uxit fossam latitudine pedum centum, altitudine XL, in longitudinem
XXXVII mill. D passuum usque ad Fontes amaros." It is needless to remind
the reader that Diodorus and Strabo, who lived before Pliny, and had
both resided long in Egypt, had seen the canal finished, and described
the lock by which it communicated with the Red Sea. It appears, indeed,
that the passage, as it stands, has arisen from some inadvertence of
Pliny, or perhaps from some blunder of his copyists; for he contradicts
his statement, that the canal of Ptolemy terminated at the bitter lakes,
in a subsequent passage, in which he mentions that Philadelphus
constructed the branch which reached Arsinoee, and was called the river
of Ptolemy.--"Eae viae omnes Arsinoeen ducunt, conditam sororis nomine in
sinu Charandra, a Ptolemaeo Philadelpho, qui primus Troglodyticen
excussit, et amnem qui Arsinoeen praefluit, Ptolemaeum appellavit."[1]

[1] Plinii Natur. Hist. lib. vi. Sec. 33.

The other passage is contained in Plutarch's life of Antony; and to a
casual reader, who forgets that the canal could only have been
navigable during the season of the inundation, in consequence of the
high level of the waters of the Red Sea, a difficulty in explaining the
passage will immediately occur, and an inference will be drawn against
the existence of the canal at the time. Monsieur Letronne, with his
usual critical sagacity, has, however, pointed out the combination of
facts which render the anecdote in Plutarch a confirmation of the
ordinary employment of the canal, rather than an argument against its
existence at the time.[1] Cleopatra, when alarmed at the result of the
war between Antony and Augustus, had sent her son Caesario, the reputed
child of Julius Cesar, with a considerable amount of treasure, through
Ethiopia into India.[2] "When Antony returned to Alexandria after the
battle of Actium, he found Cleopatra engaged in a very stupendous and
bold enterprise. She was endeavouring to transport her fleet over the
isthmus between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, which, in the
narrowest part, is three hundred stades, and by this means, with her
fleet in the Arabian gulf, and with her treasures, to escape from
slavery and war."[3] Letronne has pointed out, that the battle of
Actium having been fought on the 2nd of September, B.C. 31, it is
evident from the subsequent events, that Antony could not have rejoined
Cleopatra in Egypt before the month of February, or perhap