Histories

he would never put to death any Egyptian wrongdoer but sentenced all, according to the severity of their offenses, to raise embankments in their native towns. Thus the towns came to stand yet higher than before;

for after first being built on embankments made by the excavators of the canals in the reign of Sesostris, they were yet further raised in the reign of the Ethiopian.

Of the towns in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt that were raised, in my opinion, +Tall Bastah [31.516,30.566] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Bubastis is especially prominent, where there is also a temple of +Tall Bastah [31.516,30.566] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Bubastis, a building most worthy of note. Other temples are greater and more costly, but none more pleasing to the eye than this. +Tall Bastah [31.516,30.566] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Bubastis is, in the Greek language, Artemis.

Her temple is of this description: except for the entrance, it stands on an island; for two channels approach it from the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), AfricaNile without mixing with one another, running as far as the entryway of the temple, the one and the other flowing around it, each a hundred feet wide and shaded by trees.

The outer court is sixty feet high, adorned with notable figures ten feet high. The whole circumference of the city commands a view down into the temple in its midst; for the city's level has been raised, but that of the temple has been left as it was from the first, so that it can be seen into from above.

A stone wall, cut with figures, runs around it; within is a grove of very tall trees growing around a great shrine where the image of the goddess is; the temple is a square, each side measuring an eighth of a mile.