Road station

Melcati

Melcati is probably Menelais, a town named after Menelaus, brother of Ptolemy the First, which the Roman register of routes calls Chereu. It mattered for traffic: here the canal to Alexandria left the Canopic branch of the Nile, grain had to be shifted from the big Nile ships into smaller boats, and a sizeable body of soldiers guarded the spot. On the map the road from Memphis follows the Canopic branch and ends just beyond, at a range of mountains marking the border with Libya, instead of running on to Alexandria.

Find Melcati on the interactive Roman map →

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