in Ancient Geography, seven days journey to the west of Thebes, a district of the Nomos Oasis; called an island, because surrounded with sand, like an island in the sea, (Ulpian;) yet abounding in all the necessaries of life, though encompassed with vast sandy deserts, (Strabo;) which some suppose to be a third Oasis, in the Regio Ammoniacus; and the site of the temple of Ammon answers to the above description, as appears from the writers on Alexander's expedition thither. It was a place of relegation or banishment for real or pretended criminals, from which there was no escape. (Ulpian).