The Persian Wars
by
Herodotus
Written 440 BC
Translated by George Rawlinson
Book 2 – EUTERPE
[2.1] On the death of Cyrus, Cambyses his son by Cassandane
daughter of Pharnaspes took the kingdom. Cassandane had died in the lifetime of
Cyrus, who had made a great mourning for her at her death, and had commanded all
the subjects of his empire to observe the like. Cambyses, the son of this lady
and of Cyrus, regarding the Ionian and Aeolian Greeks as vassals of his father,
took them with him in his expedition against Egypt among the other nations which
owned his sway.
[2.2] Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king
Psammetichus, believed themselves to be the most ancient of mankind. Since
Psammetichus, however, made an attempt to discover who were actually the
primitive race, they have been of opinion that while they surpass all other
nations, the Phrygians surpass them in antiquity. This king, finding it
impossible to make out by dint of inquiry what men were the most ancient,
contrived the following method of discovery:- He took two children of the common
sort, and gave them over to a herdsman to bring up at his folds, strictly
charging him to let no one utter a word in their presence, but to keep them in a
sequestered cottage, and from time to time introduce goats to their apartment,
see that they got their fill of milk, and in all other respects look after them.
His object herein was to know, after the indistinct babblings of infancy were
over, what word they would first articulate. It happened as he had anticipated.
The herdsman obeyed his orders for two years, and at the end of that time, on
his one day opening the door of their room and going in, the children both ran
up to him with outstretched arms, and distinctly said “Becos.” When this first
happened the herdsman took no notice; but afterwards when he observed, on coming
often to see after them, that the word was constantly in their mouths, he
informed his lord, and by his command brought the children into his presence.
Psammetichus then himself heard them say the word, upon which he proceeded to
make inquiry what people there was who called anything “becos,” and hereupon he
learnt that “becos” was the Phrygian name for bread. In consideration of this
circumstance the Egyptians yielded their claims, and admitted the greater
antiquity of the Phrygians.
[2.3] That these were the real facts I learnt at Memphis
from the priests of Vulcan. The Greeks, among other foolish tales, relate that
Psammetichus had the children brought up by women whose tongues he had
previously cut out; but the priests said their bringing up was such as I have
stated above. I got much other information also from conversation with these
priests while I was at Memphis, and I even went to Heliopolis and to Thebes,
expressly to try whether the priests of those places would agree in their
accounts with the priests at Memphis. The Heliopolitans have the reputation of
being the best skilled in history of all the Egyptians. What they told me
concerning their religion it is not my intention to repeat, except the names of
their deities, which I believe all men know equally. If I relate anything else
concerning these matters, it will only be when compelled to do so by the course
of my narrative.
[2.4] Now with regard to mere human matters, the accounts
which they gave, and in which all agreed, were the following. The Egyptians,
they said, were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its
course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from the stars. (To my
mind they contrive their year much more cleverly than the Greeks, for these last
every other year intercalate a whole month, but the Egyptians, dividing the year
into twelve months of thirty days each, add every year a space of five days
besides, whereby the circuit of the seasons is made to return with uniformity.)
The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the
twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first erected altars,
images, and temples to the gods; and also first engraved upon stone the figures
of animals. In most of these cases they proved to me that what they said was
true. And they told me that the first man who ruled over Egypt was Min, and that
in his time all Egypt, except the Thebaic canton, was a marsh, none of the land
below Lake Moeris then showing itself above the surface of the water. This is a
distance of seven days’ sail from the sea up the river.
[2.5] What they said of their country seemed to me very
reasonable. For any one who sees Egypt, without having heard a word about it
before, must perceive, if he has only common powers of observation, that the
Egypt to which the Greeks go in their ships is an acquired country, the gift of
the river. The same is true of the land above the lake, to the distance of three
days’ voyage, concerning which the Egyptians say nothing, but which exactly the
same kind of country.
The following is the general character of the region. In
the first place, on approaching it by sea, when you are still a day’s sail from
the land, if you let down a sounding-line you will bring up mud, and find
yourself in eleven fathoms’ water, which shows that the soil washed down by the
stream extends to that distance.
[2.6] The length of the country along shore, according to
the bounds that we assign to Egypt, namely from the Plinthinetic gulf to Lake
Serbonis, which extends along the base of Mount Casius, is sixty schoenes. The
nations whose territories are scanty measure them by the fathom; those whose
bounds are less confined, by the furlong; those who have an ample territory, by
the parasang; but if men have a country which is very vast, they measure it by
the schoene. Now the length of the parasang is thirty furlongs, but the schoene,
which is an Egyptian measure, is sixty furlongs. Thus the coastline of Egypt
would extend a length of three thousand six hundred furlongs.
[2.7] From the coast inland as far as Heliopolis the
breadth of Egypt is considerable, the country is flat, without springs, and full
of swamps. The length of the route from the sea up to Heliopolis is almost
exactly the same as that of the road which runs from the altar of the twelve
gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Jove at Pisa. If a person made a
calculation he would find but a very little difference between the two routes,
not more than about fifteen furlongs; for the road from Athens to Pisa falls
short of fifteen hundred furlongs by exactly fifteen, whereas the distance of
Heliopolis from the sea is just the round number.
[2.8] As one proceeds beyond Heliopolis up the country,
Egypt becomes narrow, the Arabian range of hills, which has a direction from
north to south, shutting it in upon the one side, and the Libyan range upon the
other. The former ridge runs on without a break, and stretches away to the sea
called the Erythraean; it contains the quarries whence the stone was cut for the
pyramids of Memphis: and this is the point where it ceases its first direction,
and bends away in the manner above indicated. In its greatest length from east
to west it is, as I have been informed, a distance of two months’ journey
towards the extreme east its skirts produce frankincense. Such are the chief
features of this range. On the Libyan side, the other ridge whereon the pyramids
stand is rocky and covered with sand; its direction is the same as that of the
Arabian ridge in the first part of its course. Above Heliopolis, then, there is
no great breadth of territory for such a country as Egypt, but during four days’
sail Egypt is narrow; the valley between the two ranges is a level plain, and
seemed to me to be, at the narrowest point, not more than two hundred furlongs
across from the Arabian to the Libyan hills. Above this point Egypt again
widens.
[2.9] From Heliopolis to Thebes is nine days’ sail up the
river; the distance is eighty-one schoenes, or 4860 furlongs. If we now put
together the several measurements of the country we shall find that the distance
along shore is, as I stated above, 3600 furlongs, and the distance from the sea
inland to Thebes 6120 furlongs. Further, it is a distance of eighteen hundred
furlongs from Thebes to the place called Elephantine.
[2.10] The greater portion of the country above described
seemed to me to be, as the priests declared, a tract gained by the inhabitants.
For the whole region above Memphis, lying between the two ranges of hills that
have been spoken of, appeared evidently to have formed at one time a gulf of the
sea. It resembles (to compare small things with great) the parts about Ilium and
Teuthrania, Ephesus, and the plain of the Maeander. In all these regions the
land has been formed by rivers, whereof the greatest is not to compare for size
with any one of the five mouths of the Nile. I could mention other rivers also,
far inferior to the Nile in magnitude, that have effected very great changes.
Among these not the least is the Achelous, which, after passing through
Acarnania, empties itself into the sea opposite the islands called Echinades,
and has already joined one-half of them to the continent.
