Chap. 9.] ACCOraT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 
409 
fifty miles in length, upon whicli there is a city, called the 
* City of Hercules.' There are two places called Arsinoites^ : 
these and Memphites^ extend to the apex^ of the Delta ; ad- 
joining to which, on the side of Africa, are the two Nomes 
of Oasites^. Some writers vary in some of these names and 
substitute for them other Nomes, such as Heroopolites^ 
and Crocodilopolites^. Between Arsinoitea and Mem- 
phites, a lake^, 250 miles, or, according to what Muci- 
anus says, 450 miles in circumference and fifty paces deep, 
has been formed by artificial means : after the king by 
whose orders it was made, it is called by the name of Moeris. 
The distance from thence to Memphis is nearly sixty-two 
miles, a place which was formerly the citadel of the kings of 
Egypt ; from thence to the oracle of Hammon it is twelve 
days' journey. Memphis is fifteen miles from the spot where 
the river Nile divides into the different channels which we 
have mentioned as forming the Delta. 
nome of Arsinoites, formed by the Nile and a canal. After Memphis 
and Heliopolis, it was probably the most important city Gouth of the 
Thebaid. Its ruins are inconsiderable ; a portion of them are to be seen 
at the modern hamlet of Amasieh. 
1 He probably means Arsinoe or Arsino'itis, the chief town of the 
nome of that name, and the city so called at the northern extremity of 
the Heroopohte Gulf in the Red Sea. The former is denoted by the 
modem district of El-Fayoom, the most fertile of ancient Egypt. At 
this place the crocodile was worshipped. The Labyrinth and Lake 
Moeris were in this nome. Extensive ruins at Medinet-el-Fayoom, or 
El-Fares, represent its site. The modern Ardscherud, a village near 
Suez, corresponds to Arsinoe on the Bed Sea. There is some Httle doubt 
however whether this last Arsiaoe is the one here meant by Phny. 
2 Memphis was the chief city of this nome, which was situate in 
Middle Egypt, and was the capital of the whole country, and the resi- 
dence of the Pharaohs, who succeeded Psammetichus, B.C. 616. This 
nome rose in importance on the decline of the kingdom of Thebais, but 
was afterwards echpsed by the progress of Alexandria under the suc- 
cessors of Alexander the Great. 
3 At which Middle Egypt terminates. 
4 They are more generally looked upon as forming one nome only, 
and included under the name of Hammonium. 
5 Its chief town was Heroopohs, a principal seat of the worship of 
Typhon, the evU or destroying genius. 
^ The same as the nome of Arsinoites, the capital of which, Arsinoe, 
. was originally called CrocodilopoHs. 
7 Now known as Birket-el-Keroum. This was a vast lake on the 
western side of the Nile hi Middle Egypt, used for the reception and 
