(3) Ti/itya;. Euterpe, c. 170. 
(4) Herodot. ibid. c. l69. The principal solemnities Were held at 
Bubastus, in honour of Dia7ia. Those of Busiris, in honour of /$t«, 
held the second rank. Minerva was worshipped at Sa'is under the 
uame of Neith, according to Piato and Plutarch. 
(5) Ka) Jt ti'ii finTf'ovoXi; rn; xdru X'^i'S' Slrubon, Geogr, lib. xvii. 
j>. 1137. ed. OjL'on. 
(6) Egmont and Heymati's Travels, vol. II. p. 112. Lond. 1759. 
(7) As this Inscription \s the only one which has l»een foand by the 
moderns at Sais, in any legible characters ; and is, moreover, mate- 
rially connected with the history of the city ; and as the work which 
VOL. V. U contains 
VI. 
RUINS or SAIS. 289 
He says it stood within the sacred inclosure, chap. 
behind the temple of Minerva; mentioning also 
a shrine ^ in which were obelisks ; and near to 
those obelisks a lake, flanked with stone, equal 
in size to the Lake Trocho'is at Delos. But the 
form of the lake, according- to him, was circular. 
Nocturnal solemnities were exhibited upon it, 
according to a custom still kept up at Grand 
Cairo, at the overflowing of the Nile. The so- 
lemnities of Minerva at Sais were reckoned to 
hold the third rank in importance among all the 
festivals of Egypt *. It was the metropolis of 
Lower Egypt * ; and its inhabitants were origi- 
nally an Athenian colony. Egmont and Heyman 
found here a very curious Inscription" in honour 
of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, its bene- 
factor, certain of whose titles are given ^: 
AYTOKPA- 
