DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0282
244-
EGYPT, PAST AND PRESENT.
opens between would yield sustenance, and the river would
pour out wealth. The city commonly abutted upon the
mountains, occupying the poorest soil, so as to leave all the
arable land for cultivation; and, uniformly, the largest and
richest plains, and the most picturesque disposition of the
mountains, indicated the site. No cities of modern times
are planted with a nicer calculation of commercial and agri-
cultural advantages, of facilities for defence, or of pic-
turesque effect, than were those cities of the old Egyptians.
Yet, how many sucli cities does the Nile entomb!
Of Heliopolis — the On of the Scriptures, a few stones
only remain. Memphis, or Noph, is a waste. The cities of
Acanthus, Isis, Busiris, Hercules, or Gom, Cynopolis, Oxy-
rhincus, Antinoe, Hermopolis, or Thmoun, Alabastron, Psi-
naula, Pesla, Hieracon, Lycopolis, Antasopolis, Athribis,
Chemmis, Abydos, Tentyris, and other cities mentioned by
Strabo, or in the itinerary of Antoninus, or in the old
manuscripts of the Copts, have hardly a mound or a vestige
by which to identify their site. Yet some of these were
cities of large population, and of great wealth, at the time
when Egypt numbered eight millions, and monopolized the
commerce of the East, Some of them were capitals of the
general divisions under which the country was then arranged,
and were the residences of chief officers of government
Even Alexandria, founded by the great Macedonian conquer-
or of Egypt, and in the time of the Ptolemies, the centre
of commerce and of learning for the world, presents but
few memorials of its former grandeur — and one of these is
the solitary column that commemorates a Eoman conqueror.
Thus cities and empires fade away. Greece borrowed from
Egypt. Rome rifled Greece, and then rifled Egypt also.
Napoleon rifled both Egypt and Eome.
By the way, Napoleon was the merest imitator. At Paris,
there is an obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, and in the
EGYPT, PAST AND PRESENT.
opens between would yield sustenance, and the river would
pour out wealth. The city commonly abutted upon the
mountains, occupying the poorest soil, so as to leave all the
arable land for cultivation; and, uniformly, the largest and
richest plains, and the most picturesque disposition of the
mountains, indicated the site. No cities of modern times
are planted with a nicer calculation of commercial and agri-
cultural advantages, of facilities for defence, or of pic-
turesque effect, than were those cities of the old Egyptians.
Yet, how many sucli cities does the Nile entomb!
Of Heliopolis — the On of the Scriptures, a few stones
only remain. Memphis, or Noph, is a waste. The cities of
Acanthus, Isis, Busiris, Hercules, or Gom, Cynopolis, Oxy-
rhincus, Antinoe, Hermopolis, or Thmoun, Alabastron, Psi-
naula, Pesla, Hieracon, Lycopolis, Antasopolis, Athribis,
Chemmis, Abydos, Tentyris, and other cities mentioned by
Strabo, or in the itinerary of Antoninus, or in the old
manuscripts of the Copts, have hardly a mound or a vestige
by which to identify their site. Yet some of these were
cities of large population, and of great wealth, at the time
when Egypt numbered eight millions, and monopolized the
commerce of the East, Some of them were capitals of the
general divisions under which the country was then arranged,
and were the residences of chief officers of government
Even Alexandria, founded by the great Macedonian conquer-
or of Egypt, and in the time of the Ptolemies, the centre
of commerce and of learning for the world, presents but
few memorials of its former grandeur — and one of these is
the solitary column that commemorates a Eoman conqueror.
Thus cities and empires fade away. Greece borrowed from
Egypt. Rome rifled Greece, and then rifled Egypt also.
Napoleon rifled both Egypt and Eome.
By the way, Napoleon was the merest imitator. At Paris,
there is an obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, and in the