' Geography,' 

 compiled in the days of Homer, had come down to us, and 

 Thebes had been fully described without any mention being 

 made of Memphis, we might then have inferred the non- 

 existence of the latter city at that period. 



Great cities, says Sir Gr. C. Lewis, and temples, and 

 pyramids may be erected during a small number of cen 

 turies, when despotic monarch s can command the services of 

 large armies in peace, and some Oriental monarchs are known 

 in historical times to have been possessed with a mania for 

 constructing huge edifices to please their own fancies. But 

 making every allowance for such occasional displays of 



* Iliad, ix. 381. | Odyssey, iv. 127. 



