Psammetichus (Herod. ii. 153; Aelian, Hist. An. xi. 10; Clemens Alexand. Paedag. iii. 2; Strab. xvii. p. 807), stood opposite the southern portal of the great temple of Ptah or Hephaestos, and was celebrated for its colonnades, through which the processions of Apis were conducted. Here was also an oracle of Apis, in connection with one of Osiris and Isis (Plin. viii. 46; Pausan. vii. 22.) This temple was the cathedral of Aegypt, and not only established there a numerous, opulent, and learned college of priests, but also attracted thither innumerable worshippers, who combined commercial with religious purposes.

4. The temple of Serapis, in the western quarter of Memphis. This Serapis was of earlier date than the Alexandrian deity of similar name. To the Memphian Serapeium was attached a Nilo-meter, for gauging and recording the periodical overflows of the river. It was removed by Constantine as a relic of paganism, but replaced by his successor Julian. (Socrat. Hist. Eccles. i. 18; Sozomen, v. 2; comp. Diodor. i. 50, 57; Senec. Quaest. Nat. iv. 2; Plin. viii. 46.)

5. A temple of Phre, or the Sun, mentioned only in the Rosetta inscription (Letronne, Recueil des Inser. Grecques et Lat. de l'Egypte; Brugsch, Inscript. Rosettan.)

6. The temple of the Cabeiri (Herod. iii. 37), into which none but the high-priest might lawfully enter. The statues of the pigmy gods were burned by Cambyses, and the temple inutilated.

7. The temple of Ptah or Hephaestos, the elemental principle of fire, worshipped under the form of a Pygmy. This was the most ancient shrine in Memphis, being coeval with its foundation. (Diodor. i. 45; Herod. ii. 99, iii. 37; Strab. xvii. 807; Ammian. xvii. 4.) It was enlarged and beautified by several successive monarchs, apparently through a spirit of rivalry with the great buildings at Thebes. (1.) Moeris erected the great northern court (Herod. ii. 101; Diod. i. 51). (2.) Rameses the Great raised in this court six colossal figures of stone, portrait-statues of himself, his queen, and their four sons. (Herod. ii. 108-110; Strab. xvii. p. 807.) (3.) Rhampsinitus built the western court, and erected two colossal figures of summer and winter. (Herod. ii. 121; Diodor. i. 62; Wilkinson, M. and C. i. p. 121.) (4.) Asỹchis added the eastern court. (Herod. ii. 136.) It was, in the opinion of Herodotus, by far the noblest and most beautiful of the four quadrangles. (5.) Psammetichus, the Saite king, added the south court, in commemoration of his victory over the Dodecarchy (Polyaen. Stratag. vii. 3; Herod. ii. 153; Diodor. 67); and Amasis (Herod. ii. 176) erected or restored to its basis the colossal statue of Ptah, in front of the southern portico. From the priests of the Memphian temples, the Greeks derived their knowledge of Aegyptian annals, and the rudiments also of their philosophical systems. It was at Memphis that Herodotus made his longest sojourn, and gained most of his information respecting Lower Aegypt. Democritus also resided five years at Memphis, and won the favour of the priests by his addiction to astrological and hieroglyphical studies. (Diog. Laert. Democrit. ix. 34.) Memphis reckoned among its illustrious visitors, in early times, the legislator Solon, the historian Hecataeus, the philosophers Thales and Cleobulus of Lindus; and in a later age, Strabo the geographer, and Diodorus the Sicilian.

The village of Mitra-nich, half concealed in a

grove of palm-trees, about 10 miles S. of Gizeh, marks the site of the ancient Memphis. The successive conquerors of the land, indeed, have used its ruins as a stone-quarry, so that its exact situation has been a subject of dispute. Major Rennell (Geography of Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 121, seq.), however, brings incontestable evidence of the correspondence of Mitranich with Memphis. Its remains extend over many hundred acres of ground, which are covered with blocks of granite, broken obelisks, columns and colossal statues. The principal mound corresponds probably with the area of the great temple of Ptah.

There are several accounts of the appearance of Memphis at different eras. Strabo saw the Hephaesteium entire, although much of the city was then in ruins. In the twelfth century A. D. it was visited by the Arabian traveller Ab-dallatif, who was deeply impressed with the spectacle of grandeur and desolation. "Its ruins offer," he says, " to the spectator a union of things which confound him, and which the most eloquent man in the world would in vain attempt to describe." He seems to have seen at least one of the colossal statues of the group of Rameses in the northern court of the Hephaesteium. Among innumerable "idols," as he terms them, he "measured one which, without its pedestal, was more than 30 cubits long. This statue was formed of a single piece of red granite, and was covered with a red varnish." (Ab-dallatif, De Sacy's Translation, 4to. p. 184.) Sir William Hamilton (Aegyptiaca, 4to. p. 303) visited the spot, and says, that "high mounds enclose a square of 1800 yards from N. to S., and 400 from E. to W. The entrance in the centre of each side is still visible. The two principal entrances faced the desert and the river" (that is W. and E.). He entered by the latter, and found immediately "thirty or forty large blocks of very fine red granite, lying on the ground, evidently forming parts of some colossal statues, the chief ornaments of the temple."

