Roger Bacon: Opus Majus (Greater Work) (1267)
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Taken from: Roger Bacon: Opus Majus
Since the Nile waters Egypt and Aethiopia, and separates in many ways their provinces, and is frequently mentioned in Scripture, and is a familiar topic in philosophy and in the histories, it is quite fitting that some account of it should be given. It rises in paradise, as Scripture states, but where it breaks forth into our inhabited world is reckoned differently by different authorities. It is, however, likely that it rises in Aethiopia on the shore at the beginning of the Red Sea, as Orosius (1) affirms in his book Ormesta Mundi (2) to the blessed Augustine (3), and Seneca (4) in the third book of his Natural Questions practically agrees. For he states that the emperor Nero sent two centurions to explore the source of the Nile, and when they came to the first king of the Aethiopians they were instructed and aided by him, in order that the other kings of the Aethiopians might grant them safe conduct. At length they came to shallow marshes filled with vegetation, the extent of which was unknown to the inhabitants; and they despaired of ascertaining it. For they could explore neither in a boat owing to the shallowness of the water, nor could the muddy ground support the weight of a man. The inhabitants therefore believed that the head of the Nile was in this place. Therefore Pliny's statement that the Nile rises at the confines of the west near Mount Atlas not far from the sea is not to be believed. For the double testimony is stronger here than the single one, and the experience of the emperor Nero is much to the point. …
(1) Orosius: see my webpage Orosius (417)
(2) Ormesta Mundi: literally the misery of the world.
(3) Augustine: Augustine of Hippo ( 354 – 430), was a theologian, philosopher, of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo.
(4) Seneca: (c. 4 BC – AD 65), was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and satirist.