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19
In the interior above the Sebennytic and Phatnitic mouths is Xoïs, both an island and a city in the Sebennytic Nome. There are also Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, where Pan note is worshipped, and of animals a goat. Here, according to Pindar, goats have intercourse with women.
Near Mendes are Diospolis, and the lakes about it, and Leontopolis; then further on, the city Busiris, note in the Busirite Nome, and Cynospolis.
Eratosthenes says, That to repel strangers is a practice
common to all barbarians, but that this charge against the
Egyptians is derived from fabulous stories related of (one)
Busiris and his people in the Busirite Nome, as some persons in later times were disposed to charge the inhabitants of
this place with inhospitality, although in truth there was
neither king nor tyrant of the name of Busiris: that besides
there was a common saying,
'The way to Egypt is long and vexatious,' note
which originated in the want of harbours, and in the
state of the harbour at Pharos, which was not of free access, but watched and guarded by herdsmen, who were robbers, and attacked those who attempted to sail into it. The
Carthaginians drown [he says] any strangers who sail past, on
their voyage to Sardinia or to the Pillars. Hence much of
what is related of the parts towards the west is discredited.
The Persians also were treacherous guides, and conducted the
ambassadors along circuitous and difficult ways.
20
Contiguous to the Busirite Nome are the Athribite Nome and the city Athribis; next the Prosopite Nome, in which latter is Aphroditopolis (the city of Venus). Above the Mendesian and the Tanitic mouths are a large lake, and the Mendesian and Leontopolite Nomes, and a city of Aphrodite (or Venus) and the Pharbetite Nome. Then follows the Tanitic, which some call the Saitic mouth, and the Tanite Nome, note and in it Tanis a large city. 21
Between the Tanitic and the Pelusiac mouths are lakes
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].