RUINS OF THEBES. 
167 
ficence are described by authors who only beheld 
its ruins* The opinions of the Egyptians them- 
selves, as we are informed by Diodorus, were divid- 
ed concerning the founder of Thebes, though, by 
the voice of the majority, that honour was ascrib- 
ed to Osiris. By others, however, the claims of 
the second Busiris, a character whose history is 
scarcely less obscure than that of Osiris, were ad- 
mitted to be preferable. The signification and 
etymology of the name of the city likewise forms 
a very perplexing, though not very important^ 
sucject of inquiry. 
From a celebrated temple dedicated to that 
luminary, Thebes is sometimes denominated The 
City of the Sun, The original decline of Thebes 
was caused by the building of Memphis. It was 
sacked by Salatis, and afterwards by Sabacon, 
kings of the Ethiopian shepherds ; and it was 
probably the vicinity of this rapid and feroci- 
ous enemy which induced the ancient Egyptian 
princes to remove the seat of their empire down 
the Nile to Memphis. The mutilation of the 
ancient monuments of Thebes was completed by 
the indiscriminate rage of Cambyses, after whose 
invasion this city never recovered any part of its 
ancient splendour. It may be noticed as a cu- 
rious fact, that Ammianus Marcellinus mentions 
the devastation of Thebes by a sudden incursion 
