White, Joseph; White, Joseph [Editor]: Aegyptiaca, or observations on certain antiquities of Egypt (Band 1): The history of Pompey's pillar elucidated (Oxford, 1801)

part I. SITE OF THE SERAPEUM.

I O I

five or thirty yards6. Now, I think, thefe meafurements
approximate fo nearly to thofe of the Roman writer, as
fully to juftify my hypothefis. Hence alfo we are en-
abled to reconcile the apparently different accounts of
Ruffinus and Sozomen ; of whom, the one fays,
that the Temple was built on an artificial eminencef;
and the other feems to reprefent it as eredfed on a
natural hills. The fadt mofi: probably was, that the
artificial height was fo well connedted with the natural,
as not to be diftinguifhable by vulgar fpedtators.

I fhall now quote a paffage from Strabo, which has
been fuppofed to be connedled with the Site of the
Serapeum, and has given birth to that erroneous pofition
of the Temple, which we find in the plans of Bonamy
and D’Anville.

'O yivv ffiyag ?j/uly,v sfpog tJ KtyS/Siofi kclX&s rJ re yfi-

“ rum cubitorum, cum fexta cubiti parte ; fitum vero in Colle, cujus alti-
“ tudo effet viginti trium cubitorum, cum drmidia cubiti parte.” Abdoll.
edit. 4'°. p. 115.

' “ [La Colonne eft] elev6e fur un tertre naturel de pierre folide efcarpe
“ de toutes parts, et de la hauteur de vingt cinq a trente coudees.” Mail-
let, tom. i. p. 48.
f See note (c).

* S —£7ti yswAoipa xtiptvof. See p. 36.