C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Why the Nile Overflows
By Athenæus of Naucratis (Second Century?)
From the ‘Deipnosophistæ’: Translation of Charles Duke Yonge
T
HALES the Milesian, one of the Seven Wise Men, says that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etesian winds; for that they blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; and accordingly, that the wind blowing in the opposite direction hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, dashing against the mouth of the river, and coming on with a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and in this manner the Nile becomes full to overflowing. But Anaxagoras, the natural philosopher, says that the fullness of the Nile arises from the snow melting; and so too says Euripides, and some others of the tragic poets. Anaxagoras says this is the sole origin of all that fullness; but Euripides goes further and describes the exact place where this melting of the snow takes place.
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