Chap. 35 ] ACCOUNT OF COUJ^TRIES, ETC. 99 
that were sent by the Emperor I^Tero^^ under the command 
of a tribune, for the purposes of enquiry, when, among 
his other wars, he was contemplating an expedition against 
Ethiopia, brought back word that they had met with nothing 
but deserts on their route. The Roman arms also penetrated 
into these regions in the time of the late Emperor Augustus, 
under the command of P. Petronius,^^ a man of Eques- 
trian rank, and prefect of Egypt. That general took the 
following cities, the only ones we now find mentioned there, 
in the following order ; Pselcis,-^ Primis, Abuncis, Phthuris, 
Cambusis, Atteva, and Stadasis, where the river Kile, as 
it thunders down the precipices, has quite deprived the in- 
habitants of the power of hearing : he also sacked the town 
of i^Tapata.^^ The extreme distance to which he penetrated 
beyond Syene was nine hundred and seventy miles ; but still, 
it was not the Eoman arms that rendered these regions a 
desert. Ethiopia, in its turn gaining the mastery, and then 
again reduced to servitude, was at last worn out by its con- 
tinual wars with Egypt, having been a famous and powerful 
country even at the time of the Trojan war, when Memnon '-^ 
was its king ; it is also very evident from the fabulous stories 
about Andromeda, that it ruled over Syria in the time of 
king Cepheus, and that its sway extended as far as the shores 
of our sea. 
In a similar manner, also, there have been conflicting 
accounts as to the extent of this country : first by Dalion, 
21 Dion Cassius also mentions this expedition. From Seneca we learn 
that Nero dispatched two centurions to make inquiry into the sources of 
the Nile. 
'-^2 Dion Cassius calls him Caius Petronius. He carried on the war in 
B.C. 22 against the Ethiopians, who had invaded Egypt under their queen 
Candace. He took many of their towns. 
2^ Du Socage is of opinion that this place stood not far from the 
present Ibrim. 
2^ Supposed by Du Bocage to have stood in the vicinity of the modern 
Dongola. 
25 He was clearly a mythical personage, and nothing certain is known 
with respect to him. Tombs of Memnon were shown in several places, 
as at Ptolemais in Syria, on the Hellespont, on a hill near the mouth of 
the river Esepus, near Palton in Syria, in Ethiopia, and elsewhere. 
2£ Her story has been alluded to in the account of Joppa, B. v. c. 34. 
Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, though possessing the coasts of Syria, 
was fabled to have been king of Ethiopia. 
