Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/468

446 THE DECLINE AND FALL signed himself to the decision of chance, or, in his opinion, of providence. At the head of only four thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched away from his station of Gaza, when he was overtaken by the messenger of Omar. '•' If you are still in Syria/' said the ambiguous mandate, " retreat without delay ; but if, at the receipt of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers of Egypt, advance with confidence, and depend on the succour of God and of your brethren." The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence, of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of coui'ts ; and he continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched on Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the seal, perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and situation of the place, and declared his ready obedience to the commands of the caliph. [Farama] After a siegc of thirty days, he took possession of Farmah or Pelusium ; and that key of Egypt, as it has been justly named, unlocked the entrance of the country, as far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the neighbourhood of the modern Cairo. The cities On the westcm side of the Nile, at a small distance to the BiS5fio^"nd ^^st of the Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Cairo Delta, Memphis, one hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference, displayed the magnificence of ancient kings. Under the reign of the Ptolemies and Caesars, the seat of government was re- moved to the sea-coast ; the ancient capital was eclipsed by the arts and opulence of Alexandria ; the palaces, and at length the temples, were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition : yet in the age of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis, was still numbered among the greatest and most populous of the provincial cities. ^^^ The banks of the Nile, in this place of the breadth of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the [ar-Roda] Small island of Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habi- tations.^'-^ The eastern extremity of the bridge was terminated by the town of Babylon and the camp of a Roman legion, which protected the passage of the river and the second capital of iii'Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator, observes of Heliopolis, i-iirl /ler ovv eo-Ti Trave'prjjuo? 17 ttoAi; (Geograph. 1. xvii. p. 1158 [i, § 27]), but of Memphis, he declares, ttoAi? &' ca-n. fi.€ya.-q re Ka evar5po<r Sevrepa fifr' 'Wi^ai'Speiav (p. I161 [H. § 32]) ; he notices, however, the mixture of inhabitants and the ruin of the palaces, in the proper Egypt, Amniianus enumerates Memphis among the four cities, maximis urbibus quibus provincia nitet (xxii. 16), and the name of Memphis appears with distinction in the Roman Itinerary and Episcopal lists. 120 These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946 feet) and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the Danish traveller and the Nubian geographer (p. 98).