Now if we agree with the opinion of the Ionians, who say that only the Delta is Egypt , and that its seaboard reaches from the so-called Watchtower of Perseus forty schoeni to the Salters' at Pelusium , while inland it stretches as far as the city of Cercasorus, where the Nile divides and flows to Pelusium and Canobus , and that all the rest of Egypt is partly Libya and partly Arabia —if we follow this account, we can show that there was once no land for the Egyptians; for we have seen that (as the Egyptians themselves say, and as I myself judge) the Delta is alluvial land and but lately (so to speak) came into being. Then if there was once no land for them, it was an idle notion that they were the oldest nation on earth, and they need not have made that trial to see what language the children would first speak. I maintain, rather, that the Egyptians did not come into existence together with what the Ionians call the Delta, but have existed since the human race came into being; and as the land grew in extent, there were many of them who stayed behind, and many who spread down over it. Be that as it may, the Theban district, a land of seven hundred and sixty-five miles in circumference, was in the past called Egypt .