example, take Antinoe, built by Hadrian in memory of his
favourite Antinous, on the banks of the Nile. It was a parallelogram
more than 3 miles round, which covered an area of 360 acres. Two main
streets, each colonnaded, crossed at right angles and cut it into four
parts. Of the other streets, nothing certain seems to be known. But
references to the town in papyri denote four quarters of it by various
letters, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and distinguish its house-blocks
by the term Plintheion with a numeral attached. Thus, a house is
described as lying 'in the letter Delta and the Plintheion 7'. Our
documents show that there were in Antinoe at least eleven of these
Plintheia.[112] It is fairly plain that they are rectangular
'insulae', of either Roman or Hellenic type, while the general fashion
of the town and of its monuments suggest a Greek rather than an
Italian city.

[112] _Exploration des ruines d' Antinoe_, by A.C. Gayet
(Annales du Musee Guimet, xxvi, Paris, 1897); _Grundzuege der
Papyruskunde,_ Wilcken, i, pp. 49, 50. Professor A.S. Hunt refers
me to the following papyri:--Reinach, 49. 11; Oxyrhynchus, 1110.
9-10 and note there; Brit. Mus. 1164 (c) 12. The numeration of
the divisions of the town by letters was borrowed from
Alexandria, where the five parts of the city were known as A, B,
C, D, E. For plans see the Napoleonic _Description d'Egypte_ iv
(Paris, 1817), plate 53, and E. Jomard, _Antiquites d'Egypte_
(1818), chap. xv.

[Illustration: FIG. 34. BOSTRA.
(After Baedeker.)]

Another instance may be found still further east, in the land beyond
Jordan, at the capital of the Hauran, Bosra, anciently Bostra. Little
has been achieved in the way of exploration of this site beyond
studies of the stately ruins of theatres, palaces, temples, triumphal
arches, aqueducts. Little can therefore be said as to the date of its
ground-plan. But it was rectangular in outline, or nearly so; and its
streets crossed at right angles and enclosed rectangular insulae.[113]
The place owes all its greatness to Rome. During the second century it
was the fortress of the Legio III Cyrenaica, which guarded this part
of the eastern Roman frontier. About A.D. 225 it became a 'colonia,'
and perhaps we should date from this the town-plan just described
(fig. 34).

[113] Baedeker, _Palestine and Syria_ (1906), p. 162.

This rectangular planning remained long in use in the Eastern Empire.