G. Körtge in Dissert. philolog. halenses (1900), vol. xiv.; and, above all,
A. Mace, Essai sur Suitone (1900), with an exhaustive bibliography.
There are English translations by Philemon Holland (reprinted in the Tudor Translations, 1900), and by Thomson and Forester (in
Bohn's Classical Library).
SUEZ, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea and southern terminus of the Suez Canal (q.v.), situated at the head of the Gulf of Suez in 29° 58′ 37″ N., 32° 31′ 18″ E. It is 80 m. E. by S. of Cairo in a direct line but 148 m. by rail, and is built on the north-west point of the gulf. Pop. (1907), 18,347. From the heights to the north, where there is a khedival chalet, there is a superb view to the south with the Jebel Ataka on the right, Mt Sinai on the left and the waters of the gulf between. Suez is supplied with water by the fresh-water canal, which starts from the Nile at Cairo and is terminated at Suez by a lock which, north of the town, joins it to the gulf. Before the opening of this canal in 1863 water had to be brought from “the Wells of Moses,” a small oasis 3 m. distant on the east side of the gulf. About 2 m. south of the town are the harbours and quays constructed on the western side of the Suez Canal at the point where the canal enters the gulf. The harbours are connected with the town by an embankment and railway built across a shallow, dry at low water save for a narrow channel. On one of the quays is a statue to Thomas Waghorn, the organizer of the “overland route” to India. The ground on which the port is built has all been reclaimed from the sea. The accommodation provided includes a dry dock 410 ft. long, 100 ft. broad and nearly 36 ft. deep. There are separate basins for warships and merchant ships, and in the road stead at the mouth of the canal is ample room for shipping. Suez is a quarantine station for pilgrims from Mecca; otherwise its importance is due almost entirely to the ships using the canal.
In the 7th century a town called Kolzum stood, on a site adjacent to that of Suez, at the southern end of the canal which then joined the Red Sea to the Nile. Kolzum retained some of the trade of Egypt with Arabia and countries farther east long after the canal was closed, but by the 13th century it was in ruins and Suez itself, which had supplanted it, was also, according to an Arab historian, in decay. On the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in the 16th century Suez became a naval as well as a trading station, and here fleets were equipped which for a time disputed the mastery of the Indian Ocean with the Portuguese. According to Niebuhr, in the 18th century a fleet of nearly twenty vessels sailed yearly from Suez to Jidda, the port of Mecca and the place of correspondence with India. When the French occupied Suez in 1798 it was a place of little importance, and the conflicts which followed its occupation in 1800 by an English fleet laid the greater part in ruins. The overland mail route from England to India by way of Suez was opened in 1837. The regular Peninsular & Oriental steamer service began a few years later, and in 1857 a railway was opened from Cairo through the desert. This line is now abandoned in favour of the railway which follows the canal from Suez to Ismailia, and then ascends the Wadi Tumilat to Zagazig, whence branches diverge to Cairo and Alexandria.
SUEZ CANAL. Before the construction of the Suez Canal there was no direct water communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, but at various eras such communication existed by way of the Nile. Trade between Egypt and countries to the east was originally overland to ports south of the Gulf of Suez; the proximity of the roadstead at the head of that gulf to Memphis and the Delta nevertheless marked it as the natural outlet for the Red Sea commerce of Lower Egypt. The fertile Wadi Tumilat extending east of the Nile valley almost to the head of the gulf (which in ancient times reached north to the Bitter Lakes) afforded an easy road between the Nile and the Red Sea, while the digging of a navigable canal connecting the river and the gulf gave the northern route advantages not possessed by the desert routes farther south, e.g. that between Coptos and Kosseir. Aristotle, Strabo and Pliny attribute to the legendary Sesostris (q.v.) the distinction of being the first of the pharaohs to build a canal joining the Nile and the Red Sea. From an inscription on the temple at Karnak it would appear that such a canal existed in the time of Seti I. (1380 B.C.). This canal diverged from the Nile near Bubastis and was carried along the Wadi Tumilat to Heroopolis, near Pithom, a port at the head of the Heroopolite Gulf (the Bitter Lakes of to-day). The channel of this canal is still traceable in parts of the Wadi Tumilat, and its direction was frequently followed by the engineers of the freshwater canal. Seti's canal appears to have fallen into decay or to have been too small for later requirements, for Pharaoh Necho (609 B.C.) began to build another canal; possibly his chief object was to deepen the channel between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea, then probably silting up. Necho's canal was not completed—according to Herodotus 120,000 men perished in the undertaking. Darius (520 B.C.) continued the work of Necho, rendering navigable the channel of the Heroopolite Gulf, which had become blocked. Up to this time there appears to have been no connexion between the waters of the Red Sea and those of the Bubastis-Heroopolis canal; vessels coming from the Mediterranean ascended the Pelusiac arm of the Nile to Bubastis and then sailed along the canal to Heroopolis, where their merchandise had to be transferred to the Red Sea ships. Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 B.C.) connected the canal with the waters of the sea, and at the spot where the junction was effected he built the town of Arsinoe. The dwindling of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile rendered this means of communication impossible by the time of Cleopatra (31 B.C.). Trajan (A.D. 98) is said to have repaired the canal, and, as the Pelusiac branch was no longer available for navigation, to have built a new canal between Bubastis and Babylon (Old Cairo), this new canal being known traditionally as Amnis Trajanus or Amnis Augustus. According to H. R. Hall, however, “It is very doubtful if any work of this kind, beyond repairs, was undertaken in the times of the Romans; and it is more probable that the new canal was the Work of ‛Amr” (the Arab conqueror of Egypt in the 7th century). The canal was certainly in use in the early years of the Moslem rule in Egypt; it is said to have been closed c. A.D. 770 by order of Abū Ja‛far (Mansur), the second Abbasid caliph and founder of Bagdad, who wished to prevent supplies from reaching his enemies in Arabia by this means. ‛Amr's canal (of which the Khalig which passed through Cairo and was closed in 1897 is said to have formed part) had its terminus on the Red Sea south of the Heroopolite Gulf near the present town of Suez. In this neighbourhood was the ancient city of Clysma, to which in ‛Amr's time succeeded Kolzum, perhaps an Arabic corruption of Clysma. The exact situation of Clysma is unknown, but Kolzum occupied the site of Suez, the hills north of which are still called Kolzum. After the closing of the canal in the 8th century it does not appear for certain that it was ever restored, although it is asserted that in the year 1000 Sultan Hakim rendered it navigable. If so it must speedily have become choked up again. Parts of the canal continued to be filled during the Nile inundations until Mehemet Ali (A.D. 1811) ordered it to be closed; the closing, however, was not completely effected, for in 1861 the old canal from Bubastis still flowed as far as Kassassin. This part of the canal, after over 2500 years of service, was utilized by the French engineers in building the fresh-water canal from Cairo to Suez in 1861-1863. This canal follows the lines of that of ‛Amr (or Trajan).
Maritime Canal Projects.—Apart from water communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea by way of the Nile, the project of direct communication by a canal piercing the isthmus of Suez was entertained as early as the 8th century A.D. by Harūn al-Rashid, who is said to have abandoned the scheme, being persuaded that it would be dangerous to lay open the coast of Arabia to the Byzantine navy. After the discovery of the Cape route to India at the close of the 15th century, the Venetians, who had for centuries held the greater part of the trade of the East with Europe via Egypt and the Red Sea, began negotiations with the Egyptians for a canal across the isthmus, but the conquest of Egypt by the Turks put an end to these designs. In 1671 Leibnitz in his proposals to Louis XIV. of France regarding an expedition to Egypt recommended the making of a maritime canal, and the Sheikh al-Balad Ali Bey (c. 1770) wished to carry out the project. Bonaparte when in Egypt in 1798 ordered the
