rds
the author of the Hieroglyphica as identical with the Egyptian
philosopher of the same name who, according to Suidas, lived under
Theodosius, and to whom Stephanus of Byzantium refers, writing so early
as at the end of the fifth century. But the lexicographer Suidas
enumerates the works of Horapollo, the philologer and commentator on
Greek poetry, without naming the Hieroglyphica, which is the only
treatise alluded to by Stephanus. Besides, all the other ancient writers
who mention Horapollo at all leave us quite free to suppose that there
may have been two sages of the same name--as does C. Leemans, who is most
intimately versed in the Hieroglyphica--and the second certainly cannot
have lived earlier than the VIIth century, since an accurate knowledge of
hieroglyphic writing must have been lost far more completely in his time
than we can suppose possible in the IVth century. It must be remembered
that we still possess well-executed hieroglyphic inscriptions dating from
the time of Decius, 250 years after Christ. Thus the Egyptian commentator
on Greek poetry could hardly have needed a translator, whereas the
Hieroglyphica seems to have been first rendered into Greek by Philippus.
The combination by which the author called in Egyptian Horus (the son of
Isis) is supposed to have been born in Philae, where the cultus of the
Egyptian heathen was longest practised, and where some familiarity with
hieroglyphics must have been preserved to a late date, takes into due
account the real state of affairs at the period I have selected for my
story.

GEORG EBERS.
October 1st, 1886.

CHAPTER I.

Half a lustrum had elapsed since Egypt had become subject to the youthful
power of the Arabs, which had risen with such unexampled vigor and
rapidity. It had fallen an easy prey, cheaply bought, into the hands of a
small, well-captained troop of Moslem warriors; and the fair province,
which so lately had been a jewel of the Byzantine Empire and the most
faithful foster-mother to Christianity, now owned the sway of the Khalif
Omar and saw the Crescent raised by the side of the Cross.

It was long since a hotter season had afflicted the land; and the Nile,
whose rising had been watched for on the Night of Dropping--the 17th of
June--with the usual festive preparations, had cheated the hopes of the
Egyptians, and instead of rising had shrunk narrower and still narrower
in its bed.--It was in this time of