The district in which these remains are found is still termed Memf by the Coptic population, and thus helps to confirm the identity of the village of Mitranich with the ancient capital of Aegypt. [W.B.D.]

MENAENUM or MENAE (Meval, Ptol., Steph. B.; Mévaivor, Diod.: Eth. Mevalos, Steph.; but coins have Mévaivos; Menaenus, Cic.; Menaeninus, Plin.: Minéo), an inland city of Sicily, about 18 miles W. of Leontini. It was a city of the Siculi, and not a Greek colony, but, according to Diodorus, was not an ancient settlement of that people, but first founded by their king Ducetius, in B. c. 459. (Diod. xi. 78.) It was situated at a distance of about 2 miles from the celebrated lake and sanctuary of the Palici [PALICORUM LACUS] (Steph. B. s. v.); and Ducetius appears, a few years afterwards, to have removed the inhabitants again from his newly built city, and to have founded another, in the immediate neighbourhood of the sacred lake, to which he gave the name of Palica (Diod. xi. 88, where the reading Mévas for Néas, suggested by Cluver, and adopted by Wesseling, is at least very probable, though it is difficult to understand how Diodorus could call it the native city of Ducetius, if it had, in fact, been only founded by him.) This new city, however, was destroyed soon after the death of Ducetius (Diod. xi. 90), and it is probable that the inhabitants settled again at Menaenum. The latter city, though it never attained to any great importance, continued to subsist down to a

late period. There is little doubt that it is the city meant by Diodorus (xiv. 78, where the editions have Zuéveov, a name certainly corrupt), which was reduced by Dionysius in B. C. 396, together with Morgantia and other cities of the Siculi. It is mentioned more than once by Cicero among the municipal towns of Sicily, and seems to have been a tolerably flourishing place, the inhabitants of which carried on agriculture to a considerable extent. (Cic. Verr. iii. 22, 43.) It is enumerated also by Silius Italicus among the cities of Sicily, and by Pliny among the stipendiary towns of that island, and its name is found also in Ptolemy. (Sil. Ital. xiv. 266; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 13.) This is the last notice of it that occurs; but there is no doubt that the modern town of Minéo retains the name, and probably the site, of Menaenum. It is situated on a lofty hill, forming part of a range which sweeps round from Palagonia to Caltagirone, and forms the boundary of a deep basin, in the centre of which is a small plain, with the volcanic lake now called Lago di Naftia, which is unquestionably the ancient Lacus Palicorum. No ruins are now extant at Minéo; but the coins of Menaenum, which are numerous, though only of copper, attest the consideration which it anciently enjoyed. [E. H. B.]

MENA'PIA (Meranía, Ptol. vi. 11. § 8), a small place in Bactriana in the immediate neighbourhood of Eucratidia. It is probably the same as that called MENAPILA by Ammianus (xxiii. 6).

[V.]

MENA'PII, a people of North Gallia. In Caesar's time (B. G. iv. 4) the Menapii were on both sides of the lower Rhine, where they had arable farms, buildings, and small towns. The Usipetes and and Tenctheri, who were Germans, being hard pressed by the Suevi, came to the Rhine, surprised and massacred the Menapii on the east bank, and then crossing over spent the winter on the west side, and lived at free cost among the Menapii. The history of these marauders is told elsewhere. [USIPETES.] On the west side of the Rhine the Eburones were the immediate neighbours of the Menapii (B. G. vi. 5), and they were between the Menapii and the Treviri. The Menapii were protected by continuous swamps and forests. On the south and on the coast the Menapii bordered on the Morini. Caesar does not state this distinctly; but he mentions the Menapii (B. G. ii. 4) among the Belgian confederates next to the Morini; and the Menapii were said to be able to raise 7000 fighting men. As the Veneti sought the aid of the Morini and Menapii in their war with Caesar, we must conclude that they had ships, or their aid would have been useless (B. G. iii. 9). Caesar describes all Gallia as reduced to obedience at the close of the summer of B. C. 56, except the Morini and Menapii (B. G. iii. 28), who were protected against the Roman general for this season by their forests and the bad weather. The next year (B. C. 55), immediately before sailing for Britannia,

Caesar sent two of his legati to invade the country of the Menapii and those Pagi of the Morini which had not made their submission (B. G. iv. 22). After his return from Britannia Caesar sent Labienus against the Morini with the legions which had been brought back from Britannia. The summer had been dry, and as the marshes did not protect the Morini, as in the year before, most of them were compelled to yield. The troops which had been sent against the Menapii under the two legati ravaged the lands, destroyed the corn, and burnt the houses; but the people fled to the thickets of their forests, and saved themselves from their cruel enemy. (B. G. iv. 38.)

In B. C. 53 Caesar himself entered the country of the Menapii with five legions unincumbered with baggage. The Menapii were the only Galli who had never sent ambassadors to Caesar about peace, and they were allies of Ambiorix, king of the Eburones, Caesar's enemy. Trusting to the natural protection of their country, the Menapii did not combine their forces, but fled to the forests and marshes, carrying their property with them. Caesar entered their country with his army in three divisions, after having with great rapidity made his bridges over the rivers, but he does not mention any names. The buildings and villages were burnt, and a great number of cattle and men were captured. The Menapii prayed for peace, gave hostages, and were told that their hostages would be put to death, if they allowed Ambiorix to come within their borders. With this threat Caesar quitted the country that he had ravaged, leaving Comm the Atrebat, one of his slavish Gallic tools, with a body of cavalry to keep watch over the Menapii. (B. G. vi. 5, 6.)

It appears from Caesar's narrative that this people had farms, arable land, and cattle; and probably ships. They were not savages, but a people with some civility. Caesar's narrative also leads us to infer that the Menapii on the coast bordered on the Morini, as Strabo (iv. pp. 194, 199) says. Pliny (iv. 17) also makes the Menapii and Morini conterminous on the coast, but he makes the Scaldis (Schelde) the northern limit of the Menapii; and he places the Toxandri north of the Schelde. D'Anville (Notice, fc., Nervii) attempts to show, against the authority of the ancient writers, that the Nervii extended to the coast, and consequently were between the Morini and the Menapii. But it is here assumed as proved that the Morini on the coast bordered on the Menapii, who in Caesar's time at least extended along the coast from the northern boundary of the Morini to the territory of the BATAVI. [BATAVORUM INSULA.]

Walckenaer proves, as he supposes, that the river Aas, from its source to its outlet, was the boundary between the Morini and the Menapii. The Aas is the dull stream which flows by St. Omer, and is made navigable to Gravelines. Accordingly he makes the hill of Cassel, which is east of the Aas, to be the Castellum Menapiorum of the Table. This question is examined under CASTELLUM MORINORUM. The boundary on the coast between the Morini and Menapii is unknown, but it may, perhaps, have been as far north as Dunkerque. As the Eburones about Tongern and Spa were the neighbours of the Menapii of Caesar on the east, we obtain a limit of the Menapii in that direction. On the north their boundary was the Rhine; and on the south the Nervii. Under Augustus some German peoples, Ubii, Sicambri [GUGERNI], and others,

to signify the estimated width of the northern inlet separating the island from the main; and this estimate is probably much exaggerated. The mode of fishing with baskets is still practised in the Jubah islands, and along the coast. The formation of the coast of E. Africa in these latitudes-where the hills or downs upon the coast are all formed of a coral conglomerate, comprising fragments of madrepore, shell, and sand-renders it likely that the island which was close to the main sixteen or seventeen centuries ago, should now be united to it. Granting this theory of gradual transformation of the coast-line, the Menuthias of the "Periplus" may be supposed to have stood in what is now the rich garden-land of Shamba, where the rivers, carrying down mud to mingle with the marine deposit of coral drift, covered the choked-up estuary with a rich soil. (Cooley, Ptolemy and the Nile, London, 1854, pp. 5668.) [E. B. J.]

MERCU'RII PROM. ('Epμаía ăкрa, Ptol. iv. 3. §7; Pomp. Mela, i. 7. § 2; Plin. v. 3), the most northerly point of the coast of Africa, to the E. of the gulf of Carthage, now Cape Bon, or the Rás Addâr of the natives. [E. B. J.] MERGABLUM, a town of Hispania Baetica, on the road from Gades to Malaca, now Beger de la Miel. (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscr. xxx. p. 111.)

MERINUM. [GARGANUS.]

MERMESSUS (Μερμησσός or Μυρμισσός), 2 town in Troas or Mysia, belonging to the territory of Lampsacus, was celebrated in antiquity as the native place of a sibyl (Steph. B. s. v.; Paus. x. 12. §2; Lactant. i. 6, 12, where it is called Marmessus; Suid. s. v.); but its exact site is unknown. [L. S.] MEROBRICA. [MIROBRIGA.]

ME'ROE (Mepón, Herod. ii. 29; Diod. i. 23, seq.; Strab. xviii. p. 821; Plin. ii. 73. s. 78, v. 9. s. 10: Steph. B. s. v.: Eth. Mepoaios, Mepovoios). The kingdom of Meroe lay between the modern hamlet of Khartoum, where the Astapus joins the true Nile and the influx of the Astaboras into their united streams, lat. 17° 40' N., long. 34° E. Although described as an island by the ancient - geographers, it was properly an irregular space, like Mesopotamia, included between two or more confluent rivers. According to Diodorus (i. 23) the region of Meroe was 375 miles in length, and 125 in breadth; but Strabo (xviii. p. 821) regards these numbers as referring to its circumference and diameter respectively. On its eastern side it was bounded by the Abyssinian highlands; on the western by the Libyan sands-the desert of Bahiouda. Its extreme southern extremity was, according to a survey made in the reign of Nero, 873 miles distant from Syene. (Plin. vi. 29. s. 33.) Eratosthenes and Artemidorus, indeed, reduced this distance to 625 and 600 miles. (Mannert, Geog. d. Alten, x. p. 183.) Within these limits Meroe was a region of singular opulence, both as respects its mineral wealth and its cereal and leguminous productions. It possessed, on its eastern frontier, mines of gold, iron, copper, and salt: its woods of date-palm, almond-trees, and ilex yielded abundant supplies of both fruit and timber for export and home consumption; its meadows supported large herds of cattle, or produced double harvests of millet (dhourra); and its forests and swamps abounded with wild beasts and game, which the natives caught and salted for food. The banks of the Nile are so high in this region, that Meroe derives no benefit from the inundation, and, as rain falls scantily in the north, even in the wet

season (Strab. xv. p. 690), the lands remote from the rivers must always have been nearly desert. But the waste bore little proportion to the fertile lands in a tract so intersected with streams; the art of irrigation was extensively practised; and in the south, where the hills rise towards Abyssinia, the rains are sufficient to maintain a considerable degree of fertility. The valley of the Astaboras (Tacazzé) is lower and warmer than the rest of Meroe.

Partly from its natural richness, and partly from its situation between Aethiopia and the Red Sea,-the regions which produced spice, and those which yielded gold-dust, ivory, and precious stones,-Meroe was from very early times the seat of an active and diversified commerce. It was one of the capital centres of the caravan trade from Libya Interior, from the havens on the Red Sea, and from Aegypt and Aethiopia. It was, in fact, the receptacle and terminus of the Libyan traffic from Carthage, on the one side, and from Adule and Berenice on the other. The ruins of its cities, so far as they have been explored, attest its commercial prosperity.

The site of the city of Meroe was placed by Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. xvii. p. 786) 700 stadia, or nearly 90 miles, south of the junction of the Nile with the Astaboras, lat. 16° 44'; and such a position agrees with Philo's statement (ii. p. 77) that the sun was vertical there 45 days before the summer solstice. (Comp. Plin. vi. 30.) The pyramids scattered over the plains of this mesopotamian region indicate the existence of numerous cities besides the capital. The ruins which have been discovered are, however, those of either temples or public monuments, for the cities themselves, being built of palm-branches and bricks dried in the sun, speedily crumbled away in a latitude to which the tropical rains partially extend. (Ritter, Africa, p. 542.) The remains of Meroe itself all lie between 16° and 17° lat. N., and are not far from the Nile. The most southerly of them are found at Naga-gebel-ardan. Here have been discovered the ruins of four temples, built in the Aegyptian style, but of late date. The largest of them was dedicated to the ram-headed deity Ammon. The principal portico of this temple is detached from the main building,- an unusual practice in Aegyptian architecture, and is approached through an avenue of sphinxes, 7 feet high, and also bearing the ram's head. The sculptures, like those of Aegypt, represent historical events,- Ammon receiving the homage of a queen, or a king holding his captives by the hair, and preparing to strike off their heads with an axe. At Woad Naja, about a mile from the Astapus, are the remains of a sandstone temple, 89 feet in length, bearing on the capital of its columns the figures and emblems of Ptah, Athor, and Typhon. These ruins are amidst mounds of brick, which betoken the former presence of an extensive city. Again, 16 or 17 miles west of the Astapus, and among the hollows of the sandstone hills, surrounded by the desert, are the ruins of ElMesaourat. Eight temples, connected with one another by galleries or colonnades, and divided into courts and cloisters, are here found. The style of architecture is that of the era of the Ptolemies.

On the eastern bank, however, and about 2 miles from the river, are found groups of pyramids, which mark the site of a necropolis and the neighbourhood of a city: they are 80 in number, and of various dimensions; the base of the largest being 63 feet square, of the smallest less than 12 feet. The