rom
the watch-tower called of Perseus to the fish-curing houses of Pelusion,
a distance of forty _schoines_, and counting it to extend inland as far
as the city of Kercasoros, where the Nile divides and runs to Pelusion
and Canobos, while as for the rest of Egypt, they assign it partly to
Libya and partly to Arabia,--if, I say, we should follow this account,
we should thereby declare that in former times the Egyptians had no land
to live in; for, as we have seen, their Delta at any rate is alluvial,
and has appeared (so to speak) lately, as the Egyptians themselves say
and as my opinion is. If then at the first there was no land for them
to live in, why did they waste their labour to prove that they had come
into being before all other men? They needed not to have made trial of
the children to see what language they would first utter. However I am
not of the opinion that the Egyptians came into being at the same time
as that which is called by the Ionians the Delta, but that they existed
always ever since the human race came into being, and that as their land
advanced forwards, many of them were left in their first abodes and many
came down gradually to the lower parts. At least it is certain that in
old times Thebes had the name of Egypt, and of this the circumference
measures six thousand one hundred and twenty furlongs.

If then we judge aright of these matters, the opinion of the Ionians
about Egypt is not sound: but if the judgment of the Ionians is right, I
declare that neither the Hellenes nor the Ionians themselves know how
to reckon since they say that the whole earth is made up of three
divisions, Europe, Asia, and Libya: for they ought to count in addition
to these the Delta of Egypt, since it belongs neither to Asia nor to
Libya; for at least it cannot be the river Nile by this reckoning which
divides Asia from Libya, but the Nile is cleft at the point of this
Delta so as to flow round it, and the result is that this land would
come between Asia and Libya.

We dismiss then our opinion of the Ionians, and express a judgment
of our own on this matter also, that Egypt is all that land which is
inhabited by Egyptians, just as Kilikia is that which is inhabited by
Kilikians and Assyria that which is inhabited by Assyrians, and we
know of no boundary properly speaking between Asia and Libya except
the borders of Egypt. If however we shall adopt the opinion which is
commonly held by the Hellenes, we shall suppose