Horbit () is a town in Sharqia Governorate of Egypt.
It's an ancient town referred to in a stele of the 7th century BC,Eugène Revillout, "Acte de fondation d'une chapelle à Hor-Merti dans la ville de Pharbaetus", Revue Égyptologique, 2:1:32 (1881) full text and described by Herodotus,II, 166. Strabo,XVII, i, 20. and Pliny.Natural History V, 9, 11.
It served as the capital of the nome of Pharbaethites/Lapt in Lower Egypt.Karl Baedeker, Egypt: handbook for travellers : part first, lower Egypt..., 1885 (2nd edition), p. 33. full text
Etymology The town's Arabic name comes from Coptic Pharbait (), which in turn is derived from . It was also known as Sheten ().
In Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt it was known as Pharbaithos () or Pharbaethus. This name is reproduced under the form Karbeuthos in George of Cyprus."Descriptio orbis romani", ed. Gelzer, 706.
Ecclesiastical history The original diocese was a suffragan of Leontopolis, in Augustamnica Secunda, Egypt.
There is a record of Bishop Arbetion at Nicæa in 325,Gelzer, "Patrum nicænorum nomina", LX. and Bishop Theodorus in 1086,Renaudot, "Historia patriarcharum alexandrinorum", 458. but it is possible that the latter was bishop of another Pharbætus situated further to the west, and which according to Vansleb was equally a Coptic see. John of NikiuChronicle, CV. relates that under the Emperor Phocas (602–10) the clerics of the province killed the Greek governor Theophilus.
It remains a Roman Catholic titular see under the name Pharbaetus.
See also List of ancient Egyptian towns and cities
References
Sources
Attribution The entry cites: Heinrich Gelzer, Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis romani, 114–16; ROUGÉ, Géographie ancienne de la Basse Egypte (Paris, 1891), 66–74; Émile Amélineau, La Géographie de l'Egypte à l' époque copte (Paris, 1893), 330.