to be
under the Persians): the other city seems to me to have its name from
Archander the son-in-law of Danaos, who was the son of Phthios, the son
of Achaios; for it is called the City of Archander. There might indeed
by another Archander, but in any case the name is not Egyptian.

*****

Hitherto my own observation and judgment and inquiry are the vouchers
for that which I have said; but from this point onwards I am about to
tell the history of Egypt according to that which I have heard, to which
will be added also something of that which I have myself seen.

Of Min, who first became king of Egypt, the priests said that on the
one hand he banked off the site of Memphis from the river: for the whole
stream of the river used to flow along by the sandy mountain-range on
the side of Libya, but Min formed by embankments that bend of the river
which lies to the South about a hundred furlongs above Memphis, and thus
he dried up the old stream and conducted the river so that it flowed in
the middle between the mountains: and even now this bend of the Nile is
by the Persians kept under very careful watch, that it may flow in the
channel to which it is confined, and the bank is repaired every year;
for if the river should break through and overflow in this direction,
Memphis would be in danger of being overwhelmed by flood. When this Min,
who first became king, had made into dry land the part which was dammed
off, on the one hand, I say, he founded in it that city which is now
called Memphis; for Memphis too is in the narrow part of Egypt;
and outside the city he dug round it on the North and West a lake
communicating with the river, for the side towards the East is barred by
the Nile itself. Then secondly he established in the city the temple of
Hephaistos a great work and most worthy of mention. After this man the
priests enumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings,
three hundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of men
eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and
the rest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who
reigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris.
Of her they said that desiring to take vengeance for her brother, whom
the Egyptians had slain when he was their king and then, after having
slain him, had given his kingdom to her,--desiring, I say, to take
vengeance for him, she destroyed by craft many of the Egyp