ANDRO´POLIS
ANDRO´POLIS (
Ἀνδρῶν πόλις,
Ptol. 4.5.46; Hierocl. p. 724: Eth.
Ἀνδροπολίτης), the modern
Chabur, was the chief town of the Andropolite nome in the Delta.
It was seated on the left bank of the Nile, was the head-quarters of a legion (Not. Imp.), and a bishop's see. (Athanas.
Ep. ad Antioch. p. 776.) From its name, which is involved in some obscurity, it would seem that the peculiar worship of the city and nome of Andropolis was that of the Manes or Shades of the Dead. (Manetho, ap. Euseb. Chronicon,) Geographers have attempted, not very successfully, to identify Andropolis with the Archandropolis of Herodotus (
2.98), which, the historian adds, is not an Egyptian name, and with the Gynaecopolis of Strabo (p. 803). D'Anville supposes it to have been the same as the city Anthylla (
Ἄνθυλλα, Hdt. 2.97), the revenues of which were assigned to the Egyptian queens as sandal-money, or, as we term it, pin-money.
This custom, chancing to coincide with a Persian usage
[p. 1.136](Nepos,
Themist. 10), was continued by Cambyses and his successors.
[
W.B.D]
