White, Joseph; White, Joseph [Hrsg.]: 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.

103

“ therefore eflablifhed a garrifon in this part, with
“ orders to repel all who offered to approach ; at the
“ fame time giving them for a fettlement [the Village]
“ called Rhacotis,* which now indeed is become a part
“ of the city of the Alexandrians, fituated above the
“ Docks : though it was then a [folitary] Village. The
“ parts round about this Village they granted to Herdf-
“ men; who likewife formed a body ftrong enough to
“ check the inroads of any invaders.”

The point at iffue is briefly this. Does Rhacotis in
this paflage of Strabo mean the fame as Rhacotis in the
following paflage of Tacitus? “ Templum pro magnitu-
“ dine urbis exftruCtum, loco cui nomen Rhacotis : fue-
“ rat illic Sacellum Serapidi atque Ifidi antiquitus facra-
“ turn h.”

Bonamy, a learned member of the French Academy1,
and D’Anville, who implicitly follows him, feem both
to confider the Rhacotis of Strabo as a clue, which leads
direCtly and certainly to the Serapeum-Rhacotis. As
I cannot, however, poflibly concur in this opinion, I
fhall without ceremony ftate my objections to it.

I readily allow that the village Rhacotis, which ex-

h Tacitus, tom. iii. p. 287. edit. Brot.

5 Memoires de l’Academie, tom. ix. p. 426.