al
was eclipsed by the arts and opulence of Alexandria; the palaces, and
at length the temples, were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition:
yet, in the age of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis
was still numbered among the greatest and most populous of the
provincial cities. [101] The banks of the Nile, in this place of the
breadth of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and
of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the small island of
Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habitations. [102] The eastern
extremity of the bridge was terminated by the town of Babylon and the
camp of a Roman legion, which protected the passage of the river and the
second capital of Egypt. This important fortress, which might fairly be
described as a part of Memphis or Misrah, was invested by the arms of
the lieutenant of Omar: a reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon
arrived in his camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls,
may be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies. Yet the siege
was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were encompassed
and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. [103] Their last assault
was bold and successful: they passed the ditch, which had been fortified
with iron spikes, applied their scaling ladders, entered the fortress
with the shout of "God is victorious!" and drove the remnant of the
Greeks to their boats and the Isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards
recommended to the conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and
the peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the tents
of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations; and the first
mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore companions of Mahomet.
[104] A new city arose in their camp, on the eastward bank of the Nile;
and the contiguous quarters of Babylon and Fostat are confounded in
their present decay by the appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of
which they form an extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of
victory, more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded
in the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. [105] It has gradually
receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be traced
by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to those of Saladin.
[106]

[Footnote 101: Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator, observes
of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of