The History of Egypt Under the Ptolemies

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Edward Moxon, 1838 - Egypt - 220 pages

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Page 200 - The barge she sat in like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold ; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that . The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggared all description...
Page 200 - Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings ; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the oflice.
Page 200 - So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings ; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her, and Antony, Enthron'd i...
Page 200 - Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were lovesick ; with them the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue,) O'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork Nature...
Page 95 - The trade down the Nile was larger than it had ever been before; the coasting trade on the Mediterranean was new ; the people were rich and happy ; justice was administered to the Egyptians according to their own laws, and to the Greeks of Alexandria according to the Macedonian laws; the navy commanded the whole of the eastern half of the Mediterranean ; the schools and library had risen to a great height upon the wise plans of Ptolemy Soter ; in every point of view Alexandria was the chief city...
Page 144 - In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.
Page 48 - It was under the government of Ptolemy that the wonders of Upper Egypt were first seen by any Greeks who had leisure, a love of knowledge, and enough of literature, to examine carefully and to describe what they saw. Loose and highly-coloured accounts of the wealth of Thebes had reached Greece even before the time of Homer, and again through Herodotus and other travellers in the Delta ; but nothing was certainly known of it till it was visited by Hecatseus of Abdera, who, among other works, wrote...
Page 174 - ... space in the middle of them. But the ruined temples still stand to call forth his wonder. They have seen the whole portion of time of which history keeps the reckoning roll before them ; they have seen kingdoms and nations rise and fall ; the Babylonians, the Jews, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They have seen the childhood of all that we call ancient ; and they still seem likely to stand, to tell their tale to those who will hereafter call us the ancients.
Page 116 - J^e"IE£f> banks of oars. The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at the handles that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship was to be rowed by four thousand rowers, its sails were to be shifted by four hundred sailors, and three thousand soldiers were to stand in ranks upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge in "which the king and court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was...

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