herodotus

called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in thewater keeps its course straight. These boats they have in greatnumbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden.97. When the Nile comes over the land, the cities alone are seenrising above the water, resembling more nearly than anything else theislands in the Egean sea; for the rest of Egypt becomes a sea and thecities alone rise above water. Accordingly, whenever this happens,they pass by water not now by the channels of the river but over themidst of the plain: for example, as one sails up from Naucratis toMemphis the passage is then close by the pyramids, whereas the usualpassage is not the same even here,[82] but goes by the point of theDelta and the city of Kercasoros; while if you sail over the plain toNaucratis from the sea and from Canobos, you will go by Anthylla andthe city called after Archander. 98. Of these Anthylla is a city ofnote and is especially assigned to the wife of him who reigns overEgypt, to supply her with sandals, (this is the case since the timewhen Egypt came to be under the Persians): the other city seems to meto have its name from Archander the son-in-law of Danaos, who was theson of Phthios, the son of Achaios; for it is called the City ofArchander. There might indeed be another Archander, but in any casethe name is not Egyptian.*****99. Hitherto my own observation and judgment and inquiry are thevouchers for that which I have said; but from this point onwards I amabout to tell the history of Egypt according to that which I heard, towhich will be added also something of that which I have myself seen.Of Min, who first became king of Egypt, the priests said that on theone hand he banked off the site of Memphis from the river: for thewhole stream of the river used to flow along by the sandy mountainrangeon the side of Libya, but Min formed by embankments that bend ofthe river which lies to the South about a hundred furlongs aboveMemphis, and thus he dried up the old stream and conducted the riverso that it flowed in the middle between the mountains: and even nowthis bend of the Nile is by the Persians kept under very carefulwatch, that it may flow in the channel to which it is confined,[83]and the bank is repaired every year; for if the river should breakthrough and overflow in this direction, Memphis would be in danger ofbeing overwhelmed by flood. When this Min, who first became king, hadmade into dry land the part which was dammed off, on the one hand, Isay, he founded in it that city which is now called Memphis; forMemphis too is in the narrow part of Egypt;[84] and outside the cityhe dug round it on the North and West a lake communicating with the