[2.11] In Arabia, not far from Egypt, there is a long and
narrow gulf running inland from the sea called the Erythraean, of which I will
here set down the dimensions. Starting from its innermost recess, and using a
row-boat, you take forty days to reach the open main, while you may cross the
gulf at its widest part in the space of half a day. In this sea there is an ebb
and flow of the tide every day. My opinion is that Egypt was formerly very much
such a gulf as this – one gulf penetrated from the sea that washes Egypt on the
north, and extended itself towards Ethiopia; another entered from the southern
ocean, and stretched towards Syria; the two gulfs ran into the land so as almost
to meet each other, and left between them only a very narrow tract of country.
Now if the Nile should choose to divert his waters from their present bed into
this Arabian gulf, what is there to hinder it from being filled up by the stream
within, at the utmost, twenty thousand years? For my part, I think it would be
filled in half the time. How then should not a gulf, even of much greater size,
have been filled up in the ages that passed before I was born, by a river that
is at once so large and so given to working changes?
[2.12] Thus I give credit to those from whom I received
this account of Egypt, and am myself, moreover, strongly of the same opinion,
since I remarked that the country projects into the sea further than the
neighbouring shores, and I observed that there were shells upon the hills, and
that salt exuded from the soil to such an extent as even to injure the pyramids;
and I noticed also that there is but a single hill in all Egypt where sand is
found, namely, the hill above Memphis; and further, I found the country to bear
no resemblance either to its borderland Arabia, or to Libya – nay, nor even to
Syria, which forms the seaboard of Arabia; but whereas the soil of Libya is, we
know, sandy and of a reddish hue, and that of Arabia and Syria inclines to stone
and clay, Egypt has a soil that is black and crumbly, as being alluvial and
formed of the deposits brought down by the river from Ethiopia.
[2.13] One fact which I learnt of the priests is to me a
strong evidence of the origin of the country. They said that when Moeris was
king, the Nile overflowed all Egypt below Memphis, as soon as it rose so little
as eight cubits. Now Moeris had not been dead 900 years at the time when I heard
this of the priests; yet at the present day, unless the river rise sixteen, or,
at the very least, fifteen cubits, it does not overflow the lands. It seems to
me, therefore, that if the land goes on rising and growing at this rate, the
Egyptians who dwell below Lake Moeris, in the Delta (as it is called) and
elsewhere, will one day, by the stoppage of the inundations, suffer permanently
the fate which they told me they expected would some time or other befall the
Greeks. On hearing that the whole land of Greece is watered by rain from heaven,
and not, like their own, inundated by rivers, they observed – “Some day the
Greeks will be disappointed of their grand hope, and then they will be
wretchedly hungry”; which was as much as to say, “If God shall some day see fit
not to grant the Greeks rain, but shall afflict them with a long drought, the
Greeks will be swept away by a famine, since they have nothing to rely on but
rain from Jove, and have no other resource for water.”
[2.14] And in thus speaking of the Greeks the Egyptians say
nothing but what is true. But now let me tell the Egyptians how the case stands
with themselves. If, as I said before, the country below Memphis, which is the
land that is always rising, continues to increase in height at the rate at which
it has risen in times gone by, how will it be possible for the inhabitants of
that region to avoid hunger, when they will certainly have no rain, and the
river will not be able to overflow their cornlands? At present, it must be
confessed, they obtain the fruits of the field with less trouble than any other
people in the world, the rest of the Egyptians included, since they have no need
to break up the ground with the plough, nor to use the hoe, nor to do any of the
work which the rest of mankind find necessary if they are to get a crop; but the
husbandman waits till the river has of its own accord spread itself over the
fields and withdrawn again to its bed, and then sows his plot of ground, and
after sowing turns his swine into it – the swine tread in the corn – after which
he has only to await the harvest. The swine serve him also to thrash the grain,
which is then carried to the garner.
[2.15] If then we choose to adopt the views of the Ionians
concerning Egypt, we must come to the conclusion that the Egyptians had formerly
no country at all. For the Ionians say that nothing is really Egypt but the
Delta, which extends along shore from the Watch-tower of Perseus, as it is
called, to the Pelusiac Salt-Pans, a distance of forty schoenes, and stretches
inland as far as the city of Cercasorus, where the Nile divides into the two
streams which reach the sea at Pelusium and Canobus respectively. The rest of
what is accounted Egypt belongs, they say, either to Arabia or Libya. But the
Delta, as the Egyptians affirm, and as I myself am persuaded, is formed of the
deposits of the river, and has only recently, if I may use the expression, come
to light. If, then, they had formerly no territory at all, how came they to be
so extravagant as to fancy themselves the most ancient race in the world? Surely
there was no need of their making the experiment with the children to see what
language they would first speak. But in truth I do not believe that the
Egyptians came into being at the same time with the Delta, as the Ionians call
it; I think they have always existed ever since the human race began; as the
land went on increasing, part of the population came down into the new country,
part remained in their old settlements. In ancient times the Thebais bore the
name of Egypt, a district of which the entire circumference is but 6120
furlongs.
[2.16] If, then, my judgment on these matters be right, the
Ionians are mistaken in what they say of Egypt. If, on the contrary, it is they
who are right, then I undertake to show that neither the Ionians nor any of the
other Greeks know how to count. For they all say that the earth is divided into
three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya, whereas they ought to add a fourth part,
the Delta of Egypt, since they do not include it either in Asia or Libya. For is
it not their theory that the Nile separates Asia from Libya? As the Nile,
therefore, splits in two at the apex of the Delta, the Delta itself must be a
separate country, not contained in either Asia or Libya.
[2.17] Here I take my leave of the opinions of the Ionians,
and proceed to deliver my own sentiments on these subjects. I consider Egypt to
be the whole country inhabited by the Egyptians, just as Cilicia is the tract
occupied by the Cilicians, and Assyria that possessed by the Assyrians. And I
regard the only proper boundary-line between Libya and Asia to be that which is
marked out by the Egyptian frontier. For if we take the boundary-line commonly
received by the Greeks, we must regard Egypt as divided, along its whole length
from Elephantine and the Cataracts to Cercasorus, into two parts, each belonging
to a different portion of the world, one to Asia, the other to Libya; since the
Nile divides Egypt in two from the Cataracts to the sea, running as far as the
city of Cercasorus in a single stream, but at that point separating into three
branches, whereof the one which bends eastward is called the Pelusiac mouth, and
that which slants to the west, the Canobic. Meanwhile the straight course of the
stream, which comes down from the upper country and meets the apex of the Delta,
continues on, dividing the Delta down the middle, and empties itself into the
sea by a mouth, which is as celebrated, and carries as large a body of water, as
most of the others, the mouth called the Sebennytic. Besides these there are two
other mouths which run out of the Sebennytic called respectively the Saitic and
the Mendesian. The Bolbitine mouth, and the Bucolic, are not natural branches,
but channels made by excavation.
[2.18] My judgment as to the extent of Egypt is confirmed
by an oracle delivered at the shrine of Ammon, of which I had no knowledge at
all until after I had formed my opinion. It happened that the people of the
cities Marea and Apis, who live in the part of Egypt that borders on Libya, took
a dislike to the religious usages of the country concerning sacrificial animals,
and wished no longer to be restricted from eating the flesh of cows. So, as they
believed themselves to be Libyans and not Egyptians, they sent to the shrine to
say that, having nothing in common with the Egyptians, neither inhabiting the
Delta nor using the Egyptian tongue, they claimed to be allowed to eat whatever
they pleased. Their request, however, was refused by the god, who declared in
reply that Egypt was the entire tract of country which the Nile overspreads and
irrigates, and the Egyptians were the people who lived below Elephantine, and
drank the waters of that river.
[2.19] So said the oracle. Now the Nile, when it overflows,
floods not only the Delta, but also the tracts of country on both sides the
stream which are thought to belong to Libya and Arabia, in some places reaching
to the extent of two days’ journey from its banks, in some even exceeding that
distance, but in others falling short of it.
Concerning the nature of the river, I was not able to gain
any information either from the priests or from others. I was particularly
anxious to learn from them why the Nile, at the commencement of the summer
solstice, begins to rise, and continues to increase for a hundred days – and
why, as soon as that number is past, it forthwith retires and contracts its
stream, continuing low during the whole of the winter until the summer solstice
comes round again. On none of these points could I obtain any explanation from
the inhabitants, though I made every inquiry, wishing to know what was commonly
reported – they could neither tell me what special virtue the Nile has which
makes it so opposite in its nature to all other streams, nor why, unlike every
other river, it gives forth no breezes from its surface.
[2.20] Some of the Greeks, however, wishing to get a
reputation for cleverness, have offered explanations of the phenomena of the
river, for which they have accounted in three different ways. Two of these I do
not think it worth while to speak of, further than simply to mention what they
are. One pretends that the Etesian winds cause the rise of the river by
preventing the Nile-water from running off into the sea. But in the first place
it has often happened, when the Etesian winds did not blow, that the Nile has
risen according to its usual wont; and further, if the Etesian winds produced
the effect, the other rivers which flow in a direction opposite to those winds
ought to present the same phenomena as the Nile, and the more so as they are all
smaller streams, and have a weaker current. But these rivers, of which there are
many both in Syria and Libya, are entirely unlike the Nile in this respect.
[2.21] The second opinion is even more unscientific than
the one just mentioned, and also, if I may so say, more marvellous. It is that
the Nile acts so strangely, because it flows from the ocean, and that the ocean
flows all round the earth.
[2.22] The third explanation, which is very much more
plausible than either of the others, is positively the furthest from the truth;
for there is really nothing in what it says, any more than in the other
theories. It is, that the inundation of the Nile is caused by the melting of
snows. Now, as the Nile flows out of Libya, through Ethiopia, into Egypt, how is
it possible that it can be formed of melted snow, running, as it does, from the
hottest regions of the world into cooler countries? Many are the proofs whereby
any one capable of reasoning on the subject may be convinced that it is most
unlikely this should be the case. The first and strongest argument is furnished
by the winds, which always blow hot from these regions. The second is that rain
and frost are unknown there. Now whenever snow falls, it must of necessity rain
within five days;.so that, if there were snow, there must be rain also in those
parts. Thirdly, it is certain that the natives of the country are black with the
heat, that the kites and the swallows remain there the whole year, and that the
cranes, when they fly from the rigours of a Scythian winter, flock thither to
pass the cold season. If then, in the country whence the Nile has its source, or
in that through which it flows, there fell ever so little snow, it is absolutely
impossible that any of these circumstances could take place.
[2.23] As for the writer who attributes the phenomenon to
the ocean, his account is involved in such obscurity that it is impossible to
disprove it by argument. For my part I know of no river called Ocean, and I
think that Homer, or one of the earlier poets, invented the name, and introduced
it into his poetry.
[2.24] Perhaps, after censuring all the opinions that have
been put forward on this obscure subject, one ought to propose some theory of
one’s own. I will therefore proceed to explain what I think to be the reason of
the Nile’s swelling in the summer time. During the winter, the sun is driven out
of his usual course by the storms, and removes to the upper parts of Libya. This
is the whole secret in the fewest possible words; for it stands to reason that
the country to which the Sun-god approaches the nearest, and which he passes
most directly over, will be scantest of water, and that there the streams which
feed the rivers will shrink the most.
[2.25] To explain, however, more at length, the case is
this. The sun, in his passage across the upper parts of Libya, affects them in
the following way. As the air in those regions is constantly clear, and the
country warm through the absence of cold winds, the sun in his passage across
them acts upon them exactly as he wont to act elsewhere in summer, when his path
is in the middle of heaven – that is, he attracts the water. After attracting
it, he again repels it into the upper regions, where the winds lay hold of it,
scatter it, and reduce it to a vapour, whence it naturally enough comes to pass
that the winds which blow from this quarter – the south and south-west – are of
all winds the most rainy. And my own opinion is that the sun does not get rid of
all the water which he draws year by year from the Nile, but retains some about
him. When the winter begins to soften, the sun goes back again to his old place
in the middle of the heaven, and proceeds to attract water equally from all
countries. Till then the other rivers run big, from the quantity of rain-water
which they bring down from countries where so much moisture falls that all the
land is cut into gullies; but in summer, when the showers fail, and the sun
attracts their water, they become low. The Nile, on the contrary, not deriving
any of its bulk from rains, and being in winter subject to the attraction of the
sun, naturally runs at that season, unlike all other streams, with a less
burthen of water than in the summer time. For in summer it is exposed to
attraction equally with all other rivers, but in winter it suffers alone. The
sun, therefore, I regard as the sole cause of the phenomenon.
[2.26] It is the sun also, in my opinion, which, by heating
the space through which it passes, makes the air in Egypt so dry. There is thus
perpetual summer in the upper parts of Libya. Were the position of the heavenly
regions reversed, so that the place where now the north wind and the winter have
their dwelling became the station of the south wind and of the noon-day, while,
on the other hand, the station of the south wind became that of the north, the
consequence would be that the sun, driven from the mid-heaven by the winter and
the northern gales, would betake himself to the upper parts of Europe, as he now
does to those of Libya, and then I believe his passage across Europe would
affect the Ister exactly as the Nile is affected at the present day.
[2.27] And with respect to the fact that no breeze blows
from the Nile, I am of opinion that no wind is likely to arise in very hot
countries, for breezes love to blow from some cold quarter.
[2.28] Let us leave these things, however, to their natural
course, to continue as they are and have been from the beginning. With regard to
the sources of the Nile, I have found no one among all those with whom I have
conversed, whether Egyptians, Libyans, or Greeks, who professed to have any
knowledge, except a single person. He was the scribe who kept the register of
the sacred treasures of Minerva in the city of Sais, and he did not seem to me
to be in earnest when he said that he knew them perfectly well. His story was as
follows:- “Between Syene, a city of the Thebais, and Elephantine, there are” (he
said) “two hills with sharp conical tops; the name of the one is Crophi, of the
other, Mophi. Midway between them are the fountains of the Nile, fountains which
it is impossible to fathom. Half the water runs northward into Egypt, half to
the south towards Ethiopia.” The fountains were known to be unfathomable, he
declared, because Psammetichus, an Egyptian king, had made trial of them. He had
caused a rope to be made, many thousand fathoms in length, and had sounded the
fountain with it, but could find no bottom. By this the scribe gave me to
understand, if there was any truth at all in what he said, that in this fountain
there are certain strong eddies, and a regurgitation, owing to the force
wherewith the water dashes against the mountains, and hence a Sounding-line
cannot be got to reach the bottom of the spring.
[2.29] No other information on this head could I obtain
from any quarter. All that I succeeded in learning further of the more distant
portions of the Nile, by ascending myself as high as Elephantine and making
inquiries concerning the parts beyond, was the following:- As one advances
beyond Elephantine, the land rises. Hence it is necessary in this part of the
river to attach a rope to the boat on each side, as men harness an ox, and so
proceed on the journey. If the rope snaps, the vessel is borne away down stream
by the force of the current. The navigation continues the same for four days,
the river winding greatly, like the Maeander, and the distance traversed
amounting to twelve schoenes. Here you come upon a smooth and level plain, where
the Nile flows in two branches, round an island called Tachompso. The country
above Elephantine is inhabited by the Ethiopians, who possess one-half of this
island, the Egyptians occupying the other. Above the island there is a great
lake, the shores of which are inhabited by Ethiopian nomads; after passing it,
you come again to the stream of the Nile, which runs into the lake. Here you
land, and travel for forty days along the banks of the river, since it is
impossible to proceed further in a boat on account of the sharp peaks which jut
out from the water, and the sunken rocks which abound in that part of the
stream. When you have passed this portion of the river in the space of forty
days, you go on board another boat and proceed by water for twelve days more, at
the end of which time you reach a great city called Meroe, which is said to be
the capital of the other Ethiopians. The only gods worshipped by the inhabitants
are Jupiter and Bacchus, to whom great honours are paid. There is an oracle of
Jupiter in the city, which directs the warlike expeditions of the Ethiopians;
when it commands they go to war, and in whatever direction it bids them march,
thither straightway they carry their arms.
[2.30] On leaving this city, and again mounting the stream,
in the same space of time which it took you to reach the capital from
Elephantine, you come to the Deserters, who bear the name of Asmach. This word,
translated into our language, means “the men who stand on the left hand of the
king.” These Deserters are Egyptians of the warrior caste, who, to the number of
two hundred and forty thousand, went over to the Ethiopians in the reign of king
Psammetichus. The cause of their desertion was the following:- Three garrisons
were maintained in Egypt at that time, one in the city of Elephantine against
the Ethiopians, another in the Pelusiac Daphnae, against the Syrians and
Arabians, and a third, against the Libyans, in Marea. (The very same posts are
to this day occupied by the Persians, whose forces are in garrison both in
Daphnae and in Elephantine.) Now it happened, that on one occasion the garrisons
were not relieved during the space of three years; the soldiers, therefore, at
the end of that time, consulted together, and having determined by common
consent to revolt, marched away towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus, informed of the
movement, set out in pursuit, and coming up with them, besought them with many
words not to desert the gods of their country, nor abandon their wives and
children. “Nay, but,” said one of the deserters with an unseemly gesture,
“wherever we go, we are sure enough of finding wives and children.” Arrived in
Ethiopia, they placed themselves at the disposal of the king. In return, he made
them a present of a tract of land which belonged to certain Ethiopians with whom
he was at feud, bidding them expel the inhabitants and take possession of their
territory. From the time that this settlement was formed, their acquaintance
with Egyptian manners has tended to civilise the Ethiopians.
[2.31] Thus the course of the Nile is known, not only
throughout Egypt, but to the extent of four months’ journey either by land or
water above the Egyptian boundary; for on calculation it will be found that it
takes that length of time to travel from Elephantine to the country of the
Deserters. There the direction of the river is from west to east. Beyond, no one
has any certain knowledge of its course, since the country is uninhabited by
reason of the excessive heat.
[2.32] I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from
certain natives of Cyrene. Once upon a time, they said, they were on a visit to
the oracular shrine of Ammon, when it chanced that in the course of conversation
with Etearchus, the Ammonian king, the talk fell upon the Nile, how that its
sources were unknown to all men. Etearchus upon this mentioned that some
Nasamonians had once come to his court, and when asked if they could give any
information concerning the uninhabited parts of Libya, had told the following
tale. (The Nasamonians are a Libyan race who occupy the Syrtis, and a tract of
no great size towards the east.) They said there had grown up among them some
wild young men, the sons of certain chiefs, who, when they came to man’s estate,
indulged in all manner of extravagancies, and among other things drew lots for
five of their number to go and explore the desert parts of Libya, and try if
they could not penetrate further than any had done previously. The coast of
Libya along the sea which washes it to the north, throughout its entire length
from Egypt to Cape Soloeis, which is its furthest point, is inhabited by Libyans
of many distinct tribes who possess the whole tract except certain portions
which belong to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. Above the coast-line and the
country inhabited by the maritime tribes, Libya is full of wild beasts; while
beyond the wild beast region there is a tract which is wholly sand, very scant
of water, and utterly and entirely a desert. The young men therefore, despatched
on this errand by their comrades with a plentiful supply of water and
provisions, travelled at first through the inhabited region, passing which they
came to the wild beast tract, whence they finally entered upon the desert, which
they proceeded to cross in a direction from east to west. After journeying for
many days over a wide extent of sand, they came at last to a plain where they
observed trees growing; approaching them, and seeing fruit on them, they
proceeded to gather it. While they were thus engaged, there came upon them some
dwarfish men, under the middle height, who seized them and carried them off. The
Nasamonians could not understand a word of their language, nor had they any
acquaintance with the language of the Nasamonians. They were led across
extensive marshes, and finally came to a town, where all the men were of the
height of their conductors, and black-complexioned. A great river flowed by the
town, running from west to east, and containing crocodiles.
[2.33] Here let me dismiss Etearchus the Ammonian, and his
story, only adding that (according to the Cyrenaeans) he declared that the
Nasamonians got safe back to their country, and that the men whose city they had
reached were a nation of sorcerers. With respect to the river which ran by their
town, Etearchus conjectured it to be the Nile; and reason favours that view. For
the Nile certainly flows out of Libya, dividing it down the middle, and as I
conceive, judging the unknown from the known, rises at the same distance from
its mouth as the Ister. This latter river has its source in the country of the
Celts near the city Pyrene, and runs through the middle of Europe, dividing it
into two portions. The Celts live beyond the pillars of Hercules, and border on
the Cynesians, who dwell at the extreme west of Europe. Thus the Ister flows
through the whole of Europe before it finally empties itself into the Euxine at
Istria, one of the colonies of the Milesians.
[2.34] Now as this river flows through regions that are
inhabited, its course is perfectly well known; but of the sources of the Nile no
one can give any account, since Libya, the country through which it passes, is
desert and without inhabitants. As far as it was possible to get information by
inquiry, I have given a description of the stream. It enters Egypt from the
parts beyond. Egypt lies almost exactly opposite the mountainous portion of
Cilicia, whence a lightly-equipped traveller may reach Sinope on the Euxine in
five days by the direct route. Sinope lies opposite the place where the Ister
falls into the sea. My opinion therefore is that the Nile, as it traverses the
whole of Libya, is of equal length with the Ister. And here I take my leave of
this subject.
[2.35] Concerning Egypt itself I shall extend my remarks to
a great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders, nor
any that has such a number of works which defy description. Not only is the
climate different from that of the rest of the world, and the rivers unlike any
other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, exactly
reverse the common practice of mankind. The women attend the markets and trade,
while the men sit at home at the loom; and here, while the rest of the world
works the woof up the warp, the Egyptians work it down; the women likewise carry
burthens upon their shoulders, while the men carry them upon their heads. They
eat their food out of doors in the streets, but retire for private purposes to
their houses, giving as a reason that what is unseemly, but necessary, ought to
be done in secret, but what has nothing unseemly about it, should be done
openly. A woman cannot serve the priestly office, either for god or goddess, but
men are priests to both; sons need not support their parents unless they choose,
but daughters must, whether they choose or no.
[2.36] In other countries the priests have long hair, in
Egypt their heads are shaven; elsewhere it is customary, in mourning, for near
relations to cut their hair close: the Egyptians, who wear no hair at any other
time, when they lose a relative, let their beards and the hair of their heads
grow long. All other men pass their lives separate from animals, the Egyptians
have animals always living with them; others make barley and wheat their food;
it is a disgrace to do so in Egypt, where the grain they live on is spelt, which
some call zea. Dough they knead with their feet; but they mix mud, and even take
up dirt, with their hands. They are the only people in the world- they at least,
and such as have learnt the practice from them – who use circumcision. Their men
wear two garments apiece, their women but one. They put on the rings and fasten
the ropes to sails inside; others put them outside. When they write or
calculate, instead of going, like the Greeks, from left to right, they move
their hand from right to left; and they insist, notwithstanding, that it is they
who go to the right, and the Greeks who go to the left. They have two quite
different kinds of writing, one of which is called sacred, the other common.
[2.37] They are religious to excess, far beyond any other
race of men, and use the following ceremonies:- They drink out of brazen cups,
which they scour every day: there is no exception to this practice. They wear
linen garments, which they are specially careful to have always fresh washed.
They practise circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to
be cleanly than comely. The priests shave their whole body every other day, that
no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when they are engaged in the
service of the gods. Their dress is entirely of linen, and their shoes of the
papyrus plant: it is not lawful for them to wear either dress or shoes of any
other material. They bathe twice every day in cold water, and twice each night;
besides which they observe, so to speak, thousands of ceremonies. They enjoy,
however, not a few advantages. They consume none of their own property, and are
at no expense for anything; but every day bread is baked for them of the sacred
corn, and a plentiful supply of beef and of goose’s flesh is assigned to each,
and also a portion of wine made from the grape. Fish they are not allowed to
eat; and beans – which none of the Egyptians ever sow, or eat, if they come up
of their own accord, either raw or boiled – the priests will not even endure to
look on, since they consider it an unclean kind of pulse. Instead of a single
priest, each god has the attendance of a college, at the head of which is a
chief priest; when one of these dies, his son is appointed in his room.
[2.38] Male kine are reckoned to belong to Epaphus, and are
therefore tested in the following manner:- One of the priests appointed for the
purpose searches to see if there is a single black hair on the whole body, since
in that case the beast is unclean. He examines him all over, standing on his
legs, and again laid upon his back; after which he takes the tongue out of his
mouth, to see if it be clean in respect of the prescribed marks (what they are I
will mention elsewhere); he also inspects the hairs of the tail, to observe if
they grow naturally. If the animal is pronounced clean in all these various
points, the priest marks him by twisting a piece of papyrus round his horns, and
attaching thereto some sealing-clay, which he then stamps with his own
signet-ring. After this the beast is led away; and it is forbidden, under the
penalty of death, to sacrifice an animal which has not been marked in this way.
[2.39] The following is their manner of sacrifice:- They
lead the victim, marked with their signet, to the altar where they are about to
offer it, and setting the wood alight, pour a libation of wine upon the altar in
front of the victim, and at the same time invoke the god. Then they slay the
animal, and cutting off his head, proceed to flay the body. Next they take the
head, and heaping imprecations on it, if there is a market-place and a body of
Greek traders in the city, they carry it there and sell it instantly; if,
however, there are no Greeks among them, they throw the head into the river. The
imprecation is to this effect:- They pray that if any evil is impending either
over those who sacrifice, or over universal Egypt, it may be made to fall upon
that head. These practices, the imprecations upon the heads, and the libations
of wine, prevail all over Egypt, and extend to victims of all sorts; and hence
the Egyptians will never eat the head of any animal.
[2.40] The disembowelling and burning are, however,
different in different sacrifices. I will mention the mode in use with respect
to the goddess whom they regard as the greatest, and honour with the chiefest
festival. When they have flayed their steer they pray, and when their prayer is
ended they take the paunch of the animal out entire, leaving the intestines and
the fat inside the body; they then cut off the legs, the ends of the loins, the
shoulders, and the neck; and having so done, they fill the body of the steer
with clean bread, honey, raisins, figs, frankincense, myrrh, and other
aromatics. Thus filled, they burn the body, pouring over it great quantities of
oil. Before offering the sacrifice they fast, and while the bodies of the
victims are being consumed they beat themselves. Afterwards, when they have
concluded this part of the ceremony, they have the other parts of the victim
served up to them for a repast.
[2.41] The male kine, therefore, if clean, and the male
calves, are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally; but the females
they are not allowed to sacrifice, since they are sacred to Isis. The statue of
this goddess has the form of a woman but with horns like a cow, resembling thus
the Greek representations of Io; and the Egyptians, one and all, venerate cows
much more highly than any other animal. This is the reason why no native of
Egypt, whether man or woman, will give a Greek a kiss, or use the knife of a
Greek, or his spit, or his cauldron, or taste the flesh of an ox, known to be
pure, if it has been cut with a Greek knife. When kine die, the following is the
manner of their sepulture:- The females are thrown into the river; the males are
buried in the suburbs of the towns, with one or both of their horns appearing
above the surface of the ground to mark the place. When the bodies are decayed,
a boat comes, at an appointed time, from the island called Prosopitis, – which
is a portion of the Delta, nine schoenes in circumference, – and calls at the
several cities in turn to collect the bones of the oxen. Prosopitis is a
district containing several cities; the name of that from which the boats come
is Atarbechis. Venus has a temple there of much sanctity. Great numbers of men
go forth from this city and proceed to the other towns, where they dig up the
bones, which they take away with them and bury together in one place. The same
practice prevails with respect to the interment of all other cattle – the law so
determining; they do not slaughter any of them.
[2.42] Such Egyptians as possess a temple of the Theban
Jove, or live in the Thebaic canton, offer no sheep in sacrifice, but only
goats; for the Egyptians do not all worship the same gods, excepting Isis and
Osiris, the latter of whom they say is the Grecian Bacchus. Those, on the
contrary, who possess a temple dedicated to Mendes, or belong to the Mendesian
canton, abstain from offering goats, and sacrifice sheep instead. The Thebans,
and such as imitate them in their practice, give the following account of the
origin of the custom:- “Hercules,” they say, “wished of all things to see Jove,
but Jove did not choose to be seen of him. At length, when Hercules persisted,
Jove hit on a device – to flay a ram, and, cutting off his head, hold the head
before him, and cover himself with the fleece. In this guise he showed himself
to Hercules.” Therefore the Egyptians give their statues of Jupiter the face of
a ram: and from them the practice has passed to the Ammonians, who are a joint
colony of Egyptians and Ethiopians, speaking a language between the two; hence
also, in my opinion, the latter people took their name of Ammonians, since the
Egyptian name for Jupiter is Amun. Such, then, is the reason why the Thebans do
not sacrifice rams, but consider them sacred animals. Upon one day in the year,
however, at the festival of Jupiter, they slay a single ram, and stripping off
the fleece, cover with it the statue of that god, as he once covered himself,
and then bring up to the statue of Jove an image of Hercules. When this has been
done, the whole assembly beat their breasts in mourning for the ram, and
afterwards bury him in a holy sepulchre.
[2.43] The account which I received of this Hercules makes
him one of the twelve gods. Of the other Hercules, with whom the Greeks are
familiar, I could hear nothing in any part of Egypt. That the Greeks, however
(those I mean who gave the son of Amphitryon that name), took the name from the
Egyptians, and not the Egyptians from the Greeks, is I think clearly proved,
among other arguments, by the fact that both the parents of Hercules, Amphitryon
as well as Alcmena, were of Egyptian origin. Again, the Egyptians disclaim all
knowledge of the names of Neptune and the Dioscuri, and do not include them in
the number of their gods; but had they adopted the name of any god from the
Greeks, these would have been the likeliest to obtain notice, since the
Egyptians, as I am well convinced, practised navigation at that time, and the
Greeks also were some of them mariners, so that they would have been more likely
to know the names of these gods than that of Hercules. But the Egyptian Hercules
is one of their ancient gods. Seventeen thousand years before the reign of
Amasis, the twelve gods were, they affirm, produced from the eight: and of these
twelve, Hercules is one.
[2.44] In the wish to get the best information that I could
on these matters, I made a voyage to Tyre in Phoenicia, hearing there was a
temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated. I visited the temple,
and found it richly adorned with a number of offerings, among which were two
pillars, one of pure gold, the other of emerald, shining with great brilliancy
at night. In a conversation which I held with the priests, I inquired how long
their temple had been built, and found by their answer that they, too, differed
from the Greeks. They said that the temple was built at the same time that the
city was founded, and that the foundation of the city took place two thousand
three hundred years ago. In Tyre I remarked another temple where the same god
was worshipped as the Thasian Hercules. So I went on to Thasos, where I found a
temple of Hercules which had been built by the Phoenicians who colonised that
island when they sailed in search of Europa. Even this was five generations
earlier than the time when Hercules, son of Amphitryon, was born in Greece.
These researches show plainly that there is an ancient god Hercules; and my own
opinion is that those Greeks act most wisely who build and maintain two temples
of Hercules, in the one of which the Hercules worshipped is known by the name of
Olympian, and has sacrifice offered to him as an immortal, while in the other
the honours paid are such as are due to a hero.
[2.45] The Greeks tell many tales without due
investigation, and among them the following silly fable respecting Hercules:-
“Hercules,” they say, “went once to Egypt, and there the inhabitants took him,
and putting a chaplet on his head, led him out in solemn procession, intending
to offer him a sacrifice to Jupiter. For a while he submitted quietly; but when
they led him up to the altar and began the ceremonies, he put forth his strength
and slew them all.” Now to me it seems that such a story proves the Greeks to be
utterly ignorant of the character and customs of the people. The Egyptians do
not think it allowable even to sacrifice cattle, excepting sheep, and the male
kine and calves, provided they be pure, and also geese. How, then, can it be
believed that they would sacrifice men? And again, how would it have been
possible for Hercules alone, and, as they confess, a mere mortal, to destroy so
many thousands? In saying thus much concerning these matters, may I incur no
displeasure either of god or hero!
[2.46] I mentioned above that some of the Egyptians abstain
from sacrificing goats, either male or female. The reason is the following:-
These Egyptians, who are the Mendesians, consider Pan to be one of the eight
gods who existed before the twelve, and Pan is represented in Egypt by the
painters and the sculptors, just as he is in Greece, with the face and legs of a
goat. They do not, however, believe this to be his shape, or consider him in any
respect unlike the other gods; but they represent him thus for a reason which I
prefer not to relate. The Mendesians hold all goats in veneration, but the male
more than the female, giving the goatherds of the males especial honour. One is
venerated more highly than all the rest, and when he dies there is a great
mourning throughout all the Mendesian canton. In Egyptian, the goat and Pan are
both called Mendes.
[2.47] The pig is regarded among them as an unclean animal,
so much so that if a man in passing accidentally touch a pig, he instantly
hurries to the river, and plunges in with all his clothes on. Hence, too, the
swineherds, notwithstanding that they are of pure Egyptian blood, are forbidden
to enter into any of the temples, which are open to all other Egyptians; and
further, no one will give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or take a
wife from among them, so that the swineherds are forced to intermarry among
themselves. They do not offer swine in sacrifice to any of their gods, excepting
Bacchus and the Moon, whom they honour in this way at the same time, sacrificing
pigs to both of them at the same full moon, and afterwards eating of the flesh.
There is a reason alleged by them for their detestation of swine at all other
seasons, and their use of them at this festival, with which I am well
acquainted, but which I do not think it proper to mention. The following is the
mode in which they sacrifice the swine to the Moon:- As soon as the victim is
slain, the tip of the tail, the spleen, and the caul are put together, and
having been covered with all the fat that has been found in the animal’s belly,
are straightway burnt. The remainder of the flesh is eaten on the same day that
the sacrifice is offered, which is the day of the full moon: at any other time
they would not so much as taste it. The poorer sort, who cannot afford live
pigs, form pigs of dough, which they bake and offer in sacrifice.
[2.48] To Bacchus, on the eve of his feast, every Egyptian
sacrifices a hog before the door of his house, which is then given back to the
swineherd by whom it was furnished, and by him carried away. In other respects
the festival is celebrated almost exactly as Bacchic festivals are in Greece,
excepting that the Egyptians have no choral dances. They also use instead of
phalli another invention, consisting of images a cubit high, pulled by strings,
which the women carry round to the villages. A piper goes in front, and the
women follow, singing hymns in honour of Bacchus. They give a religious reason
for the peculiarities of the image.
[2.49] Melampus, the son of Amytheon, cannot (I think) have
been ignorant of this ceremony – nay, he must, I should conceive, have been well
acquainted with it. He it was who introduced into Greece the name of Bacchus,
the ceremonial of his worship, and the procession of the phallus. He did not,
however, so completely apprehend the whole doctrine as to be able to communicate
it entirely, but various sages since his time have carried out his teaching to
greater perfection. Still it is certain that Melampus introduced the phallus,
and that the Greeks learnt from him the ceremonies which they now practise. I
therefore maintain that Melampus, who was a wise man, and had acquired the art
of divination, having become acquainted with the worship of Bacchus through
knowledge derived from Egypt, introduced it into Greece, with a few slight
changes, at the same time that he brought in various other practices. For I can
by no means allow that it is by mere coincidence that the Bacchic ceremonies in
Greece are so nearly the same as the Egyptian – they would then have been more
Greek in their character, and less recent in their origin. Much less can I admit
that the Egyptians borrowed these customs, or any other, from the Greeks. My
belief is that Melampus got his knowledge of them from Cadmus the Tyrian, and
the followers whom he brought from Phoenicia into the country which is now
called Boeotia.
[2.50] Almost all the names of the gods came into Greece
from Egypt. My inquiries prove that they were all derived from a foreign source,
and my opinion is that Egypt furnished the greater number. For with the
exception of Neptune and the Dioscuri, whom I mentioned above, and Juno, Vesta,
Themis, the Graces, and the Nereids, the other gods have been known from time
immemorial in Egypt. This I assert on the authority of the Egyptians themselves.
The gods, with whose names they profess themselves unacquainted, the Greeks
received, I believe, from the Pelasgi, except Neptune. Of him they got their
knowledge from the Libyans, by whom he has been always honoured, and who were
anciently the only people that had a god of the name. The Egyptians differ from
the Greeks also in paying no divine honours to heroes.
[2.51] Besides these which have been here mentioned, there
are many other practices whereof I shall speak hereafter, which the Greeks have
borrowed from Egypt. The peculiarity, however, which they observe in their
statues of Mercury they did not derive from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgi;
from them the Athenians first adopted it, and afterwards it passed from the
Athenians to the other Greeks. For just at the time when the Athenians were
entering into the Hellenic body, the Pelasgi came to live with them in their
country, whence it was that the latter came first to be regarded as Greeks.
Whoever has been initiated into the mysteries of the Cabiri will understand what
I mean. The Samothracians received these mysteries from the Pelasgi, who, before
they went to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their
religious ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who were the first
of all the Greeks to make their statues of Mercury in this way, learnt the
practice from the Pelasgians; and by this people a religious account of the
matter is given, which is explained in the Samothracian mysteries.
[2.52] In early times the Pelasgi, as I know by information
which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of all kinds, and prayed to the gods,
but had no distinct names or appellations for them, since they had never heard
of any. They called them gods (Theoi, disposers), because they disposed and
arranged all things in such a beautiful order. After a long lapse of time the
names of the gods came to Greece from Egypt, and the Pelasgi learnt them, only
as yet they knew nothing of Bacchus, of whom they first heard at a much later
date. Not long after the arrival of the names they sent to consult the oracle at
Dodona about them. This is the most ancient oracle in Greece, and at that time
there was no other. To their question, “Whether they should adopt the names that
had been imported from the foreigners?” the oracle replied by recommending their
use. Thenceforth in their sacrifices the Pelasgi made use of the names of the
gods, and from them the names passed afterwards to the Greeks.
[2.53] Whence the gods severally sprang, whether or no they
had all existed from eternity, what forms they bore – these are questions of
which the Greeks knew nothing until the other day, so to speak. For Homer and
Hesiod were the first to compose Theogonies, and give the gods their epithets,
to allot them their several offices and occupations, and describe their forms;
and they lived but four hundred years before my time, as I believe. As for the
poets who are thought by some to be earlier than these, they are, in my
judgment, decidedly later writers. In these matters I have the authority of the
priestesses of Dodona for the former portion of my statements; what I have said
of Homer and Hesiod is my own opinion.
[2.54] The following tale is commonly told in Egypt
concerning the oracle of Dodona in Greece, and that of Ammon in Libya. My
informants on the point were the priests of Jupiter at Thebes. They said “that
two of the sacred women were once carried off from Thebes by the Phoenicians,
and that the story went that one of them was sold into Libya, and the other into
Greece, and these women were the first founders of the oracles in the two
countries.” On my inquiring how they came to know so exactly what became of the
women, they answered, “that diligent search had been made after them at the
time, but that it had not been found possible to discover where they were;
afterwards, however, they received the information which they had given me.”
[2.55] This was what I heard from the priests at Thebes; at
Dodona, however, the women who deliver the oracles relate the matter as
follows:- “Two black doves flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and while one
directed its flight to Libya, the other came to them. She alighted on an oak,
and sitting there began to speak with a human voice, and told them that on the
spot where she was, there should henceforth be an oracle of Jove. They
understood the announcement to be from heaven, so they set to work at once and
erected the shrine. The dove which flew to Libya bade the Libyans to establish
there the oracle of Ammon.” This likewise is an oracle of Jupiter. The persons
from whom I received these particulars were three priestesses of the Dodonaeans,
the eldest Promeneia, the next Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra – what they
said was confirmed by the other Dodonaeans who dwell around the temple.
[2.56] My own opinion of these matters is as follows:- I
think that, if it be true that the Phoenicians carried off the holy women, and
sold them for slaves, the one into Libya and the other into Greece, or Pelasgia
(as it was then called), this last must have been sold to the Thesprotians.
Afterwards, while undergoing servitude in those parts, she built under a real
oak a temple to Jupiter, her thoughts in her new abode reverting – as it was
likely they would do, if she had been an attendant in a temple of Jupiter at
Thebes – to that particular god. Then, having acquired a knowledge of the Greek
tongue, she set up an oracle. She also mentioned that her sister had been sold
for a slave into Libya by the same persons as herself.
[2.57] The Dodonaeans called the women doves because they
were foreigners, and seemed to them to make a noise like birds. After a while
the dove spoke with a human voice, because the woman, whose foreign talk had
previously sounded to them like the chattering of a bird, acquired the power of
speaking what they could understand. For how can it be conceived possible that a
dove should really speak with the voice of a man? Lastly, by calling the dove
black the Dodonaeans indicated that the woman was an Egyptian. And certainly the
character of the oracles at Thebes and Dodona is very similar. Besides this form
of divination, the Greeks learnt also divination by means of victims from the
Egyptians.
[2.58] The Egyptians were also the first to introduce
solemn assemblies, processions, and litanies to the gods; of all which the
Greeks were taught the use by them. It seems to me a sufficient proof of this
that in Egypt these practices have been established from remote antiquity, while
in Greece they are only recently known.
[2.59] The Egyptians do not hold a single solemn assembly,
but several in the course of the year. Of these the chief, which is better
attended than any other, is held at the city of Bubastis in honour of Diana. The
next in importance is that which takes place at Busiris, a city situated in the
very middle of the Delta; it is in honour of Isis, who is called in the Greek
tongue Demiter (Ceres). There is a third great festival in Sais to Minerva, a
fourth in Heliopolis to the Sun, a fifth in Buto to Latona, and a sixth in
Papremis to Mars.
[2.60] The following are the proceedings on occasion of the
assembly at Bubastis:- Men and women come sailing all together, vast numbers in
each boat, many of the women with castanets, which they strike, while some of
the men pipe during the whole time of the voyage; the remainder of the voyagers,
male and female, sing the while, and make a clapping with their hands. When they
arrive opposite any of the towns upon the banks of the stream, they approach the
shore, and, while some of the women continue to play and sing, others call aloud
to the females of the place and load them with abuse, while a certain number
dance, and some standing up uncover themselves. After proceeding in this way all
along the river-course, they reach Bubastis, where they celebrate the feast with
abundant sacrifices. More grape-wine is consumed at this festival than in all
the rest of the year besides. The number of those who attend, counting only the
men and women and omitting the children, amounts, according to the native
reports, to seven hundred thousand.
[2.61] The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of
Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude, both
of men and women, many thousands in number, beat themselves at the close of the
sacrifice, in honour of a god, whose name a religious scruple forbids me to
mention. The Carian dwellers in Egypt proceed on this occasion to still greater
lengths, even cutting their faces with their knives, whereby they let it been
seen that they are not Egyptians but foreigners.
[2.62] At Sais, when the assembly takes place for the
sacrifices, there is one night on which the inhabitants all burn a multitude of
lights in the open air round their houses. They use lamps in the shape of flat
saucers filled with a mixture of oil and salt, on the top of which the wick
floats. These burn the whole night, and give to the festival the name of the
Feast of Lamps. The Egyptians who are absent from the festival observe the night
of the sacrifice, no less than the rest, by a general lighting of lamps; so that
the illumination is not confined to the city of Sais, but extends over the whole
of Egypt. And there is a religious reason assigned for the special honour paid
to this night, as well as for the illumination which accompanies it.
[2.63] At Heliopolis and Buto the assemblies are merely for
the purpose of sacrifice; but at Papremis, besides the sacrifices and other
rites which are performed there as elsewhere, the following custom is observed:-
When the sun is getting low, a few only of the priests continue occupied about
the image of the god, while the greater number, armed with wooden clubs, take
their station at the portal of the temple. Opposite to them is drawn up a body
of men, in number above a thousand, armed, like the others, with clubs,
consisting of persons engaged in the performance of their vows. The image of the
god, which is kept in a small wooden shrine covered with plates of gold, is
conveyed from the temple into a second sacred building the day before the
festival begins. The few priests still in attendance upon the image place it,
together with the shrine containing it, on a four-wheeled car, and begin to drag
it along; the others stationed at the gateway of the temple, oppose its
admission. Then the votaries come forward to espouse the quarrel of the god, and
set upon the opponents, who are sure to offer resistance. A sharp fight with
clubs ensues, in which heads are commonly broken on both sides. Many, I am
convinced, die of the wounds that they receive, though the Egyptians insist that
no one is ever killed.
[2.64] The natives give the subjoined account of this
festival. They say that the mother of the god Mars once dwelt in the temple.
Brought up at a distance from his parent, when he grew to man’s estate he
conceived a wish to visit her. Accordingly he came, but the attendants, who had
never seen him before, refused him entrance, and succeeded in keeping him out.
So he went to another city and collected a body of men, with whose aid he
handled the attendants very roughly, and forced his way in to his mother. Hence
they say arose the custom of a fight with sticks in honour of Mars at this
festival.
The Egyptians first made it a point of religion to have no
converse with women in the sacred places, and not to enter them without washing,
after such converse. Almost all other nations, except the Greeks and the
Egyptians, act differently, regarding man as in this matter under no other law
than the brutes. Many animals, they say, and various kinds of birds, may be seen
to couple in the temples and the sacred precincts, which would certainly not
happen if the gods were displeased at it. Such are the arguments by which they
defend their practice, but I nevertheless can by no means approve of it. In
these points the Egyptians are specially careful, as they are indeed in
everything which concerns their sacred edifices.
[2.65] Egypt, though it borders upon Libya, is not a region
abounding in wild animals. The animals that do exist in the country, whether
domesticated or otherwise, are all regarded as sacred. If I were to explain why
they are consecrated to the several gods, I should be led to speak of religious
matters, which I particularly shrink from mentioning; the points whereon I have
touched slightly hitherto have all been introduced from sheer necessity. Their
custom with respect to animals is as follows:- For every kind there are
appointed certain guardians, some male, some female, whose business it is to
look after them; and this honour is made to descend from father to son. The
inhabitants of the various cities, when they have made a vow to any god, pay it
to his animals in the way which I will now explain. At the time of making the
vow they shave the head of the child, cutting off all the hair, or else half, or
sometimes a third part, which they then weigh in a balance against a sum of
silver; and whatever sum the hair weighs is presented to the guardian of the
animals, who thereupon cuts up some fish, and gives it to them for food – such
being the stuff whereon they are fed. When a man has killed one of the sacred
animals, if he did it with malice prepense, he is punished with death; if
unwittingly, he has to pay such a fine as the priests choose to impose. When an
ibis, however, or a hawk is killed, whether it was done by accident or on
purpose, the man must needs die.
[2.66] The number of domestic animals in Egypt is very
great, and would be still greater were it not for what befalls the cats. As the
females, when they have kittened, no longer seek the company of the males, these
last, to obtain once more their companionship, practise a curious artifice. They
seize the kittens, carry them off, and kill them, but do not cat them
afterwards. Upon this the females, being deprived of their young, and longing to
supply their place, seek the males once more, since they are particularly fond
of their offspring. On every occasion of a fire in Egypt the strangest prodigy
occurs with the cats. The inhabitants allow the fire to rage as it pleases,
while they stand about at intervals and watch these animals, which, slipping by
the men or else leaping over them, rush headlong into the flames. When this
happens, the Egyptians are in deep affliction. If a cat dies in a private house
by a natural death, all the inmates of the house shave their eyebrows; on the
death of a dog they shave the head and the whole of the body.
[2.67] The cats on their decease are taken to the city of
Bubastis, where they are embalmed, after which they are buried in certain sacred
repositories. The dogs are interred in the cities to which they belong, also in
sacred burial-places. The same practice obtains with respect to the ichneumons;
the hawks and shrew-mice, on the contrary, are conveyed to the city of Buto for
burial, and the ibises to Hermopolis. The bears, which are scarce in Egypt, and
the wolves, which are not much bigger than foxes, they bury wherever they happen
to find them lying.
[2.68] The following are the peculiarities of the
crocodile:- During the four winter months they eat nothing; they are
four-footed, and live indifferently on land or in the water. The female lays and
hatches her eggs ashore, passing the greater portion of the day on dry land, but
at night retiring to the river, the water of which is warmer than the night-air
and the dew. Of all known animals this is the one which from the smallest size
grows to be the greatest: for the egg of the crocodile is but little bigger than
that of the goose, and the young crocodile is in proportion to the egg; yet when
it is full grown, the animal measures frequently seventeen cubits and even more.
It has the eyes of a pig, teeth large and tusk-like, of a size proportioned to
its frame; unlike any other animal, it is without a tongue; it cannot move its
under-jaw, and in this respect too it is singular, being the only animal in the
world which moves the upper-jaw but not the under. It has strong claws and a
scaly skin, impenetrable upon the back. In the water it is blind, but on land it
is very keen of sight. As it lives chiefly in the river, it has the inside of
its mouth constantly covered with leeches; hence it happens that, while all the
other birds and beasts avoid it, with the trochilus it lives at peace, since it
owes much to that bird: for the crocodile, when he leaves the water and comes
out upon the land, is in the habit of lying with his mouth wide open, facing the
western breeze: at such times the trochilus goes into his mouth and devours the
leeches. This benefits the crocodile, who is pleased, and takes care not to hurt
the trochilus.
[2.69] The crocodile is esteemed sacred by some of the
Egyptians, by others he is treated as an enemy. Those who live near Thebes, and
those who dwell around Lake Moeris, regard them with especial veneration. In
each of these places they keep one crocodile in particular, who is taught to be
tame and tractable. They adorn his ears with ear-rings of molten stone or gold,
and put bracelets on his fore-paws, giving him daily a set portion of bread,
with a certain number of victims; and, after having thus treated him with the
greatest possible attention while alive, they embalm him when he dies and bury
him in a sacred repository. The people of Elephantine on the other hand, are so
far from considering these animals as sacred that they even eat their flesh. In
the Egyptian language they are not called crocodiles, but Champsae. The name of
crocodiles was given them by the Ionians, who remarked their resemblance to the
lizards, which in Ionia live in the walls and are called crocodiles.
[2.70] The modes of catching the crocodile are many and
various. I shall only describe the one which seems to me most worthy of mention.
They bait a hook with a chine of pork and let the meat be carried out into the
middle of the stream, while the hunter upon the bