Pelusium

According to the 1st-century historian Josephus, Pelusium was situated on one of the mouths of the Nile.^[11]

History

The following are the most notable events in the history of Pelusium :

• Hephaestos towards Sethos, his priest. In the night, while the Assyrians slept, a host of field mice gnawed theor bow-strings and shield-straps, who fled, and many of them were slain in their flight by the Egyptians. Herodotus saw in the temple of Hephaestos at Memphis, a record of this victory of the Egyptians: a statue of Sethos holding a mouse in his hand. The story probably rests on the fact that in the symbolism of Egypt, the mouse implied destruction. (Compare Horapolis Hieroglyph. i. 50; Claudius Aelianus
  , De Natura Animalium vi. 41.)
• The decisive
  Bast
  ) before them. As Cambyses advanced at once to Memphis, Pelusium probably surrendered itself immediately after the battle. (Polyaen. Stratag. vii. 9.)
• In 373 BC,
  Athenian armament, appeared before Pelusium, but retired without attacking it, Nectanebo I, king of Egypt, having added to its former defences by laying the neighboring lands under water, and blocking up the navigable channels of the Nile by embankments. (Diodorus Siculus xv. 42; Cornelius Nepos, Iphicrates
  c. 5.)
• Pelusium was attacked and taken by the Persians, c. 340 BC. The city contained at the time a garrison of 5,000 Greek mercenaries under the command of Philophron. At first, owing to the rashness of the Thebans in the Persian service, the defenders had the advantage. But the Egyptian king Nectanebo II hastily venturing on a pitched battle, his troops were cut to pieces, and Pelusium surrendered to the Theban general Lacrates on honorable conditions. (Diodorus Siculus xvi. 43.)
• In 333 BC, Pelusium opened its gates to Alexander the Great, who placed a garrison in it under the command of one of those officers entitled Companions of the King. (Arrian, Exp. Alex. iii. 1, seq.; Quintus Curtius iv. 33.)
• In 173 BC,
  Ptolemies
  .
• In 55 BC, again belonging to Egypt,
  Ptolemy Auletes, in whose behalf the Romans invaded Egypt at this time, wished to put the Pelusians to the sword; but his intention was thwarted by Mark Anthony. (Plut.
  Anton. c. 3; Valerius Max. ix. 1.)
• In 48 BC, Pompey was murdered near Pelusium.
• In 47 BC,
  Caesar who was being besieged in Alexandria
  .
• In 30 BC, more than half a year after his victory at Actium, Augustus appeared before Pelusium, and was admitted by its governor Seleucus within its walls.
• In 501 AD, Pelusium suffered greatly from the Persian invasion of Egypt (
  Eutychius
  , Annal.).
• In 541 AD, the Plague of Justinian was first reported and began to spread across the Byzantine Empire.
• In 639, Pelusium offered a protracted, though, in the end, an ineffectual resistance to the arms of Amr ibn al-As. As on former occasions, the surrender of the key of the Delta was nearly equivalent to the subjugation of Egypt itself.
• In 749, Pelusium was raided by the Bashmuric Copts.
• In ca. 870, Pelusium is mentioned as a major port in the trade network of the Radhanite merchants.
• In 1118, Baldwin I of Jerusalem razed the city to the ground, but died shortly afterwards of food poisoning after eating a plateful of the local fish.

The sultans who ruled Pelusium following

Archaeological research

The first excavations in Pelusium started in 1910 and were conducted by French Egyptologist Jean Cledat, who also drew the plan of the whole site. In the 1980s, work was carried out by Egyptian researchers directed by Mohammed Abd El-Maksoud as well as French linguist and historian Jean-Yves Carrez-Maratray. The Egyptian expedition uncovered Roman baths with mosaics, dated to the 3rd century. Due to the planned construction of the Peace Canal, which was to cross the site, salvage excavations were commenced in 1991. Each of the several institutions from all over the world which took part in the project was assigned its sector in the area of Pelusium and its vicinity, i.e., the so-called Greater Pelusium. The Egyptian team explored the Roman theatre and the Byzantine basilica; the Swiss carried out a survey; the British worked in the southern part of the site, and the Canadian in the western.^[12] From 2003 to 2009, an expedition from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw conducted research in the so-called Great Theater from the 2nd/3rd century and residential buildings of a later date.^[2] The Polish-Egyptian team also carried out restoration and reconstruction works in the theater.^[13]

In 2019, besides the main streets of Pelusium city, a 2,500-square-metre Graeco-Roman building made of red brick and limestone was revealed by the Egyptian archeological mission. Interior design of the building contained the remnants of three 60 cm-thick circular benches. According to archaeologist Mostafa Waziri, the building was very likely used to hold meetings for the citizens′ representatives or headquarters for the Senate Council of Pelusium.^[14][15]

In 2022 archaeologists found the remains of a temple of Zeus-Kasios.^[16] Researchers knew about the temple, since in early 1900 Jean Cledat had found Greek inscriptions that showed the existence of the temple, but this was the first time that ruins of the temple were found.^[17]

Roman military roads

Of the six military roads formed or adopted by the Romans in Egypt, the following are mentioned in the Itinerarium of Antoninus as connected with Pelusium:

• From Memphis to Pelusium. This road joined the great road from
  Heliopolis, and that from Memphis to Pelusium, connected the latter city with the capital of Lower Egypt, Trajan's canal, and Arsinoe, near Suez, on the Sinus Heroopolites (modern Gulf of Suez
  ).
• From
  Raphia
  to Pelusium.

Pelusium is named (as "Sin, the strength of Egypt") in the Biblical Book of Ezekiel, chapter 30:15.

Pelusium became the seat of a Christian bishop at an early stage. Its bishop Dorotheus took part in the

• Joseph Sadoc Alemany y Conill, Dominican Order (O.P.) (1885.03.20 – 1888.04.14)
• Guido Corbelli,
  Order of Observant Friars Minor
  (O.F.M. Obs.) (1888.03.08 – 1896.06.22)
• Giovanni Nepomuceno Glavina (1896.12.03 – 1899.11)
• Alphonse-Martin Larue (1899.12.14 – 1903.05.01)
• Theodor Kohn (1904.06.10 – 1915.12.03)
• Titular Bishop John Francis Regis Canevin (1921.01.09 – 1927.03.22)
• Plácido Ángel Rey de Lemos,
  Friars Minor
  (O.F.M.) (1927.07.30 – 1941.02.12)
• José Ignacio López Umaña (1942.03.15 – 1943.11.13)
• Patrick Mary O'Donnell (1948.11.08 – 1965.04.10)

Melkite titular see

Since its twentieth century establishment as Metropolitan titular archbishopric, Pelusium of the (Greek) Melkites has had the following incumbents, all of this highest rank :

• Pierre Kamel Medawar, Society of Missionaries of Saint Paul (M.S.P.) (1943.03.13 – 1985.04.27)
• Isidore Battikha, Basilian Aleppian Order (B.A.) (992.08.25 – 2006.02.09)
• Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan of the Greek-Melkites
  (Egypt)

See also

• List of ancient Egyptian towns and cities

References

Sources and external links

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Donne, William Bodham (1857). "Pelusium". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 572–573.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Pelusium".

• "Pelusium: Gateway to Egypt". archaeology.org.
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pelusium" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• GCatholic - Latin titular see with incumbent bio links
• GCatholic - Melkite titular see with incumbent bio links