Letter of Aristeas

1917 printed page 47 / §§113–117

Printed page 47 Original marginal section labels beginning on this page: §113, §114, §115, §116, §117. The opening continues §112 from the preceding page. abundance of all sorts, and rich pasturage for them. And so they rightly recognized that the rural districts needed a dense population, and they constructed the city and the villages in correct proportions. A great mass of spices, precious stones, and gold is brought into the district by the Arabs. For the country is well adapted for commerce as well as for cultivation, and the city is rich in the arts and lacks none of the merchandise that is brought across the sea. It possesses havens well situated which supply its needs, that at Ascalon, and Joppa, and Gaza, as well as Ptolemais which was founded by the King,{1} and holds a central position compared with these places, not being far distant from any of them. The country enjoys everything in plenty, being well watered on every side and securely enclosed. Round it there flows the river called the Jordan which never runs dry. _The country_ originally comprised not less than sixty million acres (although subsequently the neighbouring peoples encroached upon{2} it), and six hundred thousand men{3} became possessors of lots of a hundred acres each. The river, like the Nile, rises about the time of harvest{4} and irrigates a large part of the land. Over against the district of the people of Ptolemais{5} it issues into another river and this flows out into the sea. Other brooks,{6} as they are called, flow down _into the plain_ and encompass the parts about Gaza and the TRANSLATOR’S NOTES (1917) — printed page 47 {1} _i. e._ Ptolemy Philadelphus. {2} The text is doubtful. According to another reading we might translate "(when) the neighbouring peoples retired" (_i. e._ were gradually driven back by the Israelites). {3} Cf. Exod. xii. 37, xxxix. 3, LXX; Numb. xi. 21. "A hundred-acre man" occurs frequently in the Petrie Papyri of the veterans of Ptolemy II, who received lots of land in the Fayyum. {4} Cf. Joshua iii. 15. {5} Text, "the country of the Ptolemaeans" (? Egypt). {6} Or "mountain-torrents."