Note 163 — Chapter XIX · BACK THROUGH NUBIA.

“According to Ptolemy, Metachompso should be opposite Pselcis, where there are extensive brick ruins. If so, Metachompso and Contra Pselcis must be the same town.”—“Topography of Thebes,” etc.; Sir G. Wilkinson. Ed. 1835, p. 488. M. Vivien de St. Martin is, however, of opinion that the Island of Derar, near Maharrakeh, is the true Metachompso. See “Le Nord de l’Afrique,” section vi, p. 161. Be this as it may, we at all events know of one great siege that this fortress sustained, and of one great battle fought beneath its walls. “The Ethiopians,” says Strabo, “having taking advantage of the withdrawal of part of the Roman forces, surprised and took Syene, Elephantine and Philæ, enslaved the inhabitants, and threw down the statues of Cæsar. But Petronius, marching with less than ten thousand infantry and eight hundred horse against an army of thirty thousand men, compelled them to retreat to Pselcis. He then sent deputies to demand restitution of what they had taken and the reason which had induced them to begin the war. On their alleging that they had been ill treated by the monarchs, he answered that these were not the sovereigns of the country—but Cæsar. When they desired three days for consideration and did nothing which they were bound to do, Petronius attacked and compelled them to fight. They soon fled, being badly commanded and badly armed, for they carried large shields made of raw hides, and hatchets for offensive weapons. Part of the insurgents were driven to the city, others fled into the uninhabited country, and such as ventured upon the passage of the river escaped to a neighboring island, where there were not many crocodiles, on account of the current.... Petronius then attacked Pselcis, and took it.”—Strabo’s “Geography,” Bohn’s translation, 1857, vol. iii, pp. 267-268. This island to which the insurgents fled may have been the large sand island which here still occupies the middle of the river and obstructs the approach to Dakkeh. Or they may have fled to the Island of Derar, seven miles higher up. Strabo does not give the name of the island.