An Account of EgyptHerodotus, 480? BC-420? BC

Release date: 2006-02-26Source: Bebook

AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT

By Herodotus

Translated By G. C. Macaulay

NOTE

HERODOTUS was born at Halicarnassus,on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, in theearly part of the fifth century, B. C. Of hislife we know almost nothing, except thathe spent much of it traveling, to collect thematerial for his writings, and that he finallysettled down at Thurii, in southern Italy,where his great work was composed. Hedied in 424 B. C.

The subject of the history of Herodotus isthe struggle between the Greeks and thebarbarians, which he brings down to thebattle of Mycale in 479 B. C. The work, aswe have it, is divided into nine books,named after the nine Muses, but thisdivision is probably due to theAlexandrine grammarians. His informationhe gathered mainly from oral sources, ashe traveled through Asia Minor, down into

Egypt, round the Black Sea, and intovarious parts of Greece and theneighboring countries. The chronologicalnarrative halts from time to time to giveopportunity for descriptions of the country,the people, and their customs andprevious history; and the political accountis constantly varied by rare tales andwonders.

Among these descriptions of countries themost fascinating to the modern, as it was tothe ancient, reader is his account of themarvels of the land of Egypt. From thepriests at Memphis, Heliopolis, and theEgyptian Thebes he learned what hereports of the size of the country, thewonders of the Nile, the ceremonies oftheir religion, the sacredness of theiranimals. He tells also of the strange waysof the crocodile and of that marvelousbird, the Phoenix; of dress and funerals

and embalming; of the eating of lotos andpapyrus; of the pyramids and the greatlabyrinth; of their kings and queens andcourtesans.

Yet Herodotus is not a mere teller ofstrange tales. However credulous he mayappear to a modern judgment, he takescare to keep separate what he knows byhis own observation from what he hasmerely inferred and from what he hasbeen told. He is candid aboutacknowledging ignorance, and whenversions differ he gives both. Thus themodern scientific historian, with othermeans of corroboration, can sometimeslearn from Herodotus more than Herodotushimself knew.

There is abundant evidence, too, thatHerodotus had a philosophy of history. Theunity which marks his work is due not only

to the strong Greek national feelingrunning through it, the feeling that rises toa height in such passages as thedescriptions of the battles of Marathon,Thermopylae, and Salamis, but also to hisprofound belief in Fate and in Nemesis. Tohis belief in Fate is due the frequentquoting of oracles and their fulfilment, thefrequent references to things foreordainedby Providence. The working of Nemesis hefinds in the disasters that befall men andnations whose towering prosperityawakens the jealousy of the gods. The finaloverthrow of the Persians, which forms hismain theme, is only one speciallyconspicuous example of the operation ofthis force from which human life can neverfree itself.

But, above all, he is the father ofstory-tellers. "Herodotus is such simpleand delightful reading," says Jevons; "he is

so unaffected and entertaining, his storyflows so naturally and with such ease thatwe have a difficulty in bearing in mindthat, over and above the hard writingwhich goes to make easy reading there isa perpetual marvel in the work ofHerodotus. It is the first artistic work inprose that Greek literature produced. Thisprose work, which for pure literary meritno subsequent work has surpassed, thanwhich later generations, after using thepen for centuries, have produced no prosemore easy or more readable, this was thefirst of histories and of literary prose."

AN ACCOUNT OF EGYPT

BY HERODOTUS

BEING THE SECOND BOOK OF HISHISTORIES CALLED EUTERPE

When Cyrus had brought his life to an end,Cambyses received the royal power insuccession, being the son of Cyrus and ofCassandane the daughter of Pharnaspes,for whose death, which came about beforehis own, Cyrus had made great mourninghimself and also had proclaimed to allthose over whom he bore rule that theyshould make mourning for her: Cambyses,I say, being the son of this woman and ofCyrus, regarded the Ionians and Aioliansas slaves inherited from his father; and heproceeded to march an army againstEgypt, taking with him as helpers not onlyother nations of which he was ruler, butalso those of the Hellenes over whom hehad power besides.

Now the Egyptians, before the time whenPsammetichos became king over them,were wont to suppose that they had comeinto being first of all men; but since thetime when Psammetichos having becomeking desired to know what men had comeinto being first, they suppose that thePhrygians came into being beforethemselves, but they themselves before allother men. Now Psammetichos, when hewas not able by inquiry to find out anymeans of knowing who had come intobeing first of all men, contrived a device ofthe following kind:--Taking two newbornchildren belonging to persons of thecommon sort he gave them to a shepherdto bring up at the place where his flockswere, with a manner of bringing up suchas I shall say, charging him namely that noman should utter any word in theirpresence, and that they should be placed

by themselves in a room where nonemight come, and at the proper time heshould bring them she-goats, and when hehad satisfied them with milk he should dofor them whatever else was needed. Thesethings Psammetichos did and gave him thischarge wishing to hear what word thechildren would let break forth first afterthey had ceased from wailings withoutsense. And accordingly it came to pass; forafter a space of two years had gone by,during which the shepherd went on actingso, at length, when he opened the doorand entered, both children fell before himin entreaty and uttered the word _bekos_,stretching forth their hands. At first whenhe heard this the shepherd kept silence;but since this word was often repeated, ashe visited them constantly and attended tothem, at last he declared the matter to hismaster, and at his command he broughtthe children before his face. Then

Psammetichos having himself also heard it,began to inquire what nation of mennamed anything _bekos_, and inquiring hefound that the Phrygians had this name forbread. In this manner and guided by anindication such as this, the Egyptians werebrought to allow that the Phrygians were amore ancient people than themselves. Thatso it came to pass I heard from the priestsof that Hephaistos who dwells at Memphis;but the Hellenes relate, besides manyother idle tales, that Psammetichos cut outthe tongues of certain women and thencaused the children to live with thesewomen.

With regard then to the rearing of thechildren they related so much as I havesaid: and I heard also other things atMemphis when I had speech with thepriests of Hephaistos. Moreover I visitedboth Thebes and Heliopolis for this very

cause, namely because I wished to knowwhether the priests at these places wouldagree in their accounts with those atMemphis; for the men of Heliopolis aresaid to be the most learned in records ofthe Egyptians. Those of their narrationswhich I heard with regard to the gods I amnot earnest to relate in full, but I shall namethem only because I consider that all menare equally ignorant of these matters: andwhatever things of them I may record Ishall record only because I am compelledby the course of the story. But as to thosematters which concern men, the priestsagreed with one another in saying that theEgyptians were the first of all men on earthto find out the course of the year, havingdivided the seasons into twelve parts tomake up the whole; and this they said theyfound out from the stars: and they reckonto this extent more wisely than theHellenes, as it seems to me, inasmuch as

the Hellenes throw in an intercalatedmonth every other year, to make theseasons right, whereas the Egyptians,reckoning the twelve months at thirty dayseach, bring in also every year five daysbeyond number, and thus the circle oftheir season is completed and comesround to the same point whence it set out.They said moreover that the Egyptianswere the first who brought into useappellations for the twelve gods and theHellenes took up the use from them; andthat they were the first who assigned altarsand images and temples to the gods, andwho engraved figures on stones; and withregard to the greater number of thesethings they showed me by actual facts thatthey had happened so. They said also thatthe first man who became king of Egyptwas Min; and that in his time all Egyptexcept the district of Thebes was a swamp,and none of the regions were then above

water which now lie below the lake ofMoiris, to which lake it is a voyage ofseven days up the river from the sea: and Ithought that they said well about the land;for it is manifest in truth even to a personwho has not heard it beforehand but hasonly seen, at least if he haveunderstanding, that the Egypt to which theHellenes come in ships is a land which hasbeen won by the Egyptians as an addition,and that it is a gift of the river: moreoverthe regions which lie above this lake alsofor a distance of three days' sail, aboutwhich they did not go on to say anything ofthis kind, are nevertheless anotherinstance of the same thing: for the nature ofthe land of Egypt is as follows:--First whenyou are still approaching it in a ship andare distant a day's run from the land, if youlet down a sounding-line you will bring upmud and you will find yourself in elevenfathoms. This then so far shows that there is

a silting forward of the land. Thensecondly, as to Egypt itself, the extent of italong the sea is sixty _schoines_,according to our definition of Egypt asextending from the Gulf of Plinthine to theSerbonian lake, along which stretchesMount Casion; from this lake then the sixty_schoines_ are reckoned: for those of menwho are poor in land have their countrymeasured by fathoms, those who are lesspoor by furlongs, those who have muchland by parasangs, and those who haveland in very great abundance by_schoines_: now the parasang is equal tothirty furlongs, and each _schoine_, whichis an Egyptian measure, is equal to sixtyfurlongs. So there would be an extent ofthree thousand six hundred furlongs forthe coast-land of Egypt. From thence andas far as Heliopolis inland Egypt is broad,and the land is all flat and without springsof water and formed of mud: and the road

as one goes inland from the sea toHeliopolis is about the same in length asthat which leads from the altar of thetwelve gods at Athens to Pisa and thetemple of Olympian Zeus: reckoning upyou would find the difference very smallby which these roads fail of being equal inlength, not more indeed than fifteenfurlongs; for the road from Athens to Pisawants fifteen furlongs of being fifteenhundred, while the road to Heliopolis fromthe sea reaches that number completely.From Heliopolis however, as you go up,Egypt is narrow; for on the one side amountain-range belonging to Arabiastretches along by the side of it, going in adirection from the North towards themidday and the South Wind, tendingupwards without a break to that which iscalled the Erythraian Sea, in which rangeare the stone-quarries which were used incutting stone for the pyramids at Memphis.

On this side then the mountain ends whereI have said, and then takes a turn back;and where it is widest, as I was informed, itis a journey of two months across from Eastto West; and the borders of it which turntowards the East are said to producefrankincense. Such then is the nature ofthis mountain-range; and on the side ofEgypt towards Libya another rangeextends, rocky and enveloped in sand: inthis are the pyramids, and it runs in thesame direction as those parts of theArabian mountains which go towards themidday. So then, I say, from Heliopolis theland has no longer a great extent so far asit belongs to Egypt, and for about fourdays' sail up the river Egypt properly socalled is narrow: and the space betweenthe mountain-ranges which have beenmentioned is plain-land, but where it isnarrowest it did not seem to me to exceedtwo hundred furlongs from the Arabian

mountains to those which are called theLibyan. After this again Egypt is broad.Such is the nature of this land: and fromHeliopolis to Thebes is a voyage up theriver of nine days, and the distance of thejourney in furlongs is four thousand eighthundred and sixty, the number of_schoines_ being eighty-one. If thesemeasures of Egypt in furlongs be puttogether, the result is as follows:--I havealready before this shown that the distancealong the sea amounts to three thousandsix hundred furlongs, and I will nowdeclare what the distance is inland fromthe sea to Thebes, namely six thousandone hundred and twenty furlongs: andagain the distance from Thebes to the citycalled Elephantine is one thousand eighthundred furlongs.

Of this land then, concerning which I havespoken, it seemed to myself also,

according as the priests said, that thegreater part had been won as an additionby the Egyptians; for it was evident to methat the space between the aforesaidmountain-ranges, which lie above the cityof Memphis, once was a gulf of the sea,like the regions about Ilion and Teuthraniaand Ephesos and the plain of theMaiander, if it be permitted to comparesmall things with great; and small theseare in comparison, for of the rivers whichheaped up the soil in those regions none isworthy to be compared in volume with asingle one of the mouths of the Nile, whichhas five mouths. Moreover there are otherrivers also, not in size at all equal to theNile, which have performed great feats; ofwhich I can mention the names of several,and especially the Acheloos, whichflowing through Acarnania and so issuingout into the sea has already made half ofthe Echinades from islands into mainland.

Now there is in the land of Arabia, not farfrom Egypt, a gulf of the sea running infrom that which is called the ErythraianSea, very long and narrow, as I am aboutto tell. With respect to the length of thevoyage along it, one who set out from theinnermost point to sail out through it intothe open sea, would spend forty days uponthe voyage, using oars; and with respect tobreadth, where the gulf is broadest it ishalf a day's sail across: and there is in it anebb and flow of tide every day. Just suchanother gulf I suppose that Egypt was, andthat the one ran in towards Ethiopia fromthe Northern Sea, and the other, theArabian, of which I am about to speak,tended from the South towards Syria, thegulfs boring in so as almost to meet at theirextreme points, and passing by oneanother with but a small space leftbetween. If then the stream of the Nileshould turn aside into this Arabian gulf,

what would hinder that gulf from beingfilled up with silt as the river continued toflow, at all events within a period of twentythousand years? indeed for my part I am ofthe opinion that it would be filled up evenwithin ten thousand years. How, then, in allthe time that has elapsed before I cameinto being should not a gulf be filled upeven of much greater size than this by ariver so great and so active? As regardsEgypt then, I both believe those who saythat things are so, and for myself also I amstrongly of opinion that they are so;because I have observed that Egypt runsout into the sea further than the adjoiningland, and that shells are found upon themountains of it, and an efflorescence of saltforms upon the surface, so that even thepyramids are being eaten away by it, andmoreover that of all the mountains ofEgypt, the range which lies aboveMemphis is the only one which has sand:

besides which I notice that Egyptresembles neither the land of Arabia,which borders upon it, nor Libya, nor yetSyria (for they are Syrians who dwell in theparts of Arabia lying along the sea), butthat it has soil which is black and easilybreaks up, seeing that it is in truth mudand silt brought down from Ethiopia by theriver: but the soil of Libya, we know, isreddish in colour and rather sandy, whilethat of Arabia and Syria is somewhatclayey and rocky. The priests also gaveme a strong proof concerning this land asfollows, namely that in the reign of kingMoiris, whenever the river reached aheight of at least eight cubits it wateredEgypt below Memphis; and not yet ninehundred years had gone by since thedeath of Moiris, when I heard these thingsfrom the priests: now however, unless theriver rises to sixteen cubits, or fifteen atthe least, it does not go over the land. I

think too that those Egyptians who dwellbelow the lake of Moiris and especially inthat region which is called the Delta, if thatland continues to grow in height accordingto this proportion and to increase similarlyin extent, will suffer for all remaining time,from the Nile not overflowing their land,that same thing which they themselvessaid that the Hellenes would at some timesuffer: for hearing that the whole land ofthe Hellenes has rain and is not watered byrivers as theirs is, they said that theHellenes would at some time bedisappointed of a great hope and wouldsuffer the ills of famine. This saying meansthat if the god shall not send them rain, butshall allow drought to prevail for a longtime, the Hellenes will be destroyed byhunger; for they have in fact no othersupply of water to save them except fromZeus alone. This has been rightly said bythe Egyptians with reference to the

Hellenes: but now let me tell how mattersare with the Egyptians themselves in theirturn. If, in accordance with what I beforesaid, their land below Memphis (for this isthat which is increasing) shall continue toincrease in height according to the sameproportion as in the past time, assuredlythose Egyptians who dwell here will sufferfamine, if their land shall not have rain northe river be able to go over their fields. Itis certain however that now they gather infruit from the earth with less labour thanany other men and also with less than theother Egyptians; for they have no labour inbreaking up furrows with a plough nor inhoeing nor in any other of those labourswhich other men have about a crop; butwhen the river has come up of itself andwatered their fields and after watering hasleft them again, then each man sows hisown field and turns into it swine, and whenhe has trodden the seed into the ground

by means of the swine, after that he waitsfor the harvest, and when he has threshedthe corn by means of the swine, then hegathers it in.

If we desire to follow the opinions of theIonians as regards Egypt, who say that theDelta alone is Egypt, reckoning itssea-coast to be from the watch-towercalled of Perseus to the fish-curing housesof Pelusion, a distance of forty _schoines_,and counting it to extend inland as far asthe city of Kercasoros, where the Niledivides and runs to Pelusion and Canobos,while as for the rest of Egypt, they assign itpartly to Libya and partly to Arabia,--if, Isay, we should follow this account, weshould thereby declare that in formertimes the Egyptians had no land to live in;for, as we have seen, their Delta at any rateis alluvial, and has appeared (so to speak)lately, as the Egyptians themselves say

and as my opinion is. If then at the firstthere was no land for them to live in, whydid they waste their labour to prove thatthey had come into being before all othermen? They needed not to have made trialof the children to see what language theywould first utter. However I am not of theopinion that the Egyptians came into beingat the same time as that which is called bythe Ionians the Delta, but that they existedalways ever since the human race cameinto being, and that as their land advancedforwards, many of them were left in theirfirst abodes and many came downgradually to the lower parts. At least it iscertain that in old times Thebes had thename of Egypt, and of this thecircumference measures six thousand onehundred and twenty furlongs.

If then we judge aright of these matters,the opinion of the Ionians about Egypt is

not sound: but if the judgment of theIonians is right, I declare that neither theHellenes nor the Ionians themselves knowhow to reckon since they say that thewhole earth is made up of three divisions,Europe, Asia, and Libya: for they ought tocount in addition to these the Delta ofEgypt, since it belongs neither to Asia norto Libya; for at least it cannot be the riverNile by this reckoning which divides Asiafrom Libya, but the Nile is cleft at the pointof this Delta so as to flow round it, and theresult is that this land would comebetween Asia and Libya.

We dismiss then our opinion of the Ionians,and express a judgment of our own on thismatter also, that Egypt is all that landwhich is inhabited by Egyptians, just asKilikia is that which is inhabited byKilikians and Assyria that which isinhabited by Assyrians, and we know of no

boundary properly speaking between Asiaand Libya except the borders of Egypt. Ifhowever we shall adopt the opinion whichis commonly held by the Hellenes, weshall suppose that the whole of Egypt,beginning from the Cataract and the city ofElephantine, is divided into two parts andthat it thus partakes of both the names,since one side will thus belong to Libyaand the other to Asia; for the Nile from theCataract onwards flows to the sea cuttingEgypt through in the midst; and as far asthe city of Kercasoros the Nile flows in onesingle stream, but from this city onwards itis parted into three ways; and one, whichis called the Pelusian mouth, turns towardsthe East; the second of the ways goestowards the West, and this is called theCanobic mouth; but that one of the wayswhich is straight runs thus,--when the riverin its course downwards comes to the pointof the Delta, then it cuts the Delta through

the midst and so issues out to the sea. Inthis we have a portion of the water of theriver which is not the smallest nor the leastfamous, and it is called the Sebennyticmouth. There are also two other mouthswhich part off from the Sebennytic and goto the sea, and these are called, one theSaitic, the other the Mendesian mouth. TheBolbitinitic, and Bucolic mouths, on theother hand, are not natural but made bydigging. Moreover also the answer givenby the Oracle of Ammon bears witness insupport of my opinion that Egypt is of theextent which I declare it to be in myaccount; and of this answer I heard after Ihad formed my own opinion about Egypt.For those of the city of Marea and of Apis,dwelling in the parts of Egypt whichborder on Libya, being of opinionthemselves that they were Libyans and notEgyptians, and also being burdened bythe rules of religious service, because they

desired not to be debarred from the use ofcows' flesh, sent to Ammon saying thatthey had nought in common with theEgyptians, for they dwelt outside the Deltaand agreed with them in nothing; and theysaid they desired that it might be lawful forthem to eat everything without distinction.The god however did not permit them todo so, but said that that land was Egyptwhere the Nile came over and watered,and that those were Egyptians whodwelling below the city of Elephantinedrank of that river. Thus was it answered tothem by the Oracle about this: and theNile, when it is in flood, goes over not onlythe Delta but also of the land which iscalled Libyan and of that which is calledArabian sometimes as much as two days'journey on each side, and at times evenmore than this or at times less.

As regards the nature of the river, neither

from the priests nor yet from any otherman was I able to obtain any knowledge:and I was desirous especially to learn fromthem about these matters, namely why theNile comes down increasing in volumefrom the summer solstice onwards for ahundred days, and then, when it hasreached the number of these days, turnsand goes back, failing in its stream, so thatthrough the whole winter season itcontinues to be low, and until the summersolstice returns. Of none of these thingswas I able to receive any account from theEgyptians, when I inquired of them whatpower the Nile has whereby it is of anature opposite to that of all other rivers.And I made inquiry, desiring to know boththis which I say and also why, unlike allother rivers, it does not give rise to anybreezes blowing from it. However some ofthe Hellenes who desired to gaindistinction for cleverness have given an

account of this water in three differentways: two of these I do not think it worthwhile even to speak of except only toindicate their nature; of which the one saysthat the Etesian Winds are the cause thatmakes the river rise, by preventing theNile from flowing out into the sea. But oftenthe Etesian Winds fail and yet the Niledoes the same work as it is wont to do; andmoreover, if these were the cause, all theother rivers also which flow in a directionopposed to the Etesian Winds ought tohave been affected in the same way as theNile, and even more, in as much as theyare smaller and present to them a feeblerflow of streams: but there are many ofthese rivers in Syria and many also inLibya, and they are affected in no suchmanner as the Nile. The second way showsmore ignorance than that which has beenmentioned, and it is more marvellous totell; for it says that the river produces

these effects because it flows from theOcean, and that the Ocean flows round thewhole earth. The third of the ways is muchthe most specious, but nevertheless it isthe most mistaken of all: for indeed thisway has no more truth in it than the rest,alleging as it does that the Nile flows frommelting snow; whereas it flows out of Libyathrough the midst of the Ethiopians, and socomes out into Egypt. How then should itflow from snow, when it flows from thehottest parts to those which are cooler?And indeed most of the facts are such as toconvince a man (one at least who iscapable of reasoning about such matters),that it is not at all likely that it flows fromsnow. The first and greatest evidence isafforded by the winds, which blow hotfrom these regions; the second is that theland is rainless always and without frost,whereas after snow has fallen rain mustnecessarily come within five days, so that

if it snowed in those parts rain would fallthere; the third evidence is afforded by thepeople dwelling there, who are of a blackcolour by reason of the burning heat.Moreover kites and swallows remain therethrough the year and do not leave the land;and cranes flying from the cold weatherwhich comes on in the region of Scythiacome regularly to these parts forwintering: if then it snowed ever so little inthat land through which the Nile flows andin which it has its rise, none of these thingswould take place, as necessity compels usto admit. As for him who talked about theOcean, he carried his tale into the regionof the unknown, and so he need not berefuted; since I for my part know of noriver Ocean existing, but I think thatHomer or one of the poets who werebefore him invented the name andintroduced it into his verse.

If however after I have found fault with theopinions proposed, I am bound to declarean opinion of my own about the matterswhich are in doubt, I will tell what to mymind is the reason why the Nile increasesin the summer. In the winter season theSun, being driven away from his formerpath through the heaven by the stormywinds, comes to the upper parts of Libya. Ifone would set forth the matter in theshortest way, all has now been said; forwhatever region this god approaches mostand stands directly above, this it mayreasonably be supposed is most in want ofwater, and its native streams of rivers aredried up most. However, to set it forth atgreater length, thus it is:--the Sun passingin his course by the upper parts of Libya,does thus, that is to say, since at all timesthe air in those parts is clear and thecountry is warm, because there are nocold winds, in passing through it the Sun

does just as he was wont to do in thesummer, when going through the midst ofthe heaven, that is he draws to himself thewater, and having drawn it he drives itaway to the upper parts of the country, andthe winds take it up and scattering itabroad melt it into rain; so it is natural thatthe winds which blow from this region,namely the South and South-west Winds,should be much the most rainy of all thewinds. I think however that the Sun doesnot send away from himself all the water ofthe Nile of each year, but that also he letssome remain behind with himself. Thenwhen the winter becomes milder, the Sunreturns back again to the midst of theheaven, and from that time onwards hedraws equally from all rivers; but in themeantime they flow in large volume, sincewater of rain mingles with them in greatquantity, because their country receivesrain then and is filled with torrent streams.

In summer however they are weak, sincenot only the showers of rain fail them, butalso they are drawn by the Sun. The Nilehowever, alone of all rivers, not havingrain and being drawn by the Sun, naturallyflows during this time of winter in muchless than its proper volume, that is muchless than in summer; for then it is drawnequally with all the other waters, but inwinter it bears the burden alone. Thus Isuppose the Sun to be the cause of thesethings. He also is the cause in my opinionthat the air in these parts is dry, since hemakes it so by scorching up his paththrough the heaven: thus summer prevailsalways in the upper parts of Libya. Ifhowever the station of the seasons hadbeen changed, and where now in theheaven are placed the North Wind andwinter, there was the station of the SouthWind and of the midday, and where now isplaced the South Wind, there was the

North, if this had been so, the Sun beingdriven from the midst of the heaven by thewinter and the North Wind would go to theupper parts of Europe, just as now hecomes to the upper parts of Libya, andpassing in his course throughout the wholeof Europe I suppose he would do to theIster that which he now works upon theNile. As to the breeze, why none blowsfrom the river, my opinion is that from veryhot places it is not natural that anythingshould blow, and that a breeze is wont toblow from something cold.

Let these matters then be as they are andas they were at the first: but as to thesources of the Nile, not one either of theEgyptians or of the Libyans or of theHellenes, who came to speech with me,professed to know anything, except thescribe of the sacred treasury of Athene atthe city of Sais in Egypt. To me however

this man seemed not to be speakingseriously when he said that he had certainknowledge of it; and he said as follows,namely that there were two mountains ofwhich the tops ran up to a sharp point,situated between the city of Syene, whichis in the district of Thebes, andElephantine, and the names of themountains were, of the one Crophi and ofthe other Mophi. From the middle betweenthese mountains flowed (he said) thesources of the Nile, which were fathomlessin depth, and half of the water flowed toEgypt and towards the North Wind, theother half to Ethiopia and the South Wind.As for the fathomless depth of the source,he said that Psammetichos king of Egyptcame to a trial of this matter; for he had arope twisted of many thousand fathomsand let it down in this place, and it foundno bottom. By this the scribe (if this whichhe told was really as he said) gave me to

understand that there were certain strongeddies there and a backward flow, andthat since the water dashed against themountains, therefore the sounding-linecould not come to any bottom when it waslet down. From no other person was I ableto learn anything about this matter; but forthe rest I learnt so much as here follows bythe most diligent inquiry; for I went myselfas an eye-witness as far as the city ofElephantine and from that point onwards Igathered knowledge by report. From thecity of Elephantine as one goes up theriver there is country which slopessteeply; so that here one must attach ropesto the vessel on both sides, as one fastensan ox, and so make one's way onward; andif the rope break, the vessel is gone atonce, carried away by the violence of thestream. Through this country it is a voyageof about four days in length, and in thispart the Nile is winding like the river

Maiander, and the distance amounts totwelve _schoines_, which one musttraverse in this manner. Then you willcome to a level plain, in which the Nileflows round an island named Tachompso.(Now in the regions above the Elephantinethere dwell Ethiopians at once succeeding,who also occupy half of the island, andEgyptians the other half.) Adjoining thisisland there is a great lake, round whichdwell Ethiopian nomad tribes; and whenyou have sailed through this you will cometo the stream of the Nile again, which flowsinto this lake. After this you will disembarkand make a journey by land of forty days;for in the Nile sharp rocks stand forth out ofthe water, and there are many reefs, bywhich it is not possible for a vessel to pass.Then after having passed through thiscountry in the forty days which I have said,you will embark again in another vesseland sail for twelve days; and after this you

will come to a great city called Meroe. Thiscity is said to be the mother-city of all theother Ethiopians: and they who dwell in itreverence of the gods Zeus and Dionysosalone, and these they greatly honour; andthey have an Oracle of Zeus established,and make warlike marches whensoeverthe god commands them by prophesyingsand to whatsoever place he commands.Sailing from this city you will come to the"Deserters" in another period of time equalto that in which you came from Elephantineto the mother-city of the Ethiopians. Nowthe name of these "Deserters" is_Asmach_, and this word signifies, whentranslated into the tongue of the Hellenes,"those who stand on the left hand of theking." These were two hundred and fortythousand Egyptians of the warrior class,who revolted and went over to theseEthiopians for the following cause:--In thereign of Psammetichos garrisons were set,

one towards the Ethiopians at the city ofElephantine, another towards the Arabiansand Assyrians at Daphnai of Pelusion, andanother towards Libya at Marea: and evenin my own time the garrisons of thePersians too are ordered in the samemanner as these were in the reign ofPsammetichos, for both at Elephantine andat Daphnai the Persians have outposts. TheEgyptians then of whom I speak hadserved as outposts for three years and noone relieved them from their guard;accordingly they took counsel together,and adopting a common plan they all in abody revolted from Psammetichos and setout for Ethiopia. Hearing thisPsammetichos set forth in pursuit, andwhen he came up with them he entreatedthem much and endeavoured to persuadethem not to desert the gods of theircountry and their children and wives: uponwhich it is said that one of them pointed to

his privy member and said that whereverthis was, there would they have bothchildren and wives. When these came toEthiopia they gave themselves over to theking of the Ethiopians; and he rewardedthem as follows:--there were certain of theEthiopians who had come to be at variancewith him; and he bade them drive theseout and dwell in their land. So since thesemen settled in the land of the Ethiopians,the Ethiopians have come to be of mildermanners, from having learnt the customs ofthe Egyptians.

The Nile then, besides the part of itscourse which is in Egypt, is known as far asa four months' journey by river and land:for that is the number of months which arefound by reckoning to be spent in goingfrom Elephantine to these "Deserters": andthe river runs from the West and thesetting of the sun. But what comes after that

point no one can clearly say; for this land isdesert by reason of the burning heat. Thismuch however I heard from men ofKyrene, who told me that they had been tothe Oracle of Ammon, and had come tospeech with Etearchos king of theAmmonians: and it happened that afterspeaking of other matters they fell todiscourse about the Nile and how no oneknew the sources of it; and Etearchos saidthat once there came to him men of theNasamonians (this is a Libyan race whichdwells in the Syrtis, and also in the land tothe East of the Syrtis reaching to no greatdistance), and when the Nasamonianscame and were asked by him whether theywere able to tell him anything more thanhe knew about the desert parts of Libya,they said that there had been among themcertain sons of chief men, who were ofunruly disposition; and these when theygrew up to be men had devised various

other extravagant things and also they hadtold off by lot five of themselves to go tosee the desert parts of Libya and to trywhether they could discover more thanthose who had previously exploredfurthest: for in those parts of Libya whichare by the Northern Sea, beginning fromEgypt and going as far as the headland ofSoloeis, which is the extreme point ofLibya, Libyans (and of them many races)extend along the whole coast, except somuch as the Hellenes and Phenicians hold;but in the upper parts, which lie above thesea-coast and above those people whoseland comes down to the sea, Libya is full ofwild beasts; and in the parts above theland of wild beasts it is full of sand, terriblywaterless and utterly desert. These youngmen then (said they), being sent out bytheir companions well furnished withsupplies of water and provisions, went firstthrough the inhabited country, and after

they had passed through this they came tothe country of wild beasts, and after thisthey passed through the desert, makingtheir journey towards the West Wind; andhaving passed through a great tract ofsand in many days, they saw at last treesgrowing in a level place; and having comeup to them, they were beginning to pluckthe fruit which was upon the trees: but asthey began to pluck it, there came uponthem small men, of less stature than men ofthe common size, and these seized themand carried them away; and neither couldthe Nasamonians understand anything oftheir speech nor could those who werecarrying them off understand anything ofthe speech of the Nasamonians; and theyled them (so it was said) through verygreat swamps, and after passing throughthese they came to a city in which all themen were in size like those who carriedthem off and in colour of skin black; and by

the city ran a great river, which ran fromthe West towards the sunrising, and in itwere seen crocodiles. Of the accountgiven by Etearchos the Ammonian let somuch suffice as is here said, except that, asthe men of Kyrene told me, he alleged thatthe Nasamonians returned safe home, andthat the people to whom they had comewere all wizards. Now this river which ranby the city, Etearchos conjectured to bethe Nile, and moreover reason compels usto think so; for the Nile flows from Libyaand cuts Libya through in the midst, and asI conjecture, judging of what is not knownby that which is evident to the view, itstarts at a distance from its mouth equal tothat of the Ister: for the river Ister beginsfrom the Keltoi and the city of Pyrene andso runs that it divides Europe in the midst(now the Keltoi are outside the Pillars ofHeracles and border upon the Kynesians,who dwell furthest towards the sunset of all

those who have their dwelling in Europe):and the Ister ends, having its coursethrough the whole of Europe, by flowinginto the Euxine Sea at the place where theMilesians have their settlement of Istria.Now the Ister, since it flows through landwhich is inhabited, is known by the reportsof many; but of the sources of the Nile noone can give an account, for the part ofLibya through which it flows is uninhabitedand desert. About its course however somuch as it was possible to learn by themost diligent inquiry has been told; and itruns out into Egypt. Now Egypt lies nearlyopposite to the mountain districts ofKilikia; and from thence to Sinope, whichlies upon the Euxine Sea, is a journey inthe same straight line of five days for aman without encumbrance; and Sinope liesopposite to the place where the Ister runsout into the sea: thus I think that the Nilepasses through the whole of Libya and is of

equal measure with the Ister.

Of the Nile then let so much suffice as hasbeen said. Of Egypt however I shall makemy report at length, because it haswonders more in number than any otherland, and works too it has to show as muchas any land, which are beyond expressiongreat: for this reason then more shall besaid concerning it.

The Egyptians in agreement with theirclimate, which is unlike any other, andwith the river, which shows a naturedifferent from all other rivers, establishedfor themselves manners and customs in away opposite to other men in almost allmatters: for among them the womenfrequent the market and carry on trade,while the men remain at home and weave;and whereas others weave pushing thewoof upwards, the Egyptians push itdownwards: the men carry their burdensupon their heads and the women upon

their shoulders: the women make waterstanding up and the men crouching down:they ease themselves in their houses andthey eat without in the streets, alleging asreason for this that it is right to do secretlythe things that are unseemly thoughnecessary, but those which are notunseemly, in public: no woman is aminister either of male or female divinity,but men of all, both male and female: tosupport their parents the sons are in noway compelled, if they do not desire to doso, but the daughters are forced to do so,be they never so unwilling. The priests ofthe gods in other lands wear long hair, butin Egypt they shave their heads: amongother men the custom is that in mourningthose whom the matter concerns mostnearly have their hair cut short, but theEgyptians, when deaths occur, let theirhair grow long, both that on the head andthat on the chin, having before been close

shaven: other men have their daily livingseparated from beasts, but the Egyptianshave theirs together with beasts: othermen live on wheat and on barley, but toany one of the Egyptians who makes hisliving on these it is a great reproach; theymake their bread of maize, which somecall spelt: they knead dough with their feetand clay with their hands, with which alsothey gather up dung: and whereas othermen, except such as have learnt otherwisefrom the Egyptians, have their members asnature made them, the Egyptians practicecircumcision: as to garments, the menwear two each and the women but one:and whereas others make fast the ringsand ropes of the sails outside the ship, theEgyptians do this inside: finally in thewriting of characters and reckoning withpebbles, while the Hellenes carry the handfrom the left to the right, the Egyptians dothis from the right to the left; and doing so

they say that they do it themselvesrightwise and the Hellenes leftwise: andthey use two kinds of characters forwriting, of which the one kind is calledsacred and the other common.

They are religious excessively beyond allother men, and with regard to this theyhave customs as follows:--they drink fromcups of bronze and rinse them out everyday, and not some only do this but all: theywear garments of linen always newlywashed, and this they make a special pointof practice: they circumcise themselves forthe sake of cleanliness, preferring to beclean rather than comely. The priestsshave themselves all over their bodyevery other day, so that no lice or anyother foul thing may come to be upon themwhen they minister to the gods; and thepriests wear garments of linen only andsandals of papyrus, and any other garment

they may not take nor other sandals; thesewash themselves in cold water twice in aday and twice again in the night; and otherreligious services they perform (one mayalmost say) of infinite number. They enjoyalso good things not a few, for they do notconsume or spend anything of their ownsubstance, but there is sacred breadbaked for them and they have each greatquantity of flesh of oxen and geese comingin to them each day, and also wine ofgrapes is given to them; but it is notpermitted to them to taste of fish: beansmoreover the Egyptians do not at all sowin their land, and those which they growthey neither eat raw nor boil for food; naythe priests do not endure even to lookupon them, thinking this to be an uncleankind of pulse: and there is not one priestonly for each of the gods but many, and ofthem one is chief-priest, and whenever apriest dies his son is appointed to his

place.

The males of the ox kind they consider tobelong to Epaphos, and on account of himthey test them in the following manner:--Ifthe priest sees one single black hair uponthe beast he counts it not clean forsacrifice; and one of the priests who isappointed for the purpose makesinvestigation of these matters, both whenthe beast is standing upright and when it islying on its back, drawing out its tonguemoreover, to see if it is clean in respect ofthe appointed signs, which I shall tell of inanother part of the history: he looks also atthe hairs of the tail to see if it has themgrowing in a natural manner; and if it beclean in respect of all these things, hemarks it with a piece of papyrus, rollingthis round the horns, and then when he hasplastered sealing-earth over it he setsupon it the seal of his signet-ring, and after

that they take the animal away. But for onewho sacrifices a beast not sealed thepenalty appointed is death. In this waythen the beast is tested; and theirappointed manner of sacrifice is asfollows:--they lead the sealed beast to thealtar where they happen to be sacrificing,and then kindle a fire: after that, havingpoured libations of wine over the altar sothat it runs down upon the victim andhaving called upon the god, they cut itsthroat, and having cut its throat they severthe head from the body. The body then ofthe beast they flay, but upon the head theymake many imprecations first, and thenthey who have a market and Hellenessojourning among them for trade, thesecarry it to the market-place and sell it,while they who have no Hellenes amongthem cast it away into the river: and this isthe form of imprecations which they utterupon the heads, praying that if any evil be

about to befall either themselves who areoffering sacrifice or the land of Egypt ingeneral, it may come rather upon thishead. Now as regards the heads of thebeasts which are sacrificed and thepouring over them of the wine, all theEgyptians have the same customs equallyfor all their sacrifices; and by reason of thiscustom none of the Egyptians eat of thehead either of this or of any other kind ofanimal: but the manner of disembowellingthe victims and of burning them isappointed among them differently fordifferent sacrifices; I shall speak howeverof the sacrifices to that goddess whom theyregard as the greatest of all, and to whomthey celebrate the greatest feast.--Whenthey have flayed the bullock and madeimprecation, they take out the whole of itslower entrails but leave in the body theupper entrails and the fat; and they severfrom it the legs and the end of the loin and

the shoulders and the neck: and this done,they fill the rest of the body of the animalwith consecrated loaves and honey andraisins and figs and frankincense andmyrrh and every other kind of spices, andhaving filled it with these they offer it,pouring over it great abundance of oil.They make their sacrifice after fasting, andwhile the offerings are being burnt, theyall beat themselves for mourning, andwhen they have finished beatingthemselves they set forth as a feast thatwhich they left unburnt of the sacrifice. Theclean males then of the ox kind, bothfull-grown animals and calves, aresacrificed by all the Egyptians; the femaleshowever they may not sacrifice, but theseare sacred to Isis; for the figure of Isis is inthe form of a woman with cow's horns, justas the Hellenes present Io in pictures, andall the Egyptians without distinctionreverence cows far more than any other

kind of cattle; for which reason neitherman nor woman of the Egyptian racewould kiss a man who is a Hellene on themouth, nor will they use a knife orroasting-spits or a caldron belonging to aHellene, nor taste the flesh even of a cleananimal if it has been cut with the knife of aHellene. And the cattle of this kind whichdie they bury in the following manner:--thefemales they cast into the river, but themales they bury, each people in thesuburb of their town, with one of the horns,or sometimes both, protruding to mark theplace; and when the bodies have rottedaway and the appointed time comes on,then to each city comes a boat from thatwhich is called the island of Prosopitis (thisis in the Delta, and the extent of its circuitis nine _schoines_). In this island ofProsopitis is situated, besides many othercities, that one from which the boats cometo take up the bones of the oxen, and the

name of the city is Atarbechis, and in itthere is set up a holy temple of Aphrodite.From this city many go abroad in variousdirections, some to one city and others toanother, and when they have dug up thebones of the oxen they carry them off, andcoming together they bury them in onesingle place. In the same manner as theybury the oxen they bury also their othercattle when they die; for about them alsothey have the same law laid down, andthese also they abstain from killing.

Now all who have a temple set up to theTheban Zeus or who are of the district ofThebes, these, I say, all sacrifice goats andabstain from sheep: for not all theEgyptians equally reverence the samegods, except only Isis and Osiris (who theysay is Dionysos), these they all reverencealike: but they who have a temple ofMendes or belong to the Mendesian

district, these abstain from goats andsacrifice sheep. Now the men of Thebesand those who after their example abstainfrom sheep, say that this custom wasestablished among them for the causewhich follows:--Heracles (they say) had anearnest desire to see Zeus, and Zeus didnot desire to be seen of him; and at lastwhen Heracles was urgent in entreaty Zeuscontrived this device, that is to say, heflayed a ram and held in front of him thehead of the ram which he had cut off, andhe put on over him the fleece and thenshowed himself to him. Hence theEgyptians make the image of Zeus with theface of a ram; and the Ammonians do soalso after their example, being settlersboth from the Egyptians and from theEthiopians, and using a language which isa medley of both tongues: and in myopinion it is from this god that theEgyptians call Zeus _Amun_. The Thebans

then do not sacrifice rams but hold themsacred for this reason; on one day howeverin the year, on the feast of Zeus, they cutup in the same manner and flay one singleram and cover with its skin the image ofZeus, and then they bring up to it anotherimage of Heracles. This done, all who arein the temple beat themselves inlamentation for the ram, and then theybury it in a sacred tomb.

About Heracles I heard the account giventhat he was of the number of the twelvegods; but of the other Heracles whom theHellenes know I was not able to hear inany part of Egypt: and moreover to provethat the Egyptians did not take the name ofHeracles from the Hellenes, but rather theHellenes from the Egyptians,--that is to saythose of the Hellenes who gave the nameHeracles to the son of Amphitryon,--of that,I say, besides many other evidences there

is chiefly this, namely that the parents ofthis Heracles, Amphitryon and Alcmene,were both of Egypt by descent, and alsothat the Egyptians say that they do notknow the names either of Poseidon or ofthe Dioscuroi, nor have these beenaccepted by them as gods among theother gods; whereas if they had receivedfrom the Hellenes the name of any divinity,they would naturally have preserved thememory of these most of all, assuming thatin those times as now some of the Helleneswere wont to make voyages and wereseafaring folk, as I suppose and as myjudgment compels me to think; so that theEgyptians would have learnt the names ofthese gods even more than that ofHeracles. In fact however Heracles is avery ancient Egyptian god; and (as theysay themselves) it is seventeen thousandyears to the beginning of the reign ofAmasis from the time when the twelve

gods, of whom they count that Heracles isone, were begotten of the eight gods. Imoreover, desiring to know somethingcertain of these matters so far as might be,made a voyage also to Tyre of Phenicia,hearing that in that place there was a holytemple of Heracles; and I saw that it wasrichly furnished with many votive offeringsbesides, and especially there were in ittwo pillars, the one of pure gold and theother of an emerald stone of such size as toshine by night: and having come to speechwith the priests of the god, I asked themhow long a time it was since their templehad been set up: and these also I found tobe at variance with the Hellenes, for theysaid that at the same time when Tyre wasfounded, the temple of the god also hadbeen set up, and that it was a period of twothousand three hundred years since theirpeople began to dwell at Tyre. I saw alsoat Tyre another temple of Heracles, with

the surname Thasian; and I came to Thasosalso and there I found a temple of Heraclesset up by the Phenicians, who had sailedout to seek for Europa and had colonisedThasos; and these things happened fullfive generations of men before Heraclesthe son of Amphitryon was born in Hellas.So then my inquiries show clearly thatHeracles is an ancient god, and those ofthe Hellenes seem to me to act most rightlywho have two temples of Heracles set up,and who sacrifice to the one as an immortalgod and with the title Olympian, and makeofferings of the dead to the other as a hero.Moreover, besides many other storieswhich the Hellenes tell without dueconsideration, this tale is especially foolishwhich they tell about Heracles, namely thatwhen he came to Egypt, the Egyptians puton him wreaths and led him forth inprocession to sacrifice him to Zeus; and hefor some time kept quiet, but when they

were beginning the sacrifice of him at thealtar, he betook himself to prowess andslew them all. I for my part am of opinionthat the Hellenes when they tell this taleare altogether without knowledge of thenature and customs of the Egyptians; forhow should they for whom it is not lawful tosacrifice even beasts, except swine andthe males of oxen and calves (such of themas are clean) and geese, how should thesesacrifice human beings? Besides this, howis it in nature possible that Heracles, beingone person only and moreover a man (asthey assert), should slay many myriads?Having said so much of these matters, wepray that we may have grace from both thegods and the heroes for our speech.

Now the reason why those of the Egyptianswhom I have mentioned do not sacrificegoats, female or male, is this:--theMendesians count Pan to be one of the

eight gods (now these eight gods they saycame into being before the twelve gods),and the painters and image-makersrepresent in painting and in sculpture thefigure of Pan, just as the Hellenes do, withgoat's face and legs, not supposing him tobe really like this but to resemble theother gods; the cause however why theyrepresent him in this form I prefer not tosay. The Mendesians then reverence allgoats and the males more than the females(and the goatherds too have greaterhonour than other herdsmen), but of thegoats one especially is reverenced, andwhen he dies there is great mourning in allthe Mendesian district: and both the goatand Pan are called in the Egyptian tongue_Mendes_. Moreover in my lifetime therehappened in that district this marvel, thatis to say a he-goat had intercourse with awoman publicly, and this was so done thatall men might have evidence of it.

The pig is accounted by the Egyptians anabominable animal; and first, if any ofthem in passing by touch a pig, he goesinto the river and dips himself forthwith inthe water together with his garments; andthen too swineherds, though they may benative Egyptians, unlike all others, do notenter any of the temples in Egypt, nor isanyone willing to give his daughter inmarriage to one of them or to take a wifefrom among them; but the swineherds bothgive in marriage to one another and takefrom one another. Now to the other godsthe Egyptians do not think it right tosacrifice swine; but to the Moon and toDionysos alone at the same time and onthe same full-moon they sacrifice swine,and then eat their flesh: and as to thereason why, when they abominate swine atall their other feasts, they sacrifice them atthis, there is a story told by the Egyptians;

and this story I know, but it is not a seemlyone for me to tell. Now the sacrifice of theswine to the Moon is performed asfollows:--when the priest has slain thevictim, he puts together the end of the tailand the spleen and the caul, and coversthem up with the whole of the fat of theanimal which is about the paunch, and thenhe offers them with fire; and the rest of theflesh they eat on that day of full moon uponwhich they have held sacrifice, but on anyday after this they will not taste of it: thepoor however among them by reason ofthe scantiness of their means shape pigs ofdough and having baked them they offerthese as a sacrifice. Then for Dionysos onthe eve of the festival each one kills a pigby cutting its throat before his own doors,and after that he gives the pig to theswineherd who sold it to him, to carryaway again; and the rest of the feast ofDionysos is celebrated by the Egyptians in

the same way as by the Hellenes in almostall things except choral dances, butinstead of the _phallos_ they have inventedanother contrivance, namely figures ofabout a cubit in height worked by strings,which women carry about the villages,with the privy member made to move andnot much less in size than the rest of thebody: and a flute goes before and theyfollow singing the praises of Dionysos. Asto the reason why the figure has thismember larger than is natural and movesit, though it moves no other part of thebody, about this there is a sacred storytold. Now I think that Melampus the son ofAmytheon was not without knowledge ofthese rites of sacrifice, but was acquaintedwith them: for Melampus is he who first setforth to the Hellenes the name of Dionysosand the manner of sacrifice and theprocession of the _phallos_. Strictlyspeaking indeed, he when he made it

known did not take in the whole, but thosewise men who came after him made itknown more at large. Melampus then is hewho taught of the _phallos_ which iscarried in procession for Dionysos, andfrom him the Hellenes learnt to do thatwhich they do. I say then that Melampusbeing a man of ability contrived for himselfan art of divination, and having learnt fromEgypt he taught the Hellenes many things,and among them those that concernDionysos, making changes in some fewpoints of them: for I shall not say that thatwhich is done in worship of the god inEgypt came accidentally to be the samewith that which is done among theHellenes, for then these rites would havebeen in character with the Hellenicworship and not lately brought in; norcertainly shall I say that the Egyptians tookfrom the Hellenes either this or any othercustomary observance: matters

concerning Dionysos from Cadmos theTyrian and from those who came with himfrom Phenicia to the land which we nowcall Boeotia.

Moreover the naming of almost all thegods has come to Hellas from Egypt: forthat it has come from the Barbarians I findby inquiry is true, and I am of opinion thatmost probably it has come from Egypt,because, except in the case of Poseidonand the Dioscuroi (in accordance with thatwhich I have said before), and also of Heraand Hestia and Themis and the Charitesand Nereids, the Egyptians saythemselves: but as for the gods whosenames they profess that they do not know,these I think received their naming fromthe Pelasgians, except Poiseidon; butabout this god the Hellenes learnt from theLibyans, for no people except the Libyanshave had the name of Poseidon from the

first and have paid honour to this godalways. Nor, it may be added, have theEgyptians any custom of worshippingheroes. These observances then, andothers besides these which I shall mention,the Hellenes have adopted from theEgyptians; but to make, as they do theimages of Hermes with the _phallos_ theyhave learnt not from the Egyptians butfrom the Pelasgians, the custom havingbeen received by the Athenians first of allthe Hellenes and from these by the rest;for just at the time when the Athenianswere beginning to rank among theHellenes, the Pelasgians became dwellerswith them in their land, and from this verycause it was that they began to be countedas Hellenes. Whosoever has been initiatedin the mysteries of the Cabeiroi, which theSamothrakians perform having receivedthem from the Pelasgians, that man knowsthe meaning of my speech; for these very

Pelasgians who became dwellers with theAthenians used to dwell before that time inSamothrake, and from them theSamothrakians received their mysteries.So then the Athenians were the first of theHellenes who made the images of Hermeswith the _phallos_, having learnt from thePelasgians; and the Pelasgians told asacred story about it, which is set forth inthe mysteries in Samothrake. Now thePelasgians formerly were wont to make alltheir sacrifices calling upon the gods inprayer, as I know from that which I heardat Dodona, but they gave no title or nameto any of them, for they had not yet heardany, but they called them gods from somesuch notion as this, that they had set inorder all things and so had the distributionof everything. Afterwards when much timehad elapsed, they learnt from Egypt thenames of the gods, all except Dionysos, forhis name they learnt long afterwards; and

after a time the Pelasgians consulted theOracle at Dodona about the names, for thisprophetic seat is accounted to be the mostancient of the Oracles which are amongthe Hellenes, and at that time it was theonly one. So when the Pelasgians askedthe Oracle at Dodona whether they shouldadopt the names which had come from theBarbarians, the Oracle in reply bade themmake use of the names. From this time theysacrificed using the names of the gods,and from the Pelasgians the Hellenesafterwards received them: but when theseveral gods had their birth, or whetherthey all were from the beginning, and ofwhat form they are, they did not learn tillyesterday, as it were, or the day before:for Hesiod and Homer I suppose were fourhundred years before my time and notmore, and these are they who made atheogony for the Hellenes and gave thetitles to the gods and distributed to them

honours and arts, and set forth their forms:but the poets who are said to have beenbefore these men were really in myopinion after them. Of these things the firstare said by the priestesses of Dodona, andthe latter things, those namely which haveregard to Hesiod and Homer, by myself.

As regards the Oracles both that amongthe Hellenes and that in Libya, theEgyptians tell the following tale. Thepriests of the Theban Zeus told me that twowomen in the service of the temple hadbeen carried away from Thebes byPhenicians, and that they had heard thatone of them had been sold to go into Libyaand the other to the Hellenes; and thesewomen, they said, were they who firstfounded the prophetic seats among thenations which have been named: and whenI inquired whence they knew so perfectlyof this tale which they told, they said in

reply that a great search had been madeby the priests after these women, and thatthey had not been able to find them, butthey had heard afterwards this tale aboutthem which they were telling. This I heardfrom the priests at Thebes, and whatfollows is said by the prophetesses ofDodona. They say that two black dovesflew from Thebes in Egypt, and came oneof them to Libya and the other to their land.And this latter settled upon an oak-treeand spoke with human voice, saying that itwas necessary that a prophetic seat of Zeusshould be established in that place; andthey supposed that that was of the godswhich was announced to them, and madeone accordingly: and the dove which wentaway to the Libyans, they say, bade theLibyans make an Oracle of Ammon; andthis also is of Zeus. The priestesses ofDodona told me these things, of whom theeldest was named Promeneia, the next

after her Timarete, and the youngestNicandra; and the other people of Dodonawho were engaged about the temple gaveaccounts agreeing with theirs. I howeverhave an opinion about the matter asfollows:--If the Phenicians did in truth carryaway the consecrated women and sold oneof them into Libya and the other intoHellas, I suppose that in the country nowcalled Hellas, which was formerly calledPelasgia, this woman was sold into the landof the Thesprotians; and then being a slavethere she set up a sanctuary of Zeus undera real oak-tree; as indeed it was naturalthat being an attendant of the sanctuary ofZeus at Thebes, she should there, in theplace to which she had come, have amemory of him; and after this, when shegot understanding of the Hellenic tongue,she established an Oracle, and shereported, I suppose, that her sister hadbeen sold in Libya by the same Phenicians

by whom she herself had been sold.Moreover, I think that the women werecalled doves by the people of Dodona forthe reason that they were barbarians andbecause it seemed to them that theyuttered voice like birds; but after a time(they say) the dove spoke with humanvoice, that is when the woman began tospeak so that they could understand; butso long as she spoke a Barbarian tongueshe seemed to them to be uttering voicelike a bird: for if it had been really a dove,how could it speak with human voice? Andin saying that the dove was black, theyindicate that the woman was Egyptian. Theways of delivering oracles too at Thebes inEgypt and at Dodona closely resembleeach other, as it happens, and also themethod of divination by victims has comefrom Egypt.

Moreover, it is true also that the Egyptians

were the first of men who made solemnassemblies and processions andapproaches to the temples, and from themthe Hellenes have learnt them, and myevidence for this is that the Egyptiancelebrations of these have been held froma very ancient time, whereas the Hellenicwere introduced but lately. The Egyptianshold their solemn assemblies not once inthe year but often, especially and with thegreatest zeal and devotion at the city ofBubastis for Artemis, and next at Busiris forIsis; for in this last-named city there is avery great temple of Isis, and this citystands in the middle of the Delta of Egypt;now Isis is in the tongue of the HellenesDemeter: thirdly, they have a solemnassembly at the city of Sais for Athene,fourthly at Heliopolis for the Sun (Helios),fifthly at the city of Buto in honour of Leto,and sixthly at the city of Papremis for Ares.Now, when they are coming to the city of

Bubastis they do as follows:--they sail menand women together, and a greatmultitude of each sex in every boat; andsome of the women have rattles and rattlewith them, while some of the men play theflute during the whole time of the voyage,and the rest, both women and men, singand clap their hands; and when as they sailthey come opposite to any city on the waythey bring the boat to land, and some ofthe women continue to do as I have said,others cry aloud and jeer at the women inthat city, some dance, and some stand upand pull up their garments. This they do byevery city along the river-bank; and whenthey come to Bubastis they hold festivalcelebrating great sacrifices, and morewine of grapes is consumed upon thatfestival than during the whole of the rest ofthe year. To this place (so say the natives)they come together year by year even tothe number of seventy myriads of men and

women, besides children. Thus it is donehere; and how they celebrate the festivalin honour of Isis at the city of Busiris hasbeen told by me before: for, as I said, theybeat themselves in mourning after thesacrifice, all of them both men and women,very many myriads of people; but forwhom they beat themselves it is notpermitted to me by religion to say: and somany as there are of the Carians dwellingin Egypt do this even more than theEgyptians themselves, inasmuch as theycut their foreheads also with knives; andby this it is manifested that they arestrangers and not Egyptians. At the timeswhen they gather together at the city ofSais for their sacrifices, on a certain nightthey all kindle lamps many in number inthe open air round about the houses; nowthe lamps are saucers full of salt and oilmixed, and the wick floats by itself on thesurface, and this burns during the whole

night; and to the festival is given the name_Lychnocaia_ (the lighting of lamps).Moreover those of the Egyptians who havenot come to this solemn assembly observethe night of the festival and themselvesalso light lamps all of them, and thus not inSais alone are they lighted, but over allEgypt: and as to the reason why light andhonour are allotted to this night, about thisthere is a sacred story told. To Heliopolisand Buto they go year by year and dosacrifice only: but at Papremis they dosacrifice and worship as elsewhere, andbesides that, when the sun begins to godown while some few of the priests areoccupied with the image of the god, thegreater number of them stand in theentrance of the temple with wooden clubs,and other persons to the number of morethan a thousand men with purpose toperform a vow, these also having all ofthem staves of wood, stand in a body

opposite to those: and the image, which isin a small shrine of wood covered overwith gold, they take out on the day beforeto another sacred building. The few thenwho have been left about the image, drawa wain with four wheels, which bears theshrine and the image that is within theshrine, and the other priests standing inthe gateway try to prevent it from entering,and the men who are under a vow come tothe assistance of the god and strike them,while the others defend themselves. Thenthere comes to be a hard fight with staves,and they break one another's heads, and Iam of opinion that many even die of thewounds they receive; the Egyptianshowever told me that no one died. Thissolemn assembly the people of the placesay that they established for the followingreason:--the mother of Ares, they say, usedto dwell in this temple, and Ares, havingbeen brought up away from her, when he

grew up came thither desiring to visit hismother, and the attendants of his mother'stemple, not having seen him before, didnot permit him to pass in, but kept himaway; and he brought men to help himfrom another city and handled roughly theattendants of the temple, and entered tovisit his mother. Hence, they say, thisexchange of blows has become the customin honour of Ares upon his festival.

The Egyptians were the first who made it apoint of religion not to lie with women intemples, nor to enter into temples aftergoing away from women without firstbathing: for almost all other men exceptthe Egyptians and the Hellenes lie withwomen in temples and enter into a templeafter going away from women withoutbathing, since they hold that there is nodifference in this respect between menand beasts: for they say that they see

beasts and the various kinds of birdscoupling together both in the temples andin the sacred enclosures of the gods; ifthen this were not pleasing to the god, thebeasts would not do so.

Thus do these defend that which they do,which by me is disallowed: but theEgyptians are excessively careful in theirobservances, both in other matters whichconcern the sacred rites and also in thosewhich follow:--Egypt, though it bordersupon Libya, does not very much abound inwild animals, but such as they have areone and all accounted by them sacred,some of them living with men and othersnot. But if I should say for what reasons thesacred animals have been thus dedicated,I should fall into discourse of matterspertaining to the gods, of which I mostdesire not to speak; and what I haveactually said touching slightly upon them, I

said because I was constrained bynecessity. About these animals there is acustom of this kind:--persons have beenappointed of the Egyptians, both men andwomen, to provide the food for each kindof beast separately, and their office goesdown from father to son; and those whodwell in the various cities perform vows tothem thus, that is, when they make a vowto the god to whom the animal belongs,they shave the head of their children eitherthe whole or the half or the third part of it,and then set the hair in the balance againstsilver, and whatever it weighs, this theman gives to the person who provides forthe animals, and she cuts up fish of equalvalue and gives it for food to the animals.Thus food for their support has beenappointed and if any one kill any of theseanimals, the penalty, if he do it with hisown will, is death, and if against his will,such penalty as the priests may appoint:

but whosoever shall kill an ibis or a hawk,whether it be with his will or against hiswill, must die. Of the animals that live withmen there are great numbers, and wouldbe many more but for the accidents whichbefall the cats. For when the females haveproduced young they are no longer in thehabit of going to the males, and theseseeking to be united with them are notable. To this end then they contrive asfollows,--they either take away by force orremove secretly the young from thefemales and kill them (but after killing theydo not eat them), and the females beingdeprived of their young and desiringmore, therefore come to the males, for it isa creature that is fond of its young.Moreover when a fire occurs, the catsseem to be divinely possessed; for whilethe Egyptians stand at intervals and lookafter the cats, not taking any care toextinguish the fire, the cats slipping

through or leaping over the men, jump intothe fire; and when this happens, greatmourning comes upon the Egyptians. Andin whatever houses a cat has died by anatural death, all those who dwell in thishouse shave their eyebrows only, butthose in which a dog has died shave theirwhole body and also their head. The catswhen they are dead are carried away tosacred buildings in the city of Bubastis,where after being embalmed they areburied; but the dogs they bury eachpeople in their own city in sacred tombs;and the ichneumons are buried just in thesame way as the dogs. The shrewmicehowever and the hawks they carry away tothe city of Buto, and the ibises toHermopolis; the bears (which are notcommonly seen) and the wolves, not muchlarger in size than foxes, they bury on thespot where they are found lying.

Of the crocodile the nature is asfollows:--during the four most wintrymonths this creature eats nothing: she hasfour feet and is an animal belonging to theland and the water both; for she producesand hatches eggs on the land, and themost part of the day she remains upon dryland, but the whole of the night in theriver, for the water in truth is warmer thanthe unclouded open air and the dew. Of allthe mortal creatures of which we haveknowledge this grows to the greatest bulkfrom the smallest beginning; for the eggswhich she produces are not much largerthan those of geese and the newly-hatchedyoung one is in proportion to the egg, butas he grows he becomes as much asseventeen cubits long and sometimes yetlarger. He has eyes like those of a pig andteeth large and tusky, in proportion to thesize of his body; but unlike all other beastshe grows no tongue, neither does he move

his lower jaw, but brings the upper jawtowards the lower, being in this too unlikeall other beasts. He has moreover strongclaws and a scaly hide upon his backwhich cannot be pierced; and he is blindin the water, but in the air he is of a verykeen sight. Since he has his living in thewater he keeps his mouth all full within ofleeches; and whereas all other birds andbeasts fly from him, the trochilus is acreature which is at peace with him,seeing that from her he receives benefit;for the crocodile having come out of thewater to the land and then having openedhis mouth (this he is wont to do generallytowards the West Wind), the trochilusupon that enters into his mouth andswallows down the leeches, and he beingbenefited is pleased and does no harm tothe trochilus. Now for some of theEgyptians the crocodiles are sacredanimals, and for others not so, but they

treat them on the contrary as enemies:those however who dwell about Thebesand about the lake of Moiris hold them tobe most sacred, and each of these twopeoples keeps one crocodile selectedfrom the whole number, which has beentrained to tameness, and they put hangingornaments of molten stone and of gold intothe ears of these and anklets round thefront feet, and they give them foodappointed and victims of sacrifices andtreat them as well as possible while theylive, and after they are dead they burythem in sacred tombs, embalming them:but those who dwell about the city ofElephantine even eat them, not holdingthem to be sacred. They are called notcrocodiles but _champsai_, and the Ioniansgave them the name of crocodile,comparing their form to that of thecrocodiles (lizards) which appear in theircountry in the stone walls. There are many

ways in use of catching them and ofvarious kinds: I shall describe that which tome seems the most worthy of being told. Aman puts the back of a pig upon a hook asbait, and lets it go into the middle of theriver, while he himself upon the bank ofthe river has a young live pig, which hebeats; and the crocodile hearing its criesmakes for the direction of the sound, andwhen he finds the pig's back he swallows itdown: then they pull, and when he isdrawn out to land, first of all the hunterforthwith plasters up his eyes with mud,and having done so he very easily gets themastery of him, but if he does not do so hehas much trouble.

The river-horse is sacred in the district ofPapremis, but for the other Egyptians he isnot sacred; and this is the appearancewhich he presents: he is four-footed,cloven-hoofed like an ox, flat-nosed, with a

mane like a horse and showing teeth liketusks, with a tail and voice like a horse andin size as large as the largest ox; and hishide is so exceedingly thick that when ithas been dried shafts of javelins are madeof it. There are moreover otters in theriver, which they consider to be sacred:and of fish also they esteem that which iscalled the _lepidotos_ to be sacred, andalso the eel; and these they say are sacredto the Nile: and of birds the fox-goose.

There is also another sacred bird calledthe phoenix which I did not myself seeexcept in painting, for in truth he comes tothem very rarely, at intervals, as thepeople of Heliopolis say, of five hundredyears; and these say that he comesregularly when his father dies; and if he belike the painting he is of this size andnature, that is to say, some of his feathersare of gold colour and others red, and in

outline and size he is as nearly as possiblelike an eagle. This bird they say (but Icannot believe the story) contrives asfollows:--setting forth from Arabia heconveys his father, they say, to the templeof the Sun (Helios) plastered up in myrrh,and buries him in the temple of the Sun;and he conveys him thus:--he forms first anegg of myrrh as large as he is able tocarry, and then he makes trial of carryingit, and when he has made trial sufficiently,then he hollows out the egg and places hisfather within it and plasters over with othermyrrh that part of the egg where hehollowed it out to put his father in, andwhen his father is laid in it, it proves (theysay) to be of the same weight as it was; andafter he has plastered it up, he conveys thewhole to Egypt to the temple of the Sun.Thus they say that this bird does.

There are also about Thebes sacred

serpents, not at all harmful to men, whichare small in size and have two hornsgrowing from the top of the head: thesethey bury when they die in the temple ofZeus, for to this god they say that they aresacred. There is a region moreover inArabia, situated nearly over against thecity of Buto, to which place I came toinquire about the winged serpents: andwhen I came thither I saw bones ofserpents and spines in quantity so greatthat it is impossible to make report of thenumber, and there were heaps of spines,some heaps large and others less largeand others smaller still than these, andthese heaps were many in number. Thisregion in which the spines are scatteredupon the ground is of the nature of anentrance from a narrow mountain pass to agreat plain, which plain adjoins the plain inEgypt; and the story goes that at thebeginning of spring winged serpents from

Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birdscalled ibises meet them at the entrance tothis country and do not suffer the serpentsto go by but kill them. On account of thisdeed it is (say the Arabians) that the ibishas come to be greatly honoured by theEgyptians, and the Egyptians also agreethat it is for this reason that they honourthese birds. The outward form of the ibis isthis:--it is a deep black all over, and haslegs like those of a crane and a verycurved beak, and in size it is about equalto a rail: this is the appearance of the blackkind which fight with the serpents, but ofthose which most crowd round men's feet(for there are two several kinds of ibises)the head is bare and also the whole of thethroat, and it is white in feathering exceptthe head and neck and the extremities ofthe wings and the rump (in all these partsof which I have spoken it is a deep black),while in legs and in the form of the head it

resembles the other. As for the serpent itsform is like that of the watersnake; and ithas wings not feathered but most nearlyresembling the wings of the bat. Let somuch suffice as has been said nowconcerning sacred animals.

Of the Egyptians themselves, those whodwell in the part of Egypt which is sown forcrops practise memory more than anyother men and are the most learned inhistory by far of all those of whom I havehad experience: and their manner of life isas follows:--For three successive days ineach month they purge, hunting afterhealth with emetics and clysters, and theythink that all the diseases which exist areproduced in men by the food on whichthey live: for the Egyptians are from othercauses also the most healthy of all mennext after the Libyans (in my opinion onaccount of the seasons, because theseasons do not change, for by the changesof things generally, and especially of theseasons, diseases are most apt to beproduced in men), and as to their diet, it isas follows:--they eat bread, making loavesof maize, which they call _kyllestis_, andthey use habitually a wine made out of

barley, for vines they have not in theirland. Of their fish some they dry in the sunand then eat them without cooking, othersthey eat cured in brine. Of birds they eatquails and ducks and small birds withoutcooking, after first curing them; andeverything else which they havebelonging to the class of birds or fishes,except such as have been set apart bythem as sacred, they eat roasted or boiled.In the entertainments of the rich amongthem, when they have finished eating, aman bears round a wooden figure of adead body in a coffin, made as like thereality as may be both by painting andcarving, and measuring about a cubit ortwo cubits each way; and this he shows toeach of those who are drinking together,saying: "When thou lookest upon this,drink and be merry, for thou shalt be suchas this when thou art dead." Thus they doat their carousals. The customs which they

practise are derived from their fathers andthey do not acquire others in addition; butbesides other customary things amongthem which are worthy of mention, theyhave one song, that of Linos, the same whois sung of both in Phenicia and in Cyprusand elsewhere, having however a namedifferent according to the various nations.This song agrees exactly with that whichthe Hellenes sing calling on the name ofLinos, so that besides many other thingsabout which I wonder among those matterswhich concern Egypt, I wonder especiallyabout this, namely whence they got thesong of Linos. It is evident however thatthey have sung this song from immemorialtime, and in the Egyptian tongue Linos iscalled Maneros. The Egyptians told methat he was the only son of him who firstbecame king of Egypt, and that he diedbefore his time and was honoured withthese lamentations by the Egyptians, and

that this was their first and only song. Inanother respect the Egyptians are inagreement with some of the Hellenes,namely with the Lacedemonians, but notwith the rest, that is to say, the younger ofthem when they meet the elder give wayand move out of the path, and when theirelders approach, they rise out of their seat.In this which follows however they are notin agreement with any of theHellenes,--instead of addressing oneanother in the roads they do reverence,lowering their hand down to their knee.They wear tunics of linen about their legswith fringes, which they call _calasiris_;above these they have garments of whitewool thrown over: woolen garmentshowever are not taken into the temples,nor are they buried with them, for this isnot permitted by religion. In these pointsthey are in agreement with theobservances called Orphic and Bacchic

(which are really Egyptian), and also withthose of the Pythagoreans, for one whotakes part in these mysteries is alsoforbidden by religious rule to be buried inwoolen garments; and about this there is asacred story told.

Besides these things the Egyptians havefound out also to what god each month andeach day belongs, and what fortunes aman will meet with who is born on anyparticular day, and how he will die, andwhat kind of a man he will be: and theseinventions were taken up by those of theHellenes who occupied themselves aboutpoesy. Portents too have been found outby them more than by all other menbesides; for when a portent has happened,they observe and write down the eventwhich comes of it, and if ever afterwardsanything resembling this happens, theybelieve that the event which comes of it

will be similar. Their divination is orderedthus:--the art is assigned not to any manbut to certain of the gods, for there are intheir land Oracles of Heracles, of Apollo,of Athene, of Artemis, or Ares, and of Zeus,and moreover that which they hold most inhonour of all, namely the Oracle of Letowhich is in the city of Buto. The manner ofdivination however is not establishedamong them according to the same fashioneverywhere, but is different in differentplaces. The art of medicine among them isdistributed thus:--each physician is aphysician of one disease and of no more;and the whole country is full of physicians,for some profess themselves to bephysicians of the eyes, others of the head,others of the teeth, others of the affectionsof the stomach, and others of the moreobscure ailments.

Their fashions of mourning and of burial

are these:--Whenever any household haslost a man who is of any regard amongstthem, the whole number of women of thathouse forthwith plaster over their heads oreven their faces with mud. Then leavingthe corpse within the house they gothemselves to and fro about the city andbeat themselves, with their garmentsbound up by a girdle and their breastsexposed, and with them go all the womenwho are related to the dead man, and onthe other side the men beat themselves,they too having their garments bound upby a girdle; and when they have done this,they then convey the body to theembalming. In this occupation certainpersons employ themselves regularly andinherit this as a craft. These, whenever acorpse is conveyed to them, show to thosewho brought it wooden models of corpsesmade like reality by painting, and the bestof the ways of embalming they say is that

of him whose name I think it impiety tomention when speaking of a matter of sucha kind; the second which they show is lessgood than this and also less expensive;and the third is the least expensive of all.Having told them about this, they inquireof them in which way they desire thecorpse of their friend to be prepared. Thenthey after they have agreed for a certainprice depart out of the way, and the othersbeing left behind in the buildings embalmaccording to the best of these waysthus:--First with the crooked iron tool theydraw out the brain through the nostrils,extracting it partly thus and partly bypouring in drugs; and after this with asharp stone of Ethiopia they make a cutalong the side and take out the wholecontents of the belly, and when they havecleared out the cavity and cleansed it withpalm-wine they cleanse it again withspices pounded up: then they fill the belly

with pure myrrh pounded up and withcassia and other spices exceptfrankincense, and sew it together again.Having so done they keep it forembalming covered up in natron forseventy days, but for a longer time thanthis it is not permitted to embalm it; andwhen the seventy days are past, they washthe corpse and roll its whole body up infine linen cut into bands, smearing thesebeneath with gum, which the Egyptiansuse generally instead of glue. Then thekinsfolk receive it from them and have awooden figure made in the shape of a man,and when they have had this made theyenclose the corpse, and having shut it upwithin, they store it then in a sepulchralchamber, setting it to stand upright againstthe wall. Thus they deal with the corpseswhich are prepared in the most costly way;but for those who desire the middle wayand wish to avoid great cost they prepare

the corpse as follows:--having filled theirsyringes with the oil which is got fromcedar-wood, with this they forthwith fill thebelly of the corpse, and this they dowithout having either cut it open or takenout the bowels, but they inject the oil bythe breech, and having stopped thedrench from returning back they keep itthen the appointed number of days forembalming, and on the last of the daysthey let the cedar oil come out from thebelly, which they before put in; and it hassuch power that it brings out with it thebowels and interior organs of the bodydissolved; and the natron dissolves theflesh, so that there is left of the corpse onlythe skin and the bones. When they havedone this they give back the corpse atonce in that condition without workingupon it any more. The third kind ofembalming, by which are prepared thebodies of those who have less means, is as

follows:--they cleanse out the belly with apurge and then keep the body forembalming during the seventy days, andat once after that they give it back to thebringers to carry away. The wives of menof rank when they die are not given atonce to be embalmed, nor such women asare very beautiful or of greater regardthan others, but on the third or fourth dayafter their death (and not before) they aredelivered to the embalmers. They do soabout this matter in order that theembalmers may not abuse their women,for they say that one of them was takenonce doing so to the corpse of a womanlately dead, and his fellow-craftsman gaveinformation. Whenever any one, either ofthe Egyptians themselves or of strangers,is found to have been carried off by acrocodile or brought to his death by theriver itself, the people of any city by whichhe may have been cast up on land must

embalm him and lay him out in the fairestway they can and bury him in a sacredburial-place, nor may any of his relationsor friends besides touch him, but thepriests of the Nile themselves handle thecorpse and bury it as that of one who wassomething more than man.

Hellenic usages they will by no meansfollow, and to speak generally they followthose of no other men whatever. This ruleis observed by most of the Egyptians; butthere is a large city named Chemmis in theTheban district near Neapolis, and in thiscity there is a temple of Perseus the son ofDanae which is of a square shape, andround it grow date-palms: the gateway ofthe temple is built of stone and of verygreat size, and at the entrance of it standtwo great statues of stone. Within thisenclosure is a temple-house and in itstands an image of Perseus. These people

of Chemmis say that Perseus is wont oftento appear in their land and often within thetemple, and that a sandal which has beenworn by him is found sometimes, being inlength two cubits, and whenever thisappears all Egypt prospers. This they say,and they do in honour of Perseus afterHellenic fashion thus,--they hold anathletic contest, which includes the wholelist of games, and they offer in prizes cattleand cloaks and skins: and when I inquiredwhy to them alone Perseus was wont toappear, and wherefore they wereseparated from all the other Egyptians inthat they held an athletic contest, they saidthat Perseus had been born of their city,for Danaos and Lynkeus were men ofChemmis and had sailed to Hellas, andfrom them they traced a descent and camedown to Perseus: and they told me that hehad come to Egypt for the reason whichthe Hellenes also say, namely to bring

from Libya the Gorgon's head, and hadthen visited them also and recognised allhis kinsfolk, and they said that he had welllearnt the name of Chemmis before hecame to Egypt, since he had heard it fromhis mother, and that they celebrated anathletic contest for him by his owncommand.

All these are customs practised by theEgyptians who dwell above the fens: andthose who are settled in the fenland havethe same customs for the most part as theother Egyptians, both in other matters andalso in that they live each with one wifeonly, as do the Hellenes; but for economyin respect of food they have invented thesethings besides:--when the river hasbecome full and the plains have beenflooded, there grow in the water greatnumbers of lilies, which the Egyptians call_lotos_; these they cut with a sickle and

dry in the sun, and then they pound thatwhich grows in the middle of the lotos andwhich is like the head of a poppy, and theymake of it loaves baked with fire. The rootalso of this lotos is edible and has a rathersweet taste: it is round in shape and aboutthe size of an apple. There are other liliestoo, in flower resembling roses, which alsogrow in the river, and from them the fruit isproduced in a separate vessel springingfrom the root by the side of the plant itself,and very nearly resembles a wasp's comb:in this there grow edible seeds in greatnumbers of the size of an olive-stone, andthey are eaten either fresh or dried.Besides this they pull up from the fens thepapyrus which grows every year, and theupper parts of it they cut off and turn toother uses, but that which is left below forabout a cubit in length they eat or sell: andthose who desire to have the papyrus at itsvery best bake it in an oven heated

red-hot, and then eat it. Some too of thesepeople live on fish alone, which they dry inthe sun after having caught them and takenout the entrails, and then when they aredry, they use them for food.

Fish which swim in shoals are not muchproduced in the rivers, but are bred in thelakes, and they do as follows:--When therecomes upon them the desire to breed, theyswim out in shoals towards the sea; and themales lead the way shedding forth theirmilt as they go, while the females, comingafter and swallowing it up, from it becomeimpregnated: and when they have becomefull of young in the sea they swim up backagain, each shoal to its own haunts. Thesame however no longer lead the way asbefore, but the lead comes now to thefemales, and they leading the way inshoals do just as the males did, that is tosay they shed forth their eggs by a few

grains at a time, and the males comingafter swallow them up. Now these grainsare fish, and from the grains which surviveand are not swallowed, the fish grow whichafterwards are bred up. Now those of thefish which are caught as they swim outtowards the sea are found to be rubbed onthe left side of the head, but those whichare caught as they swim up again arerubbed on the right side. This happens tothem because as they swim down to thesea they keep close to the land on the leftside of the river, and again as they swimup they keep to the same side,approaching and touching the bank asmuch as they can, for fear doubtless ofstraying from their course by reason of thestream. When the Nile begins to swell, thehollow places of the land and thedepressions by the side of the river firstbegin to fill, as the water soaks throughfrom the river, and so soon as they become

full of water, at once they are all filled withlittle fishes; and whence these are in alllikelihood produced, I think that Iperceive. In the preceding year, when theNile goes down, the fish first lay eggs inthe mud and then retire with the last of theretreating waters; and when the timecomes round again, and the water oncemore comes over the land, from theseeggs forthwith are produced the fishes ofwhich I speak.

Thus it is as regards the fish. And foranointing those of the Egyptians who dwellin the fens use oil from the castor-berry,which oil the Egyptians call _kiki_, andthus they do:--they sow along the banks ofthe rivers and pools these plants, which ina wild form grow of themselves in the landof the Hellenes; these are sown in Egyptand produce berries in great quantity butof an evil smell; and when they have

gathered these some cut them up andpress the oil from them, others again roastthem first and then boil them down andcollect that which runs away from them.The oil is fat and not less suitable forburning than olive-oil, but it gives forth adisagreeable smell. Against the gnats,which are very abundant, they havecontrived as follows:--those who dwellabove the fen-land are helped by thetowers, to which they ascend when they goto rest; for the gnats by reason of the windsare not able to fly up high: but those whodwell in the fenland have contrivedanother way instead of the towers, and thisit is:--every man of them has got a castingnet, with which by day he catches fish, butin the night he uses it for this purpose, thatis to say he puts the casting-net roundabout the bed in which he sleeps, and thencreeps in under it and goes to sleep: andthe gnats, if he sleeps rolled up in a

garment or a linen sheet, bite throughthese, but through the net they do not evenattempt to bite.

Their boats with which they carry cargoesare made of the thorny acacia, of which theform is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos,and that which exudes from it is gum. Fromthis tree they cut pieces of wood about twocubits in length and arrange them likebricks, fastening the boat together byrunning a great number of long boltsthrough the two-cubits pieces; and whenthey have thus fastened the boat together,they lay cross-pieces over the top, usingno ribs for the sides; and within they caulkthe seams with papyrus. They make onesteering-oar for it, which is passed throughthe bottom of the boat; and they have amast of acacia and sails of papyrus. Theseboats cannot sail up the river unless therebe a very fresh wind blowing, but are

towed from the shore: down-streamhowever they travel as follows:--they havea door-shaped crate made of tamariskwood and reed mats sewn together, andalso a stone of about two talents weightbored with a hole; and of these theboatman lets the crate float on in front ofthe boat, fastened with a rope, and thestone drags behind by another rope. Thecrate then, as the force of the streampresses upon it, goes on swiftly and drawson the _baris_ (for so these boats arecalled), while the stone dragging after itbehind and sunk deep in the water keepsits course straight. These boats they havein great numbers and some of them carrymany thousands of talents' burden.

When the Nile comes over the land, thecities alone are seen rising above thewater, resembling more nearly thananything else the islands in the Egean Sea;

for the rest of Egypt becomes a sea and thecities alone rise above water. Accordingly,whenever this happens, they pass bywater not now by the channels of the riverbut over the midst of the plain: forexample, as one sails up from Naucratis toMemphis the passage is then close by thepyramids, whereas the usual passage isnot the same even here, but goes by thepoint of the Delta and the city ofKercasoros; while if you sail over the plainto Naucratis from the sea and fromCanobos, you will go by Anthylla and thecity called after Archander. Of theseAnthylla is a city of note and is especiallyassigned to the wife of him who reignsover Egypt, to supply her with sandals,(this is the case since the time when Egyptcame to be under the Persians): the othercity seems to me to have its name fromArchander the son-in-law of Danaos, whowas the son of Phthios, the son of Achaios;

for it is called the City of Archander. Theremight indeed by another Archander, but inany case the name is not Egyptian.

*****

Hitherto my own observation andjudgment and inquiry are the vouchers forthat which I have said; but from this pointonwards I am about to tell the history ofEgypt according to that which I haveheard, to which will be added alsosomething of that which I have myselfseen.

Of Min, who first became king of Egypt,the priests said that on the one hand hebanked off the site of Memphis from theriver: for the whole stream of the riverused to flow along by the sandy

mountain-range on the side of Libya, butMin formed by embankments that bend ofthe river which lies to the South about ahundred furlongs above Memphis, andthus he dried up the old stream andconducted the river so that it flowed in themiddle between the mountains: and evennow this bend of the Nile is by the Persianskept under very careful watch, that it mayflow in the channel to which it is confined,and the bank is repaired every year; for ifthe river should break through andoverflow in this direction, Memphis wouldbe in danger of being overwhelmed byflood. When this Min, who first becameking, had made into dry land the partwhich was dammed off, on the one hand, Isay, he founded in it that city which is nowcalled Memphis; for Memphis too is in thenarrow part of Egypt; and outside the cityhe dug round it on the North and West alake communicating with the river, for the

side towards the East is barred by the Nileitself. Then secondly he established in thecity the temple of Hephaistos a great workand most worthy of mention. After this manthe priests enumerated to me from apapyrus roll the names of other kings,three hundred and thirty in number; and inall these generations of men eighteenwere Ethiopians, one was a woman, anative Egyptian, and the rest were menand of Egyptian race: and the name of thewoman who reigned was the same as thatof the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris.Of her they said that desiring to takevengeance for her brother, whom theEgyptians had slain when he was theirking and then, after having slain him, hadgiven his kingdom to her,--desiring, I say,to take vengeance for him, she destroyedby craft many of the Egyptians. For shecaused to be constructed a very largechamber under ground, and making as

though she would handsel it but in hermind devising other things, she invitedthose of the Egyptians whom she knew tohave had most part in the murder, andgave a great banquet. Then while theywere feasting, she let in the river uponthem by a secret conduit of large size. Ofher they told no more than this, exceptthat, when this had been accomplished,she threw herself into a room full ofembers, in order that she might escapevengeance. As for the other kings, theycould tell me of no great works which hadbeen produced by them, and they said thatthey had no renown except only the last ofthem, Moiris: he (they said) produced as amemorial of himself the gateway of thetemple of Hephaistos which is turnedtowards the North Wind, and dug a lake,about which I shall set forth afterwardshow many furlongs of circuit it has, and init built pyramids of the size which I shall

mention at the same time when I speak ofthe lake itself. He, they said, producedthese works, but of the rest none producedany.

Therefore passing these by I will makemention of the king who came after these,whose name is Sesostris. He (the priestssaid) first of all set out with ships of warfrom the Arabian gulf and subdued thosewho dwelt by the shores of the ErythraianSea, until as he sailed he came to a seawhich could no further be navigated byreason of shoals: then secondly, after hehad returned to Egypt, according to thereport of the priests he took a great armyand marched over the continent, subduingevery nation which stood in his way: andthose of them whom he found valiant andfighting desperately for their freedom, intheir lands he set up pillars which told byinscriptions his own name and the name of

his country, and how he had subdued themby his power; but as to those of whosecities he obtained possession withoutfighting or with ease, on their pillars heinscribed words after the same tenor as hedid for the nations which had shownthemselves courageous, and in addition hedrew upon them the hidden parts of awoman, desiring to signify by this that thepeople were cowards and effeminate. Thusdoing he traversed the continent, until atlast he passed over to Europe from Asiaand subdued the Scythians and also theThracians. These, I am of opinion, were thefurthest people to which the Egyptian armycame, for in their country the pillars arefound to have been set up, but in the landbeyond this they are no longer found.From this point he turned and began to goback; and when he came to the riverPhasis, what happened then I cannot sayfor certain, whether the king Sesostris

himself divided off a certain portion of hisarmy and left the men there as settlers inthe land, or whether some of his soldierswere wearied by his distant marches andremained by the river Phasis. For thepeople of Colchis are evidently Egyptian,and this I perceived for myself before Iheard it from others. So when I had cometo consider the matter I asked them both;and the Colchians had remembrance ofthe Egyptians more than the Egyptians ofthe Colchians; but the Egyptians said theybelieved that the Colchians were a portionof the army of Sesostris. That this was so Iconjectured myself not only because theyare dark-skinned and have curly hair (thisof itself amounts to nothing, for there areother races which are so), but also stillmore because the Colchians, Egyptians,and Ethiopians alone of all the races ofmen have practised circumcision from thefirst. The Phenicians and the Syrians who

dwell in Palestine confess themselves thatthey have learnt it from the Egyptians, andthe Syrians about the river Thermodon andthe river Parthenios, and the Macronians,who are their neighbors, say that theyhave learnt it lately from the Colchians.These are the only races of men whopractise circumcision, and these evidentlypractise it in the same manner as theEgyptians. Of the Egyptians themselveshowever and the Ethiopians, I am not ableto say which learnt from the other, forundoubtedly it is a most ancient custom;but that the other nations learnt it byintercourse with the Egyptians, this amongothers is to me a strong proof, namely thatthose of the Phenicians who haveintercourse with Hellas cease to follow theexample of the Egyptians in this matter,and do not circumcise their children. Nowlet me tell another thing about theColchians to show how they resemble the

Egyptians:--they alone work flax in thesame fashion as the Egyptians, and the twonations are like one another in their wholemanner of living and also in theirlanguage: now the linen of Colchis iscalled by the Hellenes Sardonic, whereasthat from Egypt is called Egyptian. Thepillars which Sesostris king of Egypt set upin the various countries are for the mostpart no longer to be seen extant; but inSyria Palestine I myself saw them existingwith the inscription upon them which Ihave mentioned and the emblem.Moreover in Ionia there are two figures ofthis man carved upon rocks, one on theroad by which one goes from the land ofEphesos to Phocaia, and the other on theroad from Sardis to Smyrna. In each placethere is a figure of a man cut in the rock, offour cubits and a span in height, holding inhis right hand a spear and in his left a bowand arrows, and the other equipment

which he has is similar to this, for it is bothEgyptian and Ethiopian: and from the oneshoulder to the other across the breastruns an inscription carved in sacredEgyptian characters, saying thus, "Thisland with my shoulders I won for myself."But who he is and from whence, he doesnot declare in these places, though inother places he had declared this. Some ofthose who have seen these carvingsconjecture that the figure is that ofMemnon, but herein they are very far fromthe truth.

As this Egyptian Sesostris was returningand bringing back many men of thenations whose lands he had subdued,when he came (said the priests) toDaphnai in the district of Pelusion on hisjourney home, his brother to whomSesostris had entrusted the charge ofEgypt invited him and with him his sons to

a feast; and then he piled the house roundwith brushwood and set it on fire: andSesostris when he discovered thisforthwith took counsel with his wife, for hewas bringing with him (they said) his wifealso; and she counselled him to lay outupon the pyre two of his sons, which weresix in number, and so to make a bridgeover the burning mass, and that theypassing over their bodies should thusescape. This, they said, Sesostris did, andtwo of his sons were burnt to death in thismanner, but the rest got away safe withtheir father. Then Sesostris, havingreturned to Egypt and having takenvengeance on his brother employed themultitude which he had brought in of thosewho whose lands he had subdued, asfollows:--these were they drew the stoneswhich in the reign of this king werebrought to the temple of Hephaistos, beingof very good size; and also these were

compelled to dig all the channels whichnow are in Egypt; and thus (having no suchpurpose) they caused Egypt, which beforewas all fit for riding and driving, to be nolonger fit for this from thenceforth: for fromthat time forward Egypt, though it is plainland, has become all unfit for riding anddriving, and the cause has been thesechannels, which are many and run in alldirections. But the reason why the king cutup the land was this, namely becausethose of the Egyptians who had their citiesnot on the river but in the middle of thecountry, being in want of water when theriver went down from them, found theirdrink brackish because they had it fromwells. For this reason Egypt was cut up:and they said that this king distributed theland to all the Egyptians, giving an equalsquare portion to each man, and from thishe made his revenue, having appointedthem to pay a certain rent every year: and

if the river should take away anything fromany man's portion, he would come to theking and declare that which hadhappened, and the king used to send mento examine and to find out bymeasurement how much less the piece ofland had become, in order that for thefuture the man might pay less, inproportion to the rent appointed: and Ithink that thus the art of geometry wasfound out and afterwards came into Hellasalso. For as touching the sun-dial and thegnomon and the twelve divisions of theday, they were learnt by the Hellenes fromthe Babylonians. He moreover alone of allthe Egyptian kings had rule over Ethiopia;and he left as memorials of himself in frontof the temple of Hephaistos two stonestatues of thirty cubits each, representinghimself and his wife, and others of twentycubits each representing his four sons: andlong afterwards the priest of Hephaistos

refused to permit Dareios the Persian toset up a statue of himself in front of them,saying that deeds had not been done byhim equal to those which were done bySesostris the Egyptian; for Sesostris hadsubdued other nations besides, not fewerthan he, and also the Scythians; butDareios had not been able to conquer theScythians: wherefore it was not just that heshould set up a statue in front of thosewhich Sesostris had dedicated, if he didnot surpass him in his deeds. Whichspeech, they say, Dareios took in goodpart.

Now after Sesostris had brought his life toan end, his son Pheros, they told me,received in succession the kingdom, andhe made no warlike expedition, andmoreover it chanced to him to becomeblind by reason of the followingaccident:--when the river had come down

in flood rising to a height of eighteencubits, higher than ever before that time,and had gone over the fields, a wind fellupon it and the river became agitated bywaves: and this king (they say) moved bypresumptuous folly took a spear and cast itinto the midst of the eddies of the stream;and immediately upon this he had adisease of the eyes and was by it madeblind. For ten years then he was blind, andin the eleventh year there came to him anoracle from the city of Buto saying that thetime of his punishment had expired, andthat he should see again if he washed hiseyes with the water of a woman who hadaccompanied with her own husband onlyand had not had knowledge of other men:and first he made trial of his own wife, andthen, as he continued blind, he went on totry all the women in turn; and when he hadat least regained his sight he gatheredtogether all the women of whom he had

made trial, excepting her by whose meanshe had regained his sight, to one citywhich now is named Erythrabolos, andhaving gathered them to this he consumedthem all by fire, as well as the city itself;but as for her by whose means he hadregained his sight, he had her himself towife. Then after he had escaped themalady of his eyes he dedicated offeringsat each one of the temples which were ofrenown, and especially (to mention onlythat which is most worthy of mention) hededicated at the temple of the Sun workswhich are worth seeing, namely twoobelisks of stone, each of a single block,measuring in length a hundred cubits eachone and in breadth eight cubits.

After him, they said, there succeeded tothe throne a man of Memphis, whose namein the tongue of the Hellenes was Proteus;for whom there is now a sacred enclosure

at Memphis, very fair and well ordered,lying on that side of the temple ofHephaistos which faces the North Wind.Round about this enclosure dwellPhenicians of Tyre, and this whole regionis called the Camp of the Tyrians. Withinthe enclosure of Proteus there is a templecalled the temple of the "foreignAphrodite," which temple I conjecture tobe one of Helen the daughter ofTyndareus, not only because I have heardthe tale how Helen dwelt with Proteus, butalso especially because it is called by thename of the "foreign Aphrodite," for theother temples of Aphrodite which thereare have none of them the addition of theword "foreign" to the name.

And the priests told me, when I inquired,that the things concerning Helenhappened thus:--Alexander having carriedoff Helen was sailing away from Sparta to

his own land, and when he had come to theEgean Sea contrary winds drove him fromhis course to the Sea of Egypt; and afterthat, since the blasts did not cease to blow,he came to Egypt itself, and in Egypt tothat which is now named the Canobicmouth of the Nile and to Taricheiai. Nowthere was upon the shore, as still there isnow, a temple of Heracles, in which if anyman's slave take refuge and have thesacred marks set upon him, giving himselfover to the god, it is not lawful to lay handsupon him; but this custom has continuedstill unchanged from the beginning downto my own time. Accordingly theattendants of Alexander, having heard ofthe custom which existed about thetemple, ran away from him, and sittingdown as suppliants of the god, accusedAlexander, because they desired to dohim hurt, telling the whole tale how thingswere about Helen and about the wrong

done to Menalaos; and this accusation theymade not only to the priests but also to thewarden of this river-mouth, whose namewas Thonis. Thonis then having heard theirtale sent forthwith a message to Proteus atMemphis, which said as follows: "Therehath come a stranger, a Teucrian by race,who hath done in Hellas an unholy deed;for he hath deceived the wife of his ownhost, and is come hither bringing with himthis woman herself and very much wealth,having been carried out of his way bywinds to thy land. Shall we then allow himto sail out unharmed, or shall we first takeaway from him that which he brought withhim?" In reply to this Proteus sent back amessenger who said thus: "Seize this man,whosoever he may be, who has doneimpiety to his own host, and bring himaway into my presence that I may knowwhat he will find to say." Hearing this,Thonis seized Alexander and detained his

ships, and after that he brought the manhimself up to Memphis and with him Helenand the wealth he had, and also in additionto them the suppliants. So when all hadbeen conveyed up thither, Proteus beganto ask Alexander who he was and fromwhence he was voyaging; and he bothrecounted to him his descent and told himthe name of his native land, and moreoverrelated of his voyage, from whence he wassailing. After this Proteus asked himwhence he had taken Helen; and whenAlexander went astray in his account anddid not speak the truth, those who hadbecome suppliants convicted him offalsehood, relating in full the whole tale ofthe wrong done. At length Proteusdeclared to them this sentence, saying,"Were it not that I count it a matter of greatmoment not to slay any of those strangerswho being driven from their course bywinds have come to my land hitherto, I

should have taken vengeance on thee onbehalf of the man of Hellas, seeing thatthou, most base of men, having receivedfrom him hospitality, didst work againsthim a most impious deed. For thou didstgo in to the wife of thine own host; andeven this was not enough for thee, but thoudidst stir her up with desire and hast goneaway with her like a thief. Moreover noteven this by itself was enough for thee, butthou art come hither with plunder takenfrom the house of thy host. Now thereforedepart, seeing that I have counted it ofgreat moment not to be a slayer ofstrangers. This woman indeed and thewealth which thou hast I will not allow theeto carry away, but I shall keep them safefor the Hellene who was thy host, until hecome himself and desire to carry them offto his home; to thyself however and thyfellow-voyagers I proclaim that ye departfrom your anchoring within three days and

go from my land to some other; and if not,that ye will be dealt with as enemies."

This the priests said was the manner ofHelen's coming to Proteus; and I supposethat Homer also had heard this story, butsince it was not so suitable to thecomposition of his poem as the otherwhich he followed, he dismissed it finally,making it clear at the same time that hewas acquainted with that story also: andaccording to the manner in which hedescribed the wanderings of Alexander inthe Iliad (nor did he elsewhere retract thatwhich he had said) of his course,wandering to various lands, and that hecame among other places to Sidon inPhenicia. Of this the poet has mademention in the "prowess of Diomede," andthe verses run thus:

"There she had robes many-coloured,

the works of women of Sidon, Thosewhom her son himself the god-like of formAlexander Carried from Sidon, whattime the broad sea-path he sailed overBringing back Helene home, of a noblefather begotten."

And in the Odyssey also he has mademention of it in these verses:

"Such had the daughter of Zeus, suchdrugs of exquisite cunning, Good,which to her the wife of Thon, Polydamna,had given, Dwelling in Egypt, the landwhere the bountiful meadow producesDrugs more than all lands else, many goodbeing mixed, many evil."

And thus too Menelaos says toTelemachos:

"Still the gods stayed me in Egypt, to

come back hither desiring, Stayed mefrom voyaging home, since sacrifice due Iperformed not."

In these lines he makes it clear that heknew of the wanderings of Alexander toEgypt, for Syria borders upon Egypt andthe Phenicians, of whom is Sidon, dwell inSyria. By these lines and by this passage itis also most clearly shown that the"Cyprian Epic" was not written by Homerbut by some other man: for in this it is saidthat on the third day after leaving SpartaAlexander came to Ilion bringing with himHelen, having had a "gently-blowing windand a smooth sea," whereas in the Iliad itsays that he wandered from his coursewhen he brought her.

Let us now leave Homer and the "CyprianEpic"; but this I will say, namely that Iasked the priests whether it is but an idle

tale which the Hellenes tell of that whichthey say happened about Ilion; and theyanswered me thus, saying that they hadtheir knowledge by inquiries fromMenelaos himself. After the rape of Helenthere came indeed, they said, to theTeucrian land a large army of Hellenes tohelp Menelaos; and when the army hadcome out of the ships to land and hadpitched its camp there, they sentmessengers to Ilion, with whom went alsoMenelaos himself; and when these enteredwithin the wall they demanded back Helenand the wealth which Alexander had stolenfrom Menelaos and had taken away; andmoreover they demanded satisfaction forthe wrongs done: and the Teucrians toldthe same tale then and afterwards, bothwith oath and without oath, namely that indeed and in truth they had not Helen northe wealth for which demand was made,but that both were in Egypt; and that they

could not justly be compelled to givesatisfaction for that which Proteus the kingof Egypt had. The Hellenes howeverthought that they were being mocked bythem and besieged the city, until at lastthey took it; and when they had taken thewall and did not find Helen, but heard thesame tale as before, then they believedthe former tale and sent Menelaos himselfto Proteus. And Menelaos having come toEgypt and having sailed up to Memphis,told the truth of these matters, and not onlyfound great entertainment, but alsoreceived Helen unhurt, and all his ownwealth besides. Then, however, after hehad been thus dealt with, Menelaosshowed himself ungrateful to theEgyptians; for when he set forth to sailaway, contrary winds detained him, and asthis condition of things lasted long, hedevised an impious deed; for he took twochildren of natives and made sacrifice of

them. After this, when it was known that hehad done so, he became abhorred, andbeing pursued he escaped and got awayin his ships to Libya; but whither he wentbesides after this, the Egyptians were notable to tell. Of these things they said thatthey found out part by inquiries, and therest, namely that which happened in theirown land, they related from sure andcertain knowledge.

Thus the priests of the Egyptians told me;and I myself also agree with the storywhich was told of Helen, adding thisconsideration, namely that if Helen hadbeen in Ilion she would have been givenup to the Hellenes, whether Alexanderconsented or no; for Priam assuredly wasnot so mad, nor yet the others of his house,that they were desirous to run risk of ruinfor themselves and their children and theircity, in order that Alexander might have

Helen as his wife: and even supposing thatduring the first part of the time they hadbeen so inclined, yet when many others ofthe Trojans besides were losing their livesas often as they fought with the Hellenes,and of the sons of Priam himself always twoor three or even more were slain when abattle took place (if one may trust at all tothe Epic poets),--when, I say, things werecoming thus to pass, I consider that even ifPriam himself had had Helen as his wife,he would have given her back to theAchaians, if at least by so doing he mightbe freed from the evils which oppressedhim. Nor even was the kingdom coming toAlexander next, so that when Priam wasold the government was in his hands; butHector, who was both older and more of aman than he, would certainly havereceived it after the death of Priam; andhim it behoved not to allow his brother togo on with his wrong-doing, considering

that great evils were coming to pass on hisaccount both to himself privately and ingeneral to the other Trojans. In truthhowever they lacked the power to giveHelen back; and the Hellenes did notbelieve them, though they spoke the truth;because, as I declare my opinion, thedivine power was purposing to cause themutterly to perish, and so make it evident tomen that for great wrongs great also arethe chastisements which come from thegods. And thus have I delivered myopinion concerning these matters.

After Proteus, they told me, Rhampsinitosreceived in succession the kingdom, wholeft as a memorial of himself that gatewayto the temple of Hephaistos which is turnedtowards the West, and in front of thegateway he set up two statues, in heightfive-and-twenty cubits, of which the onewhich stands on the North side is called by

the Egyptians Summer and the one on theSouth side Winter; and to that one whichthey call Summer they do reverence andmake offerings, while to the other which iscalled Winter they do the opposite of thesethings. This king, they said, got greatwealth of silver, which none of the kingsborn after him could surpass or even comenear to; and wishing to store his wealth insafety he caused to be built a chamber ofstone, one of the walls whereof wastowards the outside of his palace: and thebuilder of this, having a design against it,contrived as follows, that is, he disposedone of the stones in such a manner that itcould be taken out easily from the walleither by two men or even by one. Sowhen the chamber was finished, the kingstored his money in it, and after some timethe builder, being near the end of his life,called to him his sons (for he had two) andto them he related how he had contrived in

building the treasury of the king, and all inforethought for them, that they might haveample means of living. And when he hadclearly set forth to them everythingconcerning the taking out of the stone, hegave them the measurements, saying thatif they paid heed to this matter they wouldbe stewards of the king's treasury. So heended his life, and his sons made no longdelay in setting to work, but went to thepalace by night, and having found thestone in the wall of the chamber they dealtwith it easily and carried forth forthemselves great quantity of the wealthwithin. And the king happening to openthe chamber, he marvelled when he sawthe vessels falling short of the full amount,and he did not know on whom he shouldlay the blame, since the seals wereunbroken and the chamber had been closeshut; but when upon his opening thechamber a second and a third time the

money was each time seen to bediminished, for the thieves did not slackenin their assaults upon it, he did asfollows:--having ordered traps to be madehe set these round about the vessels inwhich the money was; and when thethieves had come as at former times andone of them had entered, then so soon ashe came near to one of the vessels he wasstraightway caught in the trap: and whenhe perceived in what evil case he was,straightway calling his brother he showedhim what the matter was, and bade himenter as quickly as possible and cut off hishead, for fear lest being seen and knownhe might bring about the destruction of hisbrother also. And to the other it seemedthat he spoke well, and he was persuadedand did so; and fitting the stone into itsplace he departed home bearing with himthe head of his brother. Now when itbecame day, the king entered into the

chamber and was very greatly amazed,seeing the body of the thief held in the trapwithout his head, and the chamberunbroken, with no way to come in by or goout: and being at a loss he hung up thedead body of the thief upon the wall andset guards there, with charge if they sawany one weeping or bewailing himself toseize him and bring him before the king.And when the dead body had been hungup, the mother was greatly grieved, andspeaking with the son who survived sheenjoined him, in whatever way he could, tocontrive means by which he might takedown and bring home the body of hisbrother; and if he should neglect to do this,she earnestly threatened that she would goand give information to the king that hehad the money. So as the mother dealthardly with the surviving son, and hethough saying many things to her did notpersuade her, he contrived for his purpose

a device as follows:--Providing himselfwith asses he filled some skins with wineand laid them upon the asses, and afterthat he drove them along: and when hecame opposite to those who wereguarding the corpse hung up, he drewtowards him two or three of the necks ofthe skins and loosened the cords withwhich they were tied. Then when the winewas running out, he began to beat his headand cry out loudly, as if he did not know towhich of the asses he should first turn; andwhen the guards saw the wine flowing outin streams, they ran together to the roadwith drinking vessels in their hands andcollected the wine that was poured out,counting it so much gain; and he abusedthem all violently, making as if he wereangry, but when the guards tried toappease him, after a time he feigned to bepacified and to abate his anger, and atlength he drove his asses out of the road

and began to set their loads right. Thenmore talk arose among them, and one ortwo of them made jests at him and broughthim to laugh with them; and in the end hemade them a present of one of the skins inaddition to what they had. Upon that theylay down there without more ado, beingminded to drink, and they took him intotheir company and invited him to remainwith them and join them in their drinking:so he (as may be supposed) waspersuaded and stayed. Then as they intheir drinking bade him welcome in afriendly manner, he made a present tothem also of another of the skins; and so atlength having drunk liberally the guardsbecame completely intoxicated; and beingovercome by sleep they went to bed onthe spot where they had been drinking. Hethen, as it was now far on in the night, firsttook down the body of his brother, andthen in mockery shaved the right cheeks of

all the guards; and after that he put thedead body upon the asses and drove themaway home, having accomplished thatwhich was enjoined him by his mother.Upon this the king, when it was reported tohim that the dead body of the thief hadbeen stolen away, displayed great anger;and desiring by all means that it should befound out who it might be who devisedthese things, did this (so at least they said,but I do not believe the account),--hecaused his own daughter to sit in the stews,and enjoined her to receive all equally,and before having commerce with any oneto compel him to tell her what was the mostcunning and what the most unholy deedwhich had been done by him in all hislife-time; and whosoever should relate thatwhich had happened about the thief, himshe must seize and not let him go out. Thenas she was doing that which was enjoinedby her father, the thief, hearing for what

purpose this was done and having a desireto get the better of the king in resource,did thus:--from the body of one lately deadhe cut off the arm at the shoulder and wentwith it under his mantle: and having gonein to the daughter of the king, and beingasked that which the others also wereasked, he related that he had done themost unholy deed when he cut off the headof his brother, who had been caught in atrap in the king's treasure-chamber, andthe most cunning deed in that he madedrunk the guards and took down the deadbody of his brother hanging up; and shewhen she heard it tried to take hold of him,but the thief held out to her in the darknessthe arm of the corpse, which she graspedand held, thinking that she was holding thearm of the man himself; but the thief left itin her hands and departed, escapingthrough the door. Now when this also wasreported to the king, he was at first

amazed at the ready invention and daringof the fellow, and then afterwards he sentround to all the cities and madeproclamation granting a free pardon to thethief, and also promising a great reward ifhe would come into his presence. The thiefaccordingly trusting to the proclamationcame to the king, and Rhampsinitosgreatly marvelled at him, and gave himthis daughter of his to wife, counting him tobe the most knowing of all men; for as theEgyptians were distinguished from allother men, so was he from the otherEgyptians.

After these things they said this king wentdown alive to that place which by theHellenes is called Hades, and there playedat dice with Demeter, and in some throwshe overcame her and in others he wasovercome by her; and he came back againhaving as a gift from her a handkerchief of

gold: and they told me that because of thegoing down of Rhampsinitos the Egyptiansafter he came back celebrated a feast,which I know of my own knowledge alsothat they still observe even to my time; butwhether it is for this cause that they keepthe feast or for some other, I am not able tosay. However, the priests weave a robecompletely on the very day of the feast,and forthwith they bind up the eyes of oneof them with a fillet, and having led himwith the robe to the way by which onegoes to the temple of Demeter, they departback again themselves. This priest, theysay, with his eyes bound up is led by twowolves to the temple of Demeter, which isdistant from the city twenty furlongs, andthen afterwards the wolves lead him backagain from the temple to the same spot.Now as to the tales told by the Egyptians,any man may accept them to whom suchthings appear credible; as for me, it is to

be understood throughout the whole of thehistory that I write by hearsay that which isreported by the people in each place. TheEgyptians say that Demeter and Dionysosare rulers of the world below; and theEgyptians are also the first who reportedthe doctrine that the soul of man isimmortal, and that when the body dies, thesoul enters into another creature whichchances then to be coming to the birth,and when it has gone the round of all thecreatures of land and sea and of the air, itenters again into a human body as it comesto the birth; and that it makes this round ina period of three thousand years. Thisdoctrine certain Hellenes adopted, someearlier and some later, as if it were of theirown invention, and of these men I knowthe names but I abstain from recordingthem.

Down to the time when Rhampsinitos was

king, they told me there was in Egyptnothing but orderly rule, and Egyptprospered greatly; but after him Cheopsbecame king over them and brought themto every kind of evil: for he shut up all thetemples, and having first kept them fromsacrifices there, he then bade all theEgyptians work for him. So some wereappointed to draw stones from thestone-quarries in the Arabian mountains tothe Nile, and others he ordered to receivethe stones after they had been carriedover the river in boats, and to draw themto those which are called the Libyanmountains; and they worked by a hundredthousand men at a time, for each threemonths continually. Of this oppressionthere passed ten years while the causewaywas made by which they drew the stones,which causeway they built, and it is a worknot much less, as it appears to me, than thepyramid; for the length of it is five furlongs

and the breadth ten fathoms and theheight, where it is highest, eight fathoms,and it is made of stone smoothed and withfigures carved upon it. For this they said,the ten years were spent, and for theunderground he caused to be made assepulchral chambers for himself in anisland, having conducted thither a channelfrom the Nile. For the making of thepyramid itself there passed a period oftwenty years; and the pyramid is square,each side measuring eight hundred feet,and the height of it is the same. It is built ofstone smoothed and fitted together in themost perfect manner, not one of the stonesbeing less than thirty feet in length. Thispyramid was made after the manner ofsteps which some called "rows" and others"bases": and when they had first made itthus, they raised the remaining stones withmachines made of short pieces of timber,raising them first from the ground to the

first stage of the steps, and when the stonegot up to this it was placed upon anothermachine standing on the first stage, and sofrom this it was drawn to the second uponanother machine; for as many as were thecourses of the steps, so many machinesthere were also, or perhaps theytransferred one and the same machine,made so as easily to be carried, to eachstage successively, in order that theymight take up the stones; for let it be toldin both ways, according as it is reported.However that may be the highest parts of itwere finished first, and afterwards theyproceeded to finish that which came nextto them, and lastly they finished the partsof it near the ground and the lowestranges. On the pyramid it is declared inEgyptian writing how much was spent onradishes and onions and leeks for theworkmen, and if I rightly remember thatwhich the interpreter said in reading to me

this inscription, a sum of one thousand sixhundred talents of silver was spent; and ifthis is so, how much besides is likely tohave been expended upon the iron withwhich they worked, and upon bread andclothing for the workmen, seeing that theywere building the works for the time whichhas been mentioned and were occupiedfor no small time besides, as I suppose, inthe cutting and bringing of the stones andin working at the excavation under theground? Cheops moreover came, theysaid, to such a pitch of wickedness, thatbeing in want of money he caused his owndaughter to sit in the stews, and orderedher to obtain from those who came acertain amount of money (how much it wasthey did not tell me): and she not onlyobtained the sum appointed by her father,but also she formed a design for herselfprivately to leave behind her a memorial,and she requested each man who came in

to give her one stone upon her building:and of these stones, they told me, thepyramid was built which stands in front ofthe great pyramid in the middle of thethree, each side being one hundred andfifty feet in length.

This Cheops, the Egyptians said, reignedfifty years; and after he was dead hisbrother Chephren succeeded to thekingdom. This king followed the samemanner of dealing as the other, both in allthe rest and also in that he made apyramid, not indeed attaining to themeasurements of that which was built bythe former (this I know, having myself alsomeasured it), and moreover there are nounderground chambers beneath nor doesa channel come from the Nile flowing tothis one as to the other, in which the watercoming through a conduit built for it flowsround an island within, where they say that

Cheops himself is laid: but for a basementhe built the first course of Ethiopian stoneof divers colours; and this pyramid hemade forty feet lower than the other asregards size, building it close to the greatpyramid. These stand both upon the samehill, which is about a hundred feet high.And Chephren they said reigned fifty andsix years. Here then they reckon onehundred and six years, during which theysay that there was nothing but evil for theEgyptians, and the temples were keptclosed and not opened during all that time.These kings the Egyptians by reason oftheir hatred of them are not very willing toname; nay, they even call the pyramidsafter the name of Philitis the shepherd,who at that time pastured flocks in thoseregions. After him, they said, Mykerinosbecame king over Egypt, who was the sonof Cheops; and to him his father's deedswere displeasing, and he both opened the

temples and gave liberty to the people,who were ground down to the lastextremity of evil, to return to their ownbusiness and to their sacrifices: also hegave decisions of their causes juster thanthose of all the other kings besides. Inregard to this then they commend this kingmore than all the other kings who hadarisen in Egypt before him; for he not onlygave good decisions, but also when a mancomplained of the decision, he gave himrecompense from his own goods and thussatisfied his desire. But while Mykerinoswas acting mercifully to his subjects andpractising this conduct which has beensaid, calamities befell him, of which thefirst was this, namely that his daughterdied, the only child whom he had in hishouse: and being above measure grievedby that which had befallen him, anddesiring to bury his daughter in a mannermore remarkable than others, he made a

cow of wood, which he covered over withgold, and then within it he buried thisdaughter who as I said, had died. This cowwas not covered up in the ground, but itmight be seen even down to my own timein the city of Sais, placed within the royalpalace in a chamber which was greatlyadorned; and they offer incense of allkinds before it every day, and each night alamp burns beside it all through the night.Near this cow in another chamber standimages of the concubines of Mykerinos, asthe priests at Sais told me; for there are infact colossal wooden statues, in numberabout twenty, made with naked bodies;but who they are I am not able to say,except only that which is reported. Somehowever tell about this cow and thecolossal statues the following tale, namelythat Mykerinos was enamoured of his owndaughter and afterwards ravished her; andupon this they say that the girl strangled

herself for grief, and he buried her in thiscow; and her mother cut off the hands ofthe maids who had betrayed the daughterto her father; wherefore now the images ofthem have suffered that which the maidssuffered in their life. In thus saying theyspeak idly, as it seems to me, especially inwhat they say about the hands of thestatues; for as to this, even we ourselvessaw that their hands had dropped off fromlapse of time, and they were to be seenstill lying at their feet even down to mytime. The cow is covered up with acrimson robe, except only the head andthe neck, which are seen, overlaid withgold very thickly; and between the hornsthere is the disc of the sun figured in gold.The cow is not standing up but kneeling,and in size is equal to a large living cow.Every year it is carried forth from thechamber, at those times, I say, theEgyptians beat themselves for that god

whom I will not name upon occasion ofsuch a matter; at these times, I say, theyalso carry forth the cow to the light of day,for they say that she asked of her fatherMykerinos, when she was dying, that shemight look upon the sun once in the year.

After the misfortune of his daughter ithappened, they said, secondly to this kingas follows:--An oracle came to him fromthe city of Buto, saying that he wasdestined to live but six years more, in theseventh year to end his life: and he beingindignant at it sent to the Oracle areproach against the god, makingcomplaint in reply that whereas his fatherand uncle, who had shut up the templesand had not only not remembered thegods, but also had been destroyers ofmen, had lived for a long time, he himself,who practised piety, was destined to endhis life so soon: and from the Oracle came

a second message, which said that it wasfor this very cause that he was bringing hislife to a swift close; for he had not donethat which it was appointed for him to do,since it was destined that Egypt shouldsuffer evils for a hundred and fifty years,and the two kings who had arisen beforehim had perceived this, but he had not.Mykerinos having heard this, andconsidering that this sentence had passedupon him beyond recall, procured manylamps, and whenever night came on helighted these and began to drink and takehis pleasure, ceasing neither by day norby night; and he went about to thefen-country and to the woods andwherever he heard there were the mostsuitable places of enjoyment. This hedevised (having a mind to prove that theOracle spoke falsely) in order that hemight have twelve years of life instead ofsix, the nights being turned into days.

This king also left behind him a pyramid,much smaller than that of his father, of asquare shape and measuring on each sidethree hundred feet lacking twenty, builtmoreover of Ethiopian stone up to half theheight. This pyramid some of the Hellenessay was built by the courtesan Rhodopis,not therein speaking rightly: and besidesthis it is evident to me that they who speakthus do not even know who Rhodopis was,for otherwise they would not haveattributed to her the building of a pyramidlike this, on which have been spent (so tospeak) innumerable thousands of talents:moreover they do not know that Rhodopisflourished in the reign of Amasis, and notin this king's reign; for Rhodopis lived verymany years later than the kings who leftbehind them these pyramids. By descentshe was of Thrace, and she was a slave ofIadmon the son of Hephaistopolis a

Samian, and a fellow-slave of Esop themaker of fables; for he too was once theslave of Iadmon, as was proved especiallyby this fact, namely that when the peopleof Delphi repeatedly made proclamationin accordance with an oracle, to find someone who would take up the blood-moneyfor the death of Esop, no one elseappeared, but at length the grandson ofIadmon, called Iadmon also, took it up; andthus it is showed that Esop too was theslave of Iadmon. As for Rhodopis, shecame to Egypt brought by Xanthes theSamian, and having come thither toexercise her calling she was redeemedfrom slavery for a great sum by a man ofMytilene, Charaxos son ofScamandronymos and brother of Sapphothe lyric poet. Thus was Rhodopis set free,and she remained in Egypt and by herbeauty won so much liking that she madegreat gain of money for one like Rhodopis,

though not enough to suffice for the cost ofsuch a pyramid as this. In truth there is noneed to ascribe to her very great riches,considering that the tithe of her wealthmay still be seen even to this time by anyone who desires it: for Rhodopis wished toleave behind her a memorial of herself inHellas, namely to cause a thing to be madesuch as happens not to have been thoughtof or dedicated in a temple by anybesides, and to dedicate this at Delphi as amemorial of herself. Accordingly with thetithe of her wealth she caused to be madespits of iron of size large enough to piercea whole ox, and many in number, going asfar therein as her tithe allowed her, andshe sent them to Delphi: these are even atthe present time lying there, heaped alltogether behind the altar which the Chiansdedicated, and just opposite to the cell ofthe temple. Now at Naucratis, as ithappens, the courtesans are rather apt to

win credit; for this woman first, aboutwhom the story to which I refer is told,became so famous that all the Helleneswithout exception came to know the nameof Rhodopis, and then after her one whosename was Archidiche became a subject ofsong all over Hellas, though she was lesstalked of than the other. As for Charaxos,when after redeeming Rhodopis hereturned back to Mytilene, Sappho in anode violently abused him. Of Rhodopisthen I shall say no more.

After Mykerinos the priests said Asychisbecame king of Egypt, and he made forHephaistos the temple gateway which istowards the sunrising, by far the mostbeautiful and the largest of the gateways;for while they all have figures carved uponthem and innumerable ornaments ofbuilding besides, this has them very muchmore than the rest. In this king's reign they

told me that, as the circulation of moneywas very slow, a law was made for theEgyptians that a man might have thatmoney lent to him which he needed, byoffering as security the dead body of hisfather; and there was added moreover tothis law another, namely that he who lentthe money should have a claim also to thewhole of the sepulchral chamberbelonging to him who received it, and thatthe man who offered that security shouldbe subject to this penalty, if he refused topay back the debt, namely that neither theman himself should be allowed to haveburial, when he died, either in that familyburial-place or in any other, nor should hebe allowed to bury any of his kinsmenwhom he lost by death. This king desiringto surpass the kings of Egypt who hadarisen before him left as a memorial ofhimself a pyramid which he made of bricksand on it there is an inscription carved in

stone and saying thus: "Despise not me incomparison with the pyramids of stone,seeing that I excel them as much as Zeusexcels the other gods; for with a pole theystruck into the lake, and whatever of themud attached itself to the pole, this theygathered up and made bricks, and in suchmanner they finished me."

Such were the deeds which this kingperformed: and after him reigned a blindman of the city of Anysis, whose name wasAnysis. In his reign the Ethiopians andSabacos the king of the Ethiopiansmarched upon Egypt with a great host ofmen; so this blind man departed, flying tothe fen-country, and the Ethiopian wasking over Egypt for fifty years, duringwhich he performed deeds asfollows:--whenever any man of theEgyptians committed any transgression,he would never put him to death, but he

gave sentence upon each man accordingto the greatness of the wrong-doing,appointing them to work at throwing up anembankment before that city from whenceeach man came of those who committedwrong. Thus the cities were made higherstill than before; for they were embankedfirst by those who dug the channels in thereign of Sesostris, and then secondly in thereign of the Ethiopian, and thus they weremade very high: and while other cities inEgypt also stood high, I think in the town atBubastis especially the earth was piled up.In this city there is a temple very wellworthy of mention, for though there areother temples which are larger and buildwith more cost, none more than this is apleasure to the eyes. Now Bubastis in theHellenic tongue is Artemis, and her templeis ordered thus:--Except the entrance it iscompletely surrounded by water; forchannels come in from the Nile, not joining

one another, but each extending as far asthe entrance of the temple, one flowinground on the one side and the other on theother side, each a hundred feet broad andshaded over with trees; and the gatewayhas a height of ten fathoms, and it isadorned with figures six cubits high, verynoteworthy. This temple is in the middle ofthe city and is looked down upon from allsides as one goes round, for since the cityhas been banked up to a height, while thetemple has not been moved from the placewhere it was at the first built, it is possibleto look down into it: and round it runs astone wall with figures carved upon it,while within it there is a grove of verylarge trees planted round a largetemple-house, within which is the image ofthe goddess: and the breadth and length ofthe temple is a furlong every way.Opposite the entrance there is a roadpaved with stone for about three furlongs,

which leads through the market-placetowards the East, with a breadth of aboutfour hundred feet; and on this side and onthat grow trees of height reaching toheaven: and the road leads to the templeof Hermes. This temple then is thusordered.

The final deliverance from the Ethiopiancame about (they said) as follows:--he fledaway because he had seen in his sleep avision, in which it seemed to him that aman came and stood by him andcounselled him to gather together all thepriests in Egypt and cut them asunder inthe midst. Having seen this dream, he saidthat it seemed to him that the gods wereforeshowing him this to furnish an occasionagainst him, in order that he might do animpious deed with respect to religion, andso receive some evil either from the godsor from men: he would not however do so,

but in truth (he said) the time had expired,during which it had been prophesied tohim that he should rule Egypt before hedeparted thence. For when he was inEthiopia the Oracles which the Ethiopiansconsult had told him that it was fated forhim to rule Egypt fifty years: since thenthis time was now expiring, and the visionof the dream also disturbed him, Sabacosdeparted out of Egypt of his own free will.

Then when the Ethiopian had gone awayout of Egypt, the blind man came backfrom the fen-country and began to ruleagain, having lived there during fifty yearsupon an island which he had made byheaping up ashes and earth: for wheneverany of the Egyptians visited him bringingfood, according as it had been appointedto them severally to do without theknowledge of the Ethiopian, he bade thembring also some ashes for their gift. This

island none was able to find beforeAmyrtaios; that is, for more than sevenhundred years the kings who arose beforeAmyrtaios were not able to find it. Now thename of this island is Elbo, and its size isten furlongs each way.

After him there came to the throne thepriest of Hephaistos, whose name wasSethos. This man, they said, neglected andheld in no regard the warrior class of theEgyptians, considering that he would haveno need of them; and besides other slightswhich he put upon them, he also took fromthem the yokes of corn-land which hadbeen given to them as a special gift in thereigns of the former kings, twelve yokes toeach man. After this, Sanacharib king ofthe Arabians and of the Assyrians marcheda great host against Egypt. Then thewarriors of the Egyptians refused to cometo the rescue, and the priest, being driven

into a strait, entered into the sanctuary ofthe temple and bewailed to the image ofthe god the danger which was impendingover him; and as he was thus lamenting,sleep came upon him, and it seemed tohim in his vision that the god came andstood by him and encouraged him, sayingthat he should suffer no evil if he went forthto meet the army of the Arabians; for hewould himself send him helpers. Trustingin these things seen in sleep, he took withhim, they said, those of the Egyptians whowere willing to follow him, and encampedin Pelusion, for by this way the invasioncame: and not one of the warrior classfollowed him, but shop-keepers andartisans and men of the market. Then afterthey came, there swarmed by night upontheir enemies mice of the fields, and ate uptheir quivers and their bows, andmoreover the handles of their shields, sothat on the next day they fled, and being

without defence of arms great numbersfell. And at the present time this kingstands in the temple of Hephaistos instone, holding upon his hand a mouse, andby letters inscribed he says these words:"Let him who looks upon me learn to fearthe gods."

So far in the story the Egyptians and thepriests were they who made the report,declaring that from the first king down tothis priest of Hephaistos who reigned last,there had been three hundred andforty-one generations of men, and that inthem there had been the same number ofchief-priests and of kings: but threehundred generations of men are equal toten thousand years, for a hundred years isthree generations of men; and in theone-and-forty generations which remain,those I mean which were added to thethree hundred, there are one thousand

three hundred and forty years. Thus in theperiod of eleven thousand three hundredand forty years they said that there hadarisen no god in human form; nor evenbefore that time or afterwards among theremaining kings who arise in Egypt, didthey report that anything of that kind hadcome to pass. In this time they said that thesun had moved four times from hisaccustomed place of rising, and where henow sets he had thence twice had hisrising, and in the place from whence henow rises he had twice had his setting; andin the meantime nothing in Egypt hadbeen changed from its usual state, neitherthat which comes from the earth nor thatwhich comes to them from the river northat which concerns diseases or deaths.And formerly when Hecataios the historianwas in Thebes, and had traced his descentand connected his family with a god in thesixteenth generation before, the priests of

Zeus did for him much the same as theydid for me (though I had not traced mydescent). They led me into the sanctuary ofthe temple, which is of great size, and theycounted up the number, showing colossalwooden statues in number the same asthey said; for each chief-priest there setsup in his lifetime an image of himself:accordingly the priests, counting andshowing me these, declared to me thateach one of them was a son succeeding hisown father, and they went up through theseries of images from the image of the onewho had died last, until they had declaredthis of the whole number. And whenHecataios had traced his descent andconnected his family with a god in thesixteenth generation, they traced adescent in opposition to his, besides theirnumbering, not accepting it from him thata man had been born from a god; and theytraced their counter-descent thus, saying

that each one of the statues had been_piromis_ son of _piromis_, until they haddeclared this of the whole three hundredand forty-five statues, each one beingsurnamed _piromis_; and neither with agod nor a hero did they connect theirdescent. Now _piromis_ means in thetongue of Hellas "honourable and goodman." From their declaration then itfollowed, that they of whom the imageswere had been of form like this, and farremoved from being gods: but in the timebefore these men they said that gods werethe rulers in Egypt, not mingling with men,and that of these always one had power ata time; and the last of them who was kingover Egypt was Oros the son of Osiris,whom the Hellenes call Apollo: he wasking over Egypt last, having deposedTyphon. Now Osiris in the tongue of Hellasis Dionysos.

Among the Hellenes Heracles andDionysos and Pan are accounted thelastest-born of the gods; but with theEgyptians Pan is a very ancient god, andhe is one of those which are called eightgods, while Heracles is of the second rank,who are called the twelve gods, andDionysos is of the third rank, namely ofthose who were born of the twelve gods.Now as to Heracles I have shown alreadyhow many years old he is according to theEgyptians themselves, reckoning down tothe reign of Amasis, and Pan is said to haveexisted for yet more years than these, andDionysos for the smallest number of yearsas compared with the others; and even forthis last they reckon down to the reign ofAmasis fifteen thousand years. This theEgyptians say that they know for acertainty, since they always kept areckoning and wrote down the years asthey came. Now the Dionysos who is said

to have been born of Semele the daughterof Cadmos, was born about sixteenhundred years before my time, andHeracles who was the son of Alcmene,about nine hundred years, and that Panwho was born of Penelope, for of her andof Hermes Pan is said by the Hellenes tohave been born, came into being laterthan the wars of Troy, about eight hundredyears before my time. Of these twoaccounts every man may adopt that onewhich he shall find the more crediblewhen he hears it. I however, for my part,have already declared my opinion aboutthem. For if these also, like Heracles theson of Amphitryon, had appeared beforeall men's eyes and had lived their lives toold age in Hellas, I mean Dionysos the sonof Semele and Pan the son of Penelope,then one would have said that these alsohad been born mere men, having thenames of those gods who had come into

being long before: but as it is, with regardto Dionysos the Hellenes say that as soonas he was born Zeus sewed him up in histhigh and carried him to Nysa, which isabove Egypt in the land of Ethiopia; and asto Pan, they cannot say whither he wentafter he was born. Hence it has becomeclear to me that the Hellenes learnt thenames of these gods later than those of theother gods, and trace their descent as iftheir birth occurred at the time when theyfirst learnt their names.

Thus far then the history is told by theEgyptians themselves; but I will nowrecount that which other nations also tell,and the Egyptians in agreement with theothers, of that which happened in this land:and there will be added to this alsosomething of that which I have myselfseen.

Being set free after the reign of the priestof Hephaistos, the Egyptians, since theycould not live any time without a king, setup over them twelve kings, having dividedall Egypt into twelve parts. These madeintermarriages with one another andreigned, making agreement that theywould not put down one another by force,nor seek to get an advantage over oneanother, but would live in perfectfriendship: and the reason why they madethese agreements, guarding them verystrongly from violation, was this, namelythat an oracle had been given to them atfirst when they began to exercise theirrule, that he of them who should pour alibation with a bronze cup in the temple ofHephaistos, should be king of all Egypt(for they used to assemble together in allthe temples). Moreover they resolved tojoin all together and leave a memorial ofthemselves; and having so resolved they

caused to be made a labyrinth, situated alittle above the lake of Moiris and nearlyopposite to that which is called the City ofCrocodiles. This I saw myself, and I foundit greater than words can say. For if oneshould put together and reckon up all thebuildings and all the great worksproduced by Hellenes, they would proveto be inferior in labour and expense to thislabyrinth, though it is true that both thetemple at Ephesos and that at Samos areworks worthy of note. The pyramids alsowere greater than words can say, and eachone of them is equal to many works of theHellenes, great as they may be; but thelabyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. Ithas twelve courts covered in, with gatesfacing one another, six upon the North sideand six upon the South, joining on one toanother, and the same wall surrounds themall outside; and there are in it two kinds ofchambers, the one kind below the ground

and the other above upon these, threethousand in number, of each kind fifteenhundred. The upper set of chambers weourselves saw, going through them, andwe tell of them having looked upon themwith our own eyes; but the chambersunder ground we heard about only; for theEgyptians who had charge of them werenot willing on any account to show them,saying that here were the sepulchres of thekings who had first built this labyrinth andof the sacred crocodiles. Accordingly wespeak of the chambers below by what wereceived from hearsay, while those abovewe saw ourselves and found them to beworks of more than human greatness. Forthe passages through the chambers, andthe goings this way and that way throughthe courts, which were admirablyadorned, afforded endless matter formarvel, as we went through from a court tothe chambers beyond it, and from the

chambers to colonnades, and from thecolonnades to other rooms, and then fromthe chambers again to other courts. Overthe whole of these is a roof made of stonelike the walls; and the walls are coveredwith figures carved upon them, each courtbeing surrounded with pillars of whitestone fitted together most perfectly; and atthe end of the labyrinth, by the corner of it,there is a pyramid of forty fathoms, uponwhich large figures are carved, and to thisthere is a way made under ground.

Such is this labyrinth: but a cause formarvel even greater than this is affordedby the lake, which is called the lake ofMoiris, along the side of which thislabyrinth is built. The measure of its circuitis three thousand six hundred furlongs(being sixty _schoines_), and this is thesame number of furlongs as the extent ofEgypt itself along the sea. The lake lies

extended lengthwise from North to South,and in depth where it is deepest it is fiftyfathoms. That this lake is artificial andformed by digging is self-evident, forabout in the middle of the lake stand twopyramids, each rising above the water to aheight of fifty fathoms, the part which isbuilt below the water being of just thesame height; and upon each is placed acolossal statue of stone sitting upon achair. Thus the pyramids are a hundredfathoms high; and these hundred fathomsare equal to a furlong of six hundred feet,the fathom being measured as six feet orfour cubits, the feet being four palms each,and the cubits six. The water in the lakedoes not come from the place where it is,for the country there is very deficient inwater, but it has been brought thither fromthe Nile by a canal; and for six months thewater flows into the lake, and for sixmonths out into the Nile again; and

whenever it flows out, then for the sixmonths it brings into the royal treasury atalent of silver a day from the fish whichare caught, and twenty pounds when thewater comes in. The natives of the placemoreover said that this lake had an outletunder ground to the Syrtis which is inLibya, turning towards the interior of thecontinent upon the Western side andrunning along by the mountain which isabove Memphis. Now since I did not seeanywhere existing the earth dug out of thisexcavation (for that was a matter whichdrew my attention), I asked those whodwelt nearest to the lake where the earthwas which had been dug out. These toldme to what place it had been carried away;and I readily believed them, for I knew byreport that a similar thing had been doneat Nineveh, the city of the Assyrians. Therecertain thieves formed a design once tocarry away the wealth of Sardanapallos son

of Ninos, the king, which wealth was verygreat and was kept in treasure-housesunder the earth. Accordingly they beganfrom their own dwelling, and makingestimate of their direction they dug underground towards the king's palace; and theearth which was brought out of theexcavation they used to carry away, whennight came on, to the river Tigris whichflows by the city of Nineveh, until at lastthey accomplished that which theydesired. Similarly, as I heard, the diggingof the lake in Egypt was effected, exceptthat it was done not by night but during theday; for as they dug the Egyptians carriedto the Nile the earth which was dug out;and the river, when it received it, wouldnaturally bear it away and disperse it. Thusis this lake said to have been dug out.

Now the twelve kings continued to rulejustly, but in course of time it happened

thus:--After sacrifice in the temple ofHephaistos they were about to makelibation on the last day of the feast, and thechief-priest, in bringing out for them thegolden cups with which they had beenwont to pour libations, missed hisreckoning and brought eleven only for thetwelve kings. Then that one of them whowas standing last in order, namelyPsammetichos, since he had no cup tookoff from his head his helmet, which was ofbronze, and having held it out to receivethe wine he proceeded to make libation:likewise all the other kings were wont towear helmets and they happened to havethem then. Now Psammetichos held out hishelmet with no treacherous meaning; butthey taking note of that which had beendone by Psammetichos and of the oracle,namely how it had been declared to themthat whosoever of them should makelibation with a bronze cup should be sole

king of Egypt, recollecting, I say, thesaying of the Oracle, they did not indeeddeem it right to slay Psammetichos, sincethey found by examination that he had notdone it with any forethought, but theydetermined to strip him of almost all hispower and to drive him away into thefen-country, and that from the fen-countryhe should not hold any dealings with therest of Egypt. This Psammetichos hadformerly been a fugitive from theEthiopian Sabacos who had killed hisfather Necos, from him, I say, he had thenbeen a fugitive in Syria; and when theEthiopian had departed in consequence ofthe vision of the dream, the Egyptians whowere of the district of Sais brought himback to his own country. Then afterwards,when he was king, it was his fate to be afugitive a second time on account of thehelmet, being driven by the eleven kingsinto the fen-country. So then holding that

he had been grievously wronged by them,he thought how he might take vengeanceon those who had driven him out: andwhen he had sent to the Oracle of Leto inthe city of Buto, where the Egyptians havetheir most truthful Oracle, there was givento him the reply that vengeance wouldcome when men of bronze appeared fromthe sea. And he was strongly disposed notto believe that bronze men would come tohelp him; but after no long time hadpassed, certain Ionians and Carians whohad sailed forth for plunder werecompelled to come to shore in Egypt, andthey having landed and being clad inbronze armour, came to the fen-land andbrought a report to Psammetichos thatbronze men had come from the sea andwere plundering the plain. So he,perceiving that the saying of the Oraclewas coming to pass, dealt in a friendlymanner with the Ionians and Carians, and

with large promises he persuaded them totake his part. Then when he hadpersuaded them, with the help of thoseEgyptians who favoured his cause and ofthese foreign mercenaries he overthrewthe kings. Having thus got power over allEgypt, Psammetichos made for Hephaistosthat gateway of the temple at Memphiswhich is turned towards the South Wind;and he built a court for Apis, in which Apisis kept when he appears, opposite to thegateway of the temple, surrounded all withpillars and covered with figures; andinstead of columns there stand to supportthe roof of the court colossal statues twelvecubits high. Now Apis is in the tongue ofthe Hellenes Epaphos. To the Ionians andto the Carians who had helped himPsammetichos granted portions of land todwell in, opposite to one another with theriver Nile between, and these were called"Encampments"; these portions of land he

gave them, and he paid them besides allthat he had promised: moreover he placedwith them Egyptian boys to have themtaught the Hellenic tongue; and from these,who learnt the language thoroughly, aredescended the present class ofinterpreters in Egypt. Now the Ionians andCarians occupied these portions of land fora long time, and they are towards the sea alittle below the city of Bubastis, on thatwhich is called the Pelusian mouth of theNile. These men king Amasis afterwardsremoved from thence and establishedthem at Memphis, making them into aguard for himself against the Egyptians:and they being settled in Egypt, we whoare Hellenes know by intercourse withthem the certainty of all that whichhappened in Egypt beginning from kingPsammetichos and afterwards; for thesewere the first men of foreign tongue whosettled in Egypt: and in the land from

which they were removed there stillremained down to my time the shedswhere their ships were drawn up and theruins of their houses.

Thus then Psammetichos obtained Egypt:and of the Oracle which is in Egypt I havemade mention often before this, and now Igive an account of it, seeing that it isworthy to be described. This Oracle whichis in Egypt is sacred to Leto, and it isestablished in a great city near that mouthof the Nile which is called Sebennytic, asone sails up the river from the sea; and thename of this city where the Oracle is foundis Buto, as I have said before in mentioningit. In this Buto there is a temple of Apolloand Artemis; and the temple-house of Leto,in which the Oracle is, is both great initself and has a gateway of the height of tenfathoms: but that which caused me most tomarvel of the things to be seen there, I will

now tell. There is in this sacred enclosure ahouse of Leto made of one single stoneupon the top, the cornice measuring fourcubits. This house then of all the things thatwere to be seen by me in that temple is themost marvellous, and among those whichcome next is the island called Chemmis.This is situated in a deep and broad lakeby the side of the temple at Buto, and it issaid by the Egyptians that this island is afloating island. I myself did not see it eitherfloating about or moved from its place, andI feel surprise at hearing of it, wondering ifit be indeed a floating island. In this islandof which I speak there is a greattemple-house of Apollo, and three severalaltars are set up within, and there areplanted in the island many palm-trees andother trees, both bearing fruit and notbearing fruit. And the Egyptians, whenthey say that it is floating, add this story,namely that in this island which formerly

was not floating, Leto, being one of theeight gods who came into existence first,and dwelling in the city of Buto where shehas this Oracle, received Apollo from Isisas a charge and preserved him,concealing him in the island which is saidnow to be a floating island, at that timewhen Typhon came after him seekingeverywhere and desiring to find the son ofOsiris. Now they say that Apollo andArtemis are children of Dionysos and ofIsis, and that Leto became their nurse andpreserver; and in the Egyptian tongueApollo is Oros, Demeter is Isis, andArtemis is Bubastis. From this story andfrom no other AEschylus the son ofEuphorion took this which I shall say,wherein he differs from all the precedingpoets; he represented namely that Artemiswas the daughter of Demeter. For thisreason then, they say, it became a floatingisland.

Such is the story which they tell; but as forPsammetichos, he was king over Egypt forfour-and-fifty years, of which for thirtyyears save one he was sitting beforeAzotos, a great city of Syria, besieging it,until at last he took it: and this Azotos of allcities about which we have knowledgeheld out for the longest time under a siege.

The son of Psammetichos was Necos, andhe became king of Egypt. This man wasthe first who attempted the channelleading to the Erythraian Sea, whichDareios the Persian afterwards completed:the length of this is a voyage of four days,and in breadth it was so dug that twotriremes could go side by side driven byoars; and the water is brought into it fromthe Nile. The channel is conducted a littleabove the city of Bubastis by Patumos theArabian city, and runs into the Erythraian

Sea: and it is dug first along those parts ofthe plain of Egypt which lie towardsArabia, just above which run themountains which extend oppositeMemphis, where are thestone-quarries,--along the base of thesemountains the channel is conducted fromWest to East for a great way; and after thatit is directed towards a break in the hillsand tends from these mountains towardsthe noon-day and the South Wind to theArabian gulf. Now in the place where thejourney is least and shortest from theNorthern to the Southern Sea (which is alsocalled Erythraian), that is from MountCasion, which is the boundary betweenEgypt and Syria, the distance is exactly athousand furlongs to the Arabian gulf; butthe channel is much longer, since it ismore winding; and in the reign of Necosthere perished while digging it twelvemyriads of the Egyptians. Now Necos

ceased in the midst of his digging,because the utterance of an Oracleimpeded him, which was to the effect thathe was working for the Barbarian: and theEgyptians call all men Barbarians who donot agree with them in speech. Thushaving ceased from the work of thechannel, Necos betook himself to ragingwars, and triremes were built by him,some for the Northern Sea and others inthe Arabian gulf for the Erythraian Sea;and of these the sheds are still to be seen.These ships he used when he neededthem; and also on land Necos engagedbattle at Magdolos with the Syrians, andconquered them; and after this he tookCadytis, which is a great city of Syria: andthe dress which he wore when he madethese conquests he dedicated to Apollo,sending it to Branchidai of the Milesians.After this, having reigned in all sixteenyears, he brought his life to an end, and

handed on the kingdom to Psammis hisson.

While this Psammis was king of Egypt,there came to him men sent by the Eleians,who boasted that they ordered the contestat Olympia in the most just and honourablemanner possible and thought that not eventhe Egyptians, the wisest of men, couldfind out anything besides, to be added totheir rules. Now when the Eleians came toEgypt and said that for which they hadcome, then this king called together thoseof the Egyptians who were reputed thewisest, and when the Egyptians had cometogether they heard the Eleians tell of allthat which it was their part to do in regardto the contest; and when they had relatedeverything, they said that they had cometo learn in addition anything which theEgyptians might be able to find outbesides, which was juster than this. They

then having consulted together asked theEleians whether their own citizens tookpart in the contest; and they said that it waspermitted to any one who desired it, totake part in the contest: upon which theEgyptians said that in so ordering thegames they had wholly missed the mark ofjustice; for it could not be but that theywould take part with the man of their ownState, if he was contending, and so actunfairly to the stranger: but if they reallydesired, as they said, to order the gamesjustly, and if this was the cause for whichthey had come to Egypt, they advisedthem to order the contest so as to be forstrangers alone to contend in, and that noEleian should be permitted to contend.Such was the suggestion made by theEgyptians to the Eleians.

When Psammis had been king of Egypt foronly six years and had made an expedition

to Ethiopia and immediately afterwardshad ended his life, Apries the son ofPsammis received the kingdom insuccession. This man came to be the mostprosperous of all the kings up to that timeexcept only his forefather Psammetichos;and he reigned five-and-twenty years,during which he led an army against Sidonand fought a sea-fight with the king ofTyre. Since however it was fated that evilshould come upon him it came by occasionof a matter which I shall relate at greaterlength in the Libyan history, and at presentbut shortly. Apries having sent a greatexpedition against the Kyrenians, met withcorrespondingly great disaster; and theEgyptians considering him to blame forthis revolted from him, supposing thatApries had with forethought sent them outto evident calamity, in order (as they said)that there might be a slaughter of them,and he might the more securely rule over

the other Egyptians. Being indignant atthis, both these men who had returnedfrom the expedition and also the friends ofthose who had perished made revoltopenly. Hearing this Apries sent to themAmasis, to cause them to cease bypersuasion; and when he had come andwas seeking to restrain the Egyptians, ashe was speaking and telling them not to doso, one of the Egyptians stood up behindhim and put a helmet upon his head,saying as he did so that he put it on tocrown him king. And to him this that wasdone was in some degree not unwelcome,as he proved by his behaviour; for as soonas the revolted Egyptians had set him upas king, he prepared to march againstApries: and Apries hearing this sent toAmasis one of the Egyptians who wereabout his own person, a man of reputation,whose name was Patarbemis, enjoininghim to bring Amasis alive into his

presence. When this Patarbemis came andsummoned Amasis, the latter, whohappened to be sitting on horseback, liftedup his leg and behaved in an unseemlymanner, bidding him take that back toApries. Nevertheless, they say, Patarbemismade demand of him that he should go tothe king, seeing that the king had sent tosummon him; and he answered him that hehad for some time past been preparing todo so, and that Apries would have nooccasion to find fault with him, for hewould both come himself and bring otherswith him. Then Patarbemis both perceivinghis intention from that which he said, andalso seeing his preparations, departed inhaste, desiring to make known as quicklyas possible to the king the things whichwere being done: and when he came backto Apries not bringing Amasis, the kingpaying no regard to that which he said, butbeing moved by violent anger, ordered

his ears and his nose to be cut off. And therest of the Egyptians who still remained onhis side, when they saw the man of mostrepute among them thus sufferingshameful outrage, waited no longer butjoined the others in revolt, and deliveredthemselves over to Amasis. Then Aprieshaving heard this also, armed his foreignmercenaries and marched against theEgyptians: now he had about him Carianand Ionian mercenaries to the number ofthirty thousand; and his royal palace was inthe city of Sais, of great size and worthy tobe seen. So Apries and his army weregoing against the Egyptians, and Amasisand those with him were going against themercenaries; and both sides came to thecity of Momemphis and were about tomake trial of one another in fight.

Now of the Egyptians there are sevenclasses, and of these one class is called

that of the priests, and another that of thewarriors, while the others are thecowherds, swineherds, shopkeepers,interpreters, and boatmen. This is thenumber of the classes of the Egyptians,and their names are given them from theoccupations which they follow. Of them thewarriors are called Calasirians andHermotybians, and they are of thefollowing districts,--for all Egypt is dividedinto districts. The districts of theHermotybians are those of Busiris, Sais,Chemmis, Papremis, the island calledProsopitis, and the half of Natho,--of thesedistricts are the Hermotybians, whoreached when most numerous the numberof sixteen myriads. Of these not one hasbeen learnt anything of handicraft, butthey are given up to war entirely. Againthe districts of the Calasirians are those ofThebes, Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes,Sebennytos, Athribis, Pharbaithos, Thmuis,

Onuphis, Anytis, Myecphoris,--this last ison an island opposite to the city ofBubastis. These are the districts of theCalasirians; and they reached, when mostnumerous, to the number offive-and-twenty myriads of men; nor is itlawful for these, any more than for theothers, to practise any craft; but theypractise that which has to do with war only,handing down the tradition from father toson. Now whether the Hellenes have learntthis also from the Egyptians, I am not ableto say for certain, since I see that theThracians also and Scythians and Persiansand Lydians and almost all the Barbariansesteem those of their citizens who learn thearts, and the descendants of them, as lesshonourable than the rest; while those whohave got free from all practice of manualarts are accounted noble, and especiallythose who are devoted to war: howeverthat may be, the Hellenes have all learnt

this, and especially the Lacedemonians;but the Corinthians least of all cast slightupon those who practise handicraft.

The following privilege was speciallygranted to this class and to none others ofthe Egyptians except the priests, that is tosay, each man had twelve yokes of landspecially granted to him free from imposts:now the yoke of land measures a hundredEgyptian cubits every way, and theEgyptian cubit is, as it happens, equal tothat of Samos. This, I say, was a specialprivilege granted to all, and they also hadcertain advantages in turn and not thesame men twice; that is to say, a thousandof the Calasirians and a thousand of theHermotybians acted as body-guard to theking during each year; and these hadbesides their yokes of land an allowancegiven them for each day of five poundsweight of bread to each man, and two

pounds of beef, and four half-pints of wine.This was the allowance given to those whowere serving as the king's body-guard forthe time being.

So when Apries leading his foreignmercenaries, and Amasis at the head of thewhole body of the Egyptians, in theirapproach to one another had come to thecity of Momemphis, they engaged inbattle: and although the foreign troopsfought well, yet being much inferior innumber they were worsted by reason ofthis. But Apries is said to have supposedthat not even a god would be able to causehim to cease from his rule, so firmly did hethink that it was established. In that battlethen, I say, he was worsted, and beingtaken alive was brought away to the city ofSais, to that which had formerly been hisown dwelling but from thenceforth was thepalace of Amasis. There for some time he

was kept in the palace, and Amasis dealtwell with him but at last, since theEgyptians blamed him, saying that heacted not rightly in keeping alive him whowas the greatest foe both to themselvesand to him, therefore he delivered Apriesover to the Egyptians; and they strangledhim, and after that buried him in theburial-place of his fathers: this is in thetemple of Athene, close to the sanctuary,on the left hand as you enter. Now the menof Sais buried all those of this district whohad been kings, within the temple; for thetomb of Amasis also, though it is furtherfrom the sanctuary than that of Apries andhis forefathers, yet this too is within thecourt of the temple, and it consists of acolonnade of stone of great size, withpillars carved to imitate date-palms, andotherwise sumptuously adorned; andwithin the colonnade are double doors,and inside the doors a sepulchral

chamber. Also at Sais there is theburial-place of him whom I account it notpious to name in connexion with such amatter, which is in the temple of Athenebehind the house of the goddess,stretching along the whole wall of it; and inthe sacred enclosure stand great obelisksof stone, and near them is a lake adornedwith an edging of stone and fairly made ina circle, being in size, as it seemed to me,equal to that which is called the "RoundPool" in Delos. On this lake they performby night the show of his sufferings, and thisthe Egyptians call Mysteries. Of thesethings I know more fully in detail how theytake place, but I shall leave this unspoken;and of the mystic rites of Demeter, whichthe Hellenes call _thesmophoria_, of thesealso, although I know, I shall leaveunspoken all except so much as pietypermits me to tell. The daughters ofDanaos were they who brought this rite out

of Egypt and taught it to the women of thePelasgians; then afterwards when all theinhabitants of Peloponnese were drivenout by the Dorians, the rite was lost, andonly those who were left behind of thePeloponnesians and not driven out, that isto say the Arcadians, preserved it.

Apries having thus been overthrown,Amasis became king, being of the districtof Sais, and the name of the city whence hewas is Siuph. Now at the first the Egyptiansdespised Amasis and held him in no greatregard, because he had been a man of thepeople and was of no distinguished family;but afterwards Amasis won them over tohimself by wisdom and not wilfulness.Among innumerable other things of pricewhich he had, there was a foot-basin ofgold in which both Amasis himself and allhis guests were wont always to wash theirfeet. This he broke up, and of it he caused

to be made the image of a god, and set itup in the city, where it was mostconvenient; and the Egyptians wentcontinually to visit the image and did greatreverence to it. Then Amasis, having learntthat which was done by the men of the city,called together the Egyptians and madeknown to them the matter, saying that theimage had been produced from thefoot-basin, into which formerly theEgyptians used to vomit and make water,and in which they washed their feet,whereas now they did to it greatreverence; and just so, he continued, hadhe himself now fared, as the foot-basin; forthough formerly he was a man of thepeople, yet now he was their king, and hebade them accordingly honour him andhave regard for him. In such manner hewon the Egyptians to himself, so that theyconsented to be his subjects; and hisordering of affairs was this:--In the early

morning, and until the time of the filling ofthe market he did with a good will thebusiness which was brought before him;but after this he passed the time indrinking and in jesting at hisboon-companions, and was frivolous andplayful. And his friends being troubled at itadmonished him in some such words asthese: "O king, thou dost not rightlygovern thyself in thus letting thyselfdescend to behaviour so trifling; for thououghtest rather to have been sittingthroughout the day stately upon a statelythrone and administering thy business;and so the Egyptians would have beenassured that they were ruled by a greatman, and thou wouldest have had a betterreport: but as it is, thou art acting by nomeans in a kingly fashion." And heanswered them thus: "They who have bowsstretch them at such time as they wish touse them, and when they have finished

using them they loose them again; for ifthey were stretched tight always theywould break, so that the men would not beable to use them when they needed them.So also is the state of man: if he shouldalways be in earnest and not relax himselffor sport at the due time, he would eithergo mad or be struck with stupor before hewas aware; and knowing this well, Idistribute a portion of the time to each ofthe two ways of living." Thus he replied tohis friends. It is said however that Amasis,even when he was in a private station, wasa lover of drinking and of jesting, and notat all seriously disposed; and whenever hismeans of livelihood failed him through hisdrinking and luxurious living, he would goabout and steal; and they from whom hestole would charge him with having theirproperty, and when he denied it wouldbring him before the judgment of anOracle, whenever there was one in their

place; and many times he was convictedby the Oracles and many times he wasabsolved: and then when finally hebecame king he did as follows:--as manyof the gods as had absolved him andpronounced him not to be a thief, to theirtemples he paid no regard, nor gaveanything for the further adornment ofthem, nor even visited them to offersacrifice, considering them to be worthnothing and to possess lying Oracles; butas many as had convicted him of being athief, to these he paid very great regard,considering them to be truly gods, and topresent Oracles which did not lie. First inSais he built and completed for Athene atemple-gateway which is a great marvel,and he far surpassed herein all who haddone the like before, both in regard toheight and greatness, so large are thestones and of such quality. Then secondlyhe dedicated great colossal statues and

man-headed sphinxes very large, and forrestoration he caused to be brought fromthe stone-quarries which are oppositeMemphis, others of very great size fromthe city of Elephantine, distant a voyage ofnot less than twenty days from Sais: and ofthem all I marvel most at this, namely amonolith chamber which he brought fromthe city of Elephantine; and they werethree years engaged in bringing this, andtwo thousand men were appointed toconvey it, who all were of the class ofboatmen. Of this house the length outsideis one-and-twenty cubits, the breadth isfourteen cubits, and the height eight.These are the measures of the monolithhouse outside; but the length inside iseighteen cubits and five-sixths of a cubit,the breadth twelve cubits, and the heightfive cubits. This lies by the side of theentrance to the temple; for within thetemple they did not draw it, because, as it

is said, while the house was being drawnalong, the chief artificer of it groanedaloud, seeing that much time had beenspent and he was wearied by the work;and Amasis took it to heart as a warningand did not allow them to draw it furtheronwards. Some say on the other hand thata man was killed by it, of those who wereheaving it with levers, and that it was notdrawn in for that reason. Amasis alsodedicated in all the other temples whichwere of repute, works which are worthseeing for their size, and among them alsoat Memphis the colossal statue which lieson its back in front of the temple ofHephaistos, whose length isfive-and-seventy feet; and on the samebase made of the same stone are set twocolossal statues, each of twenty feet inlength, one on this side and the other onthat side of the large statue. There is alsoanother of stone of the same size in Sais,

lying in the same manner as that atMemphis. Moreover Amasis was he whobuilt and finished for Isis her temple atMemphis, which is of great size and veryworthy to be seen.

In the reign of Amasis it is said that Egyptbecame more prosperous than at anyother time before, both in regard to thatwhich comes to the land from the river andin regard to that which comes from theland to its inhabitants, and that at this timethe inhabited towns in it numbered in alltwenty thousand. It was Amasis too whoestablished the law that every year eachone of the Egyptians should declare to theruler of his district, from what source hegot his livelihood, and if any man did notdo this or did not make declaration of anhonest way of living, he should bepunished with death. Now Solon theAthenian received from Egypt this law and

had it enacted for the Athenians, and theyhave continued to observe it, since it is alaw with which none can find fault.

Moreover Amasis became a lover of theHellenes; and besides other proofs offriendship which he gave to several amongthem, he also granted the city of Naucratisfor those of them who came to Egypt todwell in; and to those who did not desire tostay, but who made voyages thither, hegranted portions of land to set up altarsand make sacred enclosures for theirgods. Their greatest enclosure and thatone which has most name and is mostfrequented is called the Hellenion, and thiswas established by the following cities incommon:--of the Ionians Chios, Teos,Phocaia, Clazomenai, of the DoriansRhodes, Cnidos, Halicarnassos, Phaselis,and of the Aiolians Mytilene alone. Tothese belongs this enclosure and these are

the cities which appoint superintendents ofthe port; and all other cities which claim ashare in it, are making a claim without anyright. Besides this the Eginetansestablished on their own account a sacredenclosure dedicated to Zeus, the Samiansone to Hera, and the Milesians one toApollo. Now in old times Naucratis alonewas an open trading-place, and no otherplace in Egypt: and if any one came to anyother of the Nile mouths, he wascompelled to swear that he came notthither of his own free will, and when hehad thus sworn his innocence he had tosail with his ship to the Canobic mouth, orif it were not possible to sail by reason ofcontrary winds, then he had to carry hiscargo round the head of the Delta in boatsto Naucratis: thus highly was Naucratisprivileged. Moreover when theAmphictyons had let out the contract forbuilding the temple which now exists at

Delphi, agreeing to pay a sum of threehundred talents (for the temple whichformerly stood there had been burnt downof itself), it fell to the share of the people ofDelphi to provide the fourth part of thepayment; and accordingly the Delphianswent about to various cities and collectedcontributions. And when they did this theygot from Egypt as much as from any place,for Amasis gave them a thousand talents'weight of alum, while the Hellenes whodwelt in Egypt gave them twenty poundsof silver.

Also with the people of Kyrene Amasismade an agreement for friendship andalliance; and he resolved too to marry awife from thence, whether because hedesired to have a wife of Hellenic race, or,apart from that, on account of friendshipfor the people of Kyrene: however thatmay be, he married, some say the

daughter of Battos, others of Arkesilaos,and others of Critobulos, a man of reputeamong the citizens; and her name wasLadike. Now whenever Amasis lay with herhe found himself unable to haveintercourse, but with his other wives heassociated as he was wont; and as thishappened repeatedly, Amasis said to hiswife, whose name was Ladike: "Woman,thou hast given me drugs, and thou shallsurely perish more miserably than anyother." Then Ladike, when by her denialsAmasis was not at all appeased in hisanger against her, made a vow in her soulto Aphrodite, that if Amasis on that nighthad intercourse with her (seeing that thiswas the remedy for her danger), shewould send an image to be dedicated toher at Kyrene; and after the vowimmediately Amasis had intercourse, andfrom thenceforth whenever Amasis camein to her he had intercourse with her; and

after this he became very greatly attachedto her. And Ladike paid the vow that shehad made to the goddess; for she had animage made and sent it to Kyrene, and it isstill preserved even to my own time,standing with its face turned away from thecity of the Kyrenians. This LadikeCambyses, having conquered Egypt andheard from her who she was, sent backunharmed to Kyrene.

Amasis also dedicated offerings in Hellas,first at Kyrene an image of Athene coveredover with gold and a figure of himselfmade like by painting; then in the templeof Athene at Lindos two images of stoneand a corslet of linen worthy to be seen;and also at Samos two wooden figures ofhimself dedicated to Hera, which werestanding even to my own time in the greattemple, behind the doors. Now at Samoshe dedicated offerings because of the

guest-friendship between himself andPolycrates the son of Aiakes; at Lindos forno guest-friendship but because thetemple of Athene at Lindos is said to havebeen founded by the daughters of Danaos,who had touched land there at the timewhen they were fleeing from the sons ofAigyptos. These offerings were dedicatedby Amasis; and he was the first of men whoconquered Cyprus and subdued it so thatit paid him tribute.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of AnAccount of Egypt, by Herodotus

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