DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1035#0496
454 SARACENIC WALL. [Chap.VII.
Unfortunately, the observations of ancient Greek
writers on the obliquity of the ecliptic are not so
satisfactory as might be wished; nor are we enabled,
especially as La Grange's theory of the annual
change of obliquity being variable is allowed to be
correct, to ascertain the time when E'Sooan might
have been within the tropic;* a calculation or tra-
ditional fact, in which, no doubt, originated the
erroneous assertion of Strabo.
The wall projecting into the river, opposite the
south end of the modern town, is not, as has been
supposed, of Roman,f but of Arab construction,
and has apparently formed part of a bath. And in
one of the arches, on the north side, is a Greek
inscription, relating to the rise of the Nile, brought
from some other building.
The Saracenic wall, whose foundation dates at
the epoch of the Arab invasion by Amer, the lieute-
nant of the caliph Omer, still remains on the south
side of the old town, beyond which are the nu-
* The secular variation, according to one calculation, gives
4400 years; according to another, 3800; or, if Hipparchus was
correct, about 3150 years from the present time; but as the dimi-
nution has been always variable, all similar calculations must be
uncertain. The Egyptians and Chaldeans, having observed this
diminution of the obliquity, supposed the ecliptic had formerly
been perpendicular to the Equator; and it has been suggested
that the great age assigned to the world by these people was
founded on this hypothesis.
t It was thought by some to have been a bridge. Aurelius
Victor indeed mentions bridges thrown over the Nile by Probus,
but his authority is of little weight, though he nourished within
seventy years after the death of that emperor.
Unfortunately, the observations of ancient Greek
writers on the obliquity of the ecliptic are not so
satisfactory as might be wished; nor are we enabled,
especially as La Grange's theory of the annual
change of obliquity being variable is allowed to be
correct, to ascertain the time when E'Sooan might
have been within the tropic;* a calculation or tra-
ditional fact, in which, no doubt, originated the
erroneous assertion of Strabo.
The wall projecting into the river, opposite the
south end of the modern town, is not, as has been
supposed, of Roman,f but of Arab construction,
and has apparently formed part of a bath. And in
one of the arches, on the north side, is a Greek
inscription, relating to the rise of the Nile, brought
from some other building.
The Saracenic wall, whose foundation dates at
the epoch of the Arab invasion by Amer, the lieute-
nant of the caliph Omer, still remains on the south
side of the old town, beyond which are the nu-
* The secular variation, according to one calculation, gives
4400 years; according to another, 3800; or, if Hipparchus was
correct, about 3150 years from the present time; but as the dimi-
nution has been always variable, all similar calculations must be
uncertain. The Egyptians and Chaldeans, having observed this
diminution of the obliquity, supposed the ecliptic had formerly
been perpendicular to the Equator; and it has been suggested
that the great age assigned to the world by these people was
founded on this hypothesis.
t It was thought by some to have been a bridge. Aurelius
Victor indeed mentions bridges thrown over the Nile by Probus,
but his authority is of little weight, though he nourished within
seventy years after the death of that emperor.