Kitap 22
15.2
The Egyptian nation is the most ancient of all, except that in antiquity it vies with the Scythians.Cf. Justinus, ii. 1, 5. It is bounded on the southThe account of Ammianus is very confused and inexact. by the Greater Syrtes, the promontories Phycus and Borion, by the GaramantesA nomadic people of Libya. and various other nations. Where it looks directly east it extends to Elephantine and Meroë, cities of the Aethiopians, to the CatadupiAt the cataracts of the Nile. and the Red Sea, and to the Scenitic Arabs, whom we now call the Sercacens.Cf. xiv. 4, 1 ff. On the north it forms part of the boundless tract from which Asia and the provinces of Syria take their beginning. On the west its boundary is the Issiac Sea, which some have called the Parthenian.See xiv. 8, 10, note, and Index I., vol. i.
15.3
Now it will be in place to touch briefly on the most helpful of all rivers, the Nile, which Homer calls the Aegyptus,Cf. Odyss. iv. 477. On the Nile and its floods, see Hdt. ii. 19, 20; Diod. Sic. i. 36; Strabo, xvii. 1, 5; Pliny, N.H. v. 51 ff. and then to describe other remarkable things to be found in those lands.
15.4
The origin of the sources of the Nile (so at least I am wont to think) will be unknown also to future ages, as it has been up to the present. But, since the poets’ tales and dissenting geographers give varying accounts of this unknown subject, I shall succinctly set forth such of their views as in my opinion approach the truth.
