Note 247 — Chapter XII · EGYPT.

That the imperial frontier reached to Hiera Sycaminos, is evident for the second century from Ptolemaeus, v. 5, 74, for the time of Diocletian from the Itineraries, which carry the imperial roads thus far. In the Notitia dignitatum, a century later, the posts again do not reach beyond Syene, Philae, Elephantine. In the tract from Philae to Hiera Sycaminos, the Dodecaschoinos of Herodotus (ii. 29) temple-tribute appears to have been raised already in early times for the Isis of Philae always common to the Egyptians and Aethiopians; but Greek inscriptions from the Lagid period have not been found here, whereas numerous dated ones occur from the Roman period, the oldest from the time of Augustus (Pselchis, 2 A.D.; C. I. Gr. n. 5086), and of Tiberius (ib. 26 A.D., n. 5104, 33 A.D., n. 5101), the most recent from that of Philippus (Kardassi, 248 A.D., n. 5010). These do not prove absolutely that the place where the inscription was found belonged to the empire; but that of a land-measuring soldier of the year 33 (n. 5101), and that of a praesidium of the year 84 (Talmis, n. 5042 f.), as well as numerous others certainly presuppose it. Beyond the frontier indicated no similar stone has ever been found; for the remarkable inscription of the regina (C. I. L. iii. 83), found at Messaurât, to the south of Shendy (16° 25′ lat., 5 leagues to the south of the ruins of Naga), the most southern of all known Latin inscriptions, now in the Berlin Museum, has been set up, not by a Roman subject, but presumably by an envoy of an African queen, who was returning from Rome, and who spoke Latin perhaps only in order to show that he had been in Rome.