Egypt, one of the most renowned cities of the ancient world. It was also called Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter, and was built, according to some, by Ophir, according to others by Baal. Its length, in Strabo's time, was 80 furlongs, or ten miles; but this was nothing in comparison with its ancient extent, before it was ruined by Cambyses, which, we are told, was no less than 40 stadia, or 52 miles and a half. The wealth of this city was so great, that, after it had been plundered by the Persians, what was found, on burning the remains of the pillage, amounted to above 300 talents of gold and 2300 of silver.

Mr Bruce visited the ruins of this celebrated city; but informs us that nothing now remains except four temples, and these neither so entire nor magnificent as some others are. a place called Dendera. Thebes has been celebrated by Homer for its hundred gates; but Mr Bruce informs us, that no vestiges of these are now remaining, neither can we discover the foundation of any wall it ever had; "and as for the horsemen and chariots it is said to have sent out, all the Thebaid town with wheat would not have maintained one half of them. Thebes, at least the ruins of the temples called Medinet Habu, are built in a long stretch of about a mile broad, most profusely chocked at the sandy foot of the mountains. The Horti Penfles, or hanging gardens, were surely formed upon the sides of these hills, then supplied with water with mechanical devices. The utmost is done to spare the plain, and with great reason; for all the space of ground this ancient city has had to maintain its myriads of horses and men, is a plain of three quarters of a mile broad between the town and the river, upon which plain the water rises to the height of four and five feet. All this pretended populousness of ancient Thebes I therefore believe to be fabulous."

Mr Bruce, after examining the ground on which Thebes is supposed to have stood, thinks that it had no walls, and that consequently Homer's glory of its having an hundred gates is misunderstood. The mountains of the Thebaid stand close behind the town, not in a ridge, but standing single, so that you can go round each of them. A hundred of these are said to be hollowed out for sepulchres and other purposes. These, he thinks, were the hundred gates of Homer; in proof of this they are still called by the natives, Beban el Meluk, "the ports or gates of the kings."

All that is said of Thebes by poets or historians after the days of Homer is meant of Diopolis, which was built by the Greeks long after Thebes was destroyed, as its name testifies; though Diodorus says it was built by Baaltes. It was on the east side of the Nile, whereas ancient Thebes was on the west, though both are considered as one city; and Strabo says, that the river runs through the middle of Thebes, by which he means between Old Thebes and Diopolis.