Elegant Art Humour: ANCIENT THEBES. Part2

Such was ancient Thebes—a city so populous that, according to ancient writers, in times of war 10,000 soldiers issued from each of her hundred gates, forming an army of 1,000,000 men. That these magnificent ruins are the remains of “the city of an hundred gates,”—”the earliest capital in the world,” cannot be doubted. According to the measurements made by the French, their distance from the sea on the north, is 680,000 metres (850 miles), and from Elephantine on the south, 180,000 metres (225 miles)—corresponding exactly with the 6,800 and 1,800 stadia of Herodotus. The circumference of the ruins is about 15,000 metres (17½ miles), agreeing with the 140 stadia given by Diodorus as the circumference of Thebes. The origin of the name of this celebrated city, as well as the date of its foundation, is unknown. According to Champollion, who deciphered many of the inscriptions on these ruins, the Egyptian name was Thbaki-antepi-Amoun (City of the Most High), of which the No-Ammon of the Hebrews and Diospolis of the Greeks are mere translations; Thebæ, of the Greeks is also perhaps derived from the Egyptian Thbaki (the city).