Book 17
1.3
The country was at first divided into nomes.The Nile valley was parcelled out into a number of cantons, varying in size and number. Each of these cantons was called a nome (νομὸς) by the Greeks, praefectura oppidorum by the Romans. Each had its civil governor, the Nomarch, who collected the crown revenues, and presided in the local capital and chief court of justice. Each nome too had its separate priesthood, its temple, chief and inferior towns, its magistrates, registration and peculiar creed, ceremonies and customs; and each was apparently independent of every other nome. At certain seasons, delegates from the various cantons met in the palace of the Labyrinth, for consultation on public affairs (b. xvii. c. i. § 37). According to Diodorus, the nomes date from Sesostris. But they did not originate from that monarch, but emanated probably from the distinctions of animal worship; and the extent of the local worship probably determined the boundary of the nome. Thus in the nome of Thebais, where the ram-headed deity was worshipped, the sheep was sacred, the goat was eaten and sacrificed: in that of Mendes, where the goat was worshipped, the sheep was a victim and an article of food. Again, in the nome of Ombos, divine honours were paid to the crocodile: in that of Tentyra, it was hunted and abominated: and between Ombos and Tentyra there existed an internecine feud. Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra: summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus, cum solos credat habendos Esse deos, quos ipse colit. Juv. xv. 35. The extent and number of the nomes cannot be ascertained. They probably varied with the political state of Egypt. See Smith, art. Aegyptus. The Thebaïs contained ten, the Delta ten, and the intermediate tract sixteen. But according to some writers, all the nomes together amounted to the number of chambers in the Labyrinth. Now these were less than thirty [six]. The nomes were again divided into other sections. The greater number of the nomes were distributed into toparchies, and these again into other sections ; the smallest portions were the arourae.
