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11.
Now in Arabia, not far from Egypt, there is a gulf extending inland from the sea called Red1 , whose length and width are such as I shall show:
[2]
in length, from its inner end out to the wide sea, it is a forty days' voyage for a ship rowed by oars; and in breadth, it is half a day's voyage at the widest. Every day the tides ebb and flow in it.
[3]
I believe that where Egypt is now, there was once another such gulf; this extended from the northern sea towards Aethiopia, and the other, the Arabian gulf of which I shall speak, extended from the south towards Syria; the ends of these gulfs penetrated into the country near each other, and but a little space of land separated them.
[4]
Now, if the Nile inclined to direct its current into this Arabian gulf, why should the latter not be silted up by it inside of twenty thousand years? In fact, I expect that it would be silted up inside of ten thousand years. Is it to be doubted, then, that in the ages before my birth a gulf even much greater than this should have been silted up by a river so great and so busy?
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (23 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(2):
- Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns, HYMN TO HERMES
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.27
- Cross-references to this page
(3):
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ARA´BICUS SINUS
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Particle ἄν
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Article
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(18):
- LSJ, ἄμπωτις
- LSJ, ἀναισιμ-όω
- LSJ, ἐκτρέπω
- LSJ, ἐθέλω
- LSJ, ἐργα^τ-ικός
- LSJ, ἐρυθρός
- LSJ, εἰσέχω
- LSJ, κόλπος
- LSJ, μυ^χός
- LSJ, νότ-ιος
- LSJ, παραλλ-άσσω
- LSJ, ποῦ
- LSJ, προα^ναισι^μόω
- LSJ, ῥα_χία
- LSJ, ῥεῖθρ-ον
- LSJ, συντετραίνω
- LSJ, τετραίνω
- LSJ, χόω
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