Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "CANOPUS Ancient city EGYPT".
Canopus (Kanopos) or Canobus. An important city on the coast of Lower Egypt, twelve geographical miles east of Alexandria. It was near the westernmost mouth of the Nile, which was hence called the Canopic mouth. It was celebrated for a great temple of Serapis, for its commerce, its luxury, and its debauchery. Here was prepared the dye known as henna, which the women of the East have always used to stain their finger-tips. Before the founding of Alexandria it was a most important place, but after B.C. 300, its greatness declined.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Canobus or Canopus (Quint. Inst. Or. i. 5. § 13; Kanopos, Steph. B. p. 355 s. v.; Herod. ii. 15, 97, 113; Strab. xvi. p. 666, xvii. p. 800 seq.; Scylax, pp. 44, 51; Mel. ii. 7. § 6; Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. v. 13; Aeschyl. Supp. 312; Caes. B. Alex. 25; Virg. Georg. iv. 287; Juv. Sat. vi. 84, xv. 46; Senec. Epist. 51; Tac. Ann. ii. 60; Amm. Marc. xxii. 41, &c.: Eth. Kanobites; Adj. Kanobikos, fem. Kanobis), a town of Egypt, situated in lat. 31° N. upon the same tongue of land with Alexandreia, and about 15 miles (120 stadia) from that city. It stood upon the mouth of the Canobic branch of the Nile, and adjacent to the Canobic canal (Kanobike diorux Strab. xvii. p. 800). In the Pharaonic times it was the capital of the nome Menelaites, and, previous to the foundation of Alexandreia, was the principal harbour of the Delta. At Canobus the ancient geographers (Scylax; Conon. Narrat. 8; Plin. v. 34; Schol. in Diet. Cretens. vi. 4) placed the true boundary between the continents of Africa and Asia. According to Greek legends, the city of Canobus derived its name from the pilot of Menelaus, who died and was buried there on the return of the Achaeans from Troy. But it more probably owed its appellation to the god Canobus - a pitcher with a human head - who was worshipped there with peculiar pomp. (Comp. Nicand. Theriac. 312.) At Canobus was a temple of Zeus-Canobus, whom Greeks and Egyptians held in equal reverence, and a much frequented shrine and oracle of Serapis. (Plut. Is. et Osir. 27.) As the resort of mariners and foreigners, and as the seat of a hybrid Copto-Hellenic population, Canobus was notorious for the number of its religious festivals and the general dissoluteness of its morals. Here was prepared the scarlet dye - the Hennah, with which, in all ages, the women of the East have been wont to colour the nails of their feet and fingers. (Herod. ii. 113; Plin. xii. 51.) The decline of Canopus began with the rise of Alexandreia, and was completed by the introduction of Christianity into Egypt. Traces of its ruins are found about 3 miles from Aboukir. (Denon, Voyage en Egypte, p. 42; Champollion, l' Egypte, vol. ii. p. 258.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Canopus. A titular see of Egypt. Its old Egyptian name was Pikuat; the Greeks
called it Kanobos, or Kanopos, after a commander of a Greek fleet buried there.
The city stood in the seventh Nomos (Menelaites, later Canopites), not far from
the Canopic mouth. It had many martyrs in the persecution of Diocletian, among
others St. Athanasia with her three daughters, and St. Cyrus and John. There was
here a monastery called Metanoia, founded by monks from Tabennisi, where many
patriarchs of Alexandria took shelter during the religious quarrels of the fifth
century. Two miles east of Canopus was the famous heathen temple of Manouthin,
afterwards destroyed by monks, and a church on the same spot dedicated to the
Evangelists. St. Cyril of Alexandria solemnly transported the relics of the holy
martyrs Cyrus and John into the church, which became an important place of pilgrimage.
It was here that St. Sophronius of Jerusalem was healed of an ophthalmy that had
been declared incurable by the physicians (610-619), whereupon he wrote the panegyric
of the two saints with a collection of seventy miracles worked in their sanctuary
(Migne, P.G., LXXXVII, 3379-676)
Canopus formed, with Menelaus and Schedia, a see subject to Alexandria
in Aegyptus Prima; it is usually called Schedia in the "Notitiae episcopatuum".
Two titulars are mentioned by Lequien (II, 415), one in 325, the other in 362.
The modern Arabic name is Aboukir, "Father Cyrus", in honour of the first of the
two celebrated martyrs. It is to-day a village with 1000 inhabitants, at the end
of a little peninsula north-east of Alexandria. It has a trade in quails, which
are caught in nets hung along the shore. Off Aboukir, 1 August, 1798, the French
fleet was destroyed within the roads by Nelson; 25 July, 1799. Bonaparte destroyed
there a Turkish army 18,000 strong; and on 8 March, 1801, the French garrison
of 1800 men was defeated by 20,000 English and Turks commanded by Abercromby.
S. Vailhe, ed.
Transcribed by: Gerald M. Knight
This text is cited Oct 2005 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
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