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The chief differences between the accounts of H. and of Strabo are:

(1) H. says there were twelve αὐλαί, Strabo (787, 811) implies there were more—one for each of thirty-six nomes; but he also seems to give the number as twenty-seven.

(2) H. says the ‘courts’ had ‘openings facing each other’ (§ 4), Strabo that they were ἐφ᾽ ἕνα στίχον, and that they opened on a long wall.

(3) H. says nothing distinct (but cf. § 7) of the absence of wood or of the monolithic roofs, Strabo nothing of the ‘underground chambers’ (§ 5).

It would be impossible to construct a building according to the description of either H. or Strabo; and it is obvious that a ‘labyrinth’ defies description, at any rate by a mere visitor led through part of it as was H. (§ 5). It is therefore needless to attempt to account for the contradictions, &c., by supposed later additions to the Labyrinth during the 450 years between the visits of the two travellers.

κατάστεγοι. The courts were ‘covered in’, not open as usual; H. conceives them as arranged six a side, along a corridor, from which, being no doubt higher, they were lighted. Stein compares the pillared hall at Karnak, where also the walls and pillars are covered with ‘figures carved on’ (τύπων ἐγγεγλυμμένων (§ 7); cf. 136. 1). H. is right that the main feature of the building was the great number and the equal size (speaking generally) of its chambers; there was not the usual great central court, for it was not dedicated to any one deity (cf. Petrie, u. s. p. 7).

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