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13.
This, too, that the priests told me about Egypt, is a strong proof: when Moeris was king, if the river rose as much as thirteen feet, it watered all of Egypt below Memphis.1 Moeris had not been dead nine hundred years when I heard this from the priests. But now, if the river does not rise at least twenty-six or twenty-five feet, the land is not flooded.
[2]
And, in my opinion, the Egyptians who inhabit the lands lower down the river than lake Moeris, and especially what is called the Delta—if this land of theirs rises in the same proportion and broadens likewise in extent, and the Nile no longer floods it—will forever after be in the same straits as they themselves once said the Greeks would be;
[3]
for, learning that all the Greek land is watered by rain, but not by river water like theirs, they said that one day the Greeks would be let down by what they counted on, and miserably starve: meaning that, if heaven send no rain for the Greeks and afflict them with drought, the Greeks will be overtaken by famine, for there is no other source of water for them except Zeus alone.
1 Supposing this statement to be true, Moeris must have been king much more than 900 years before Hdt.: 900 years being much too short a period for a rise of eight cubits in the height of the Nile valley.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (35 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.83
- Cross-references to this page
(9):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.pos=2.1
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MOERIS LACUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), NILUS
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter II
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- Smith's Bio, Moeris
- Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia, N.
- Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia, C.
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(25):
- LSJ, ἄρδω
- LSJ, ἀναβαίνω
- LSJ, ἀποδίδωμι
- LSJ, ἀπο-στροφή
- LSJ, αἱρέω
- LSJ, αὔξ-ησις
- LSJ, αὐχμός
- LSJ, δέλτα
- LSJ, διαχράομαι
- LSJ, ἑκκαίδεκα
- LSJ, ἔνερθε
- LSJ, ἐλα?́χιστ-ος
- LSJ, ἐνα^κόσι-οι
- LSJ, ἐπίλοιπος
- LSJ, ἐπιδίδωμι
- LSJ, ἐθέλω
- LSJ, εἰ
- LSJ, κατα-κλύζω
- LSJ, ὅπως
- LSJ, πειν-άω
- LSJ, θεός
- LSJ, τεκμήρι-ον
- LSJ, ὕω
- LSJ, ὕψος
- LSJ, ὑπερβαίνω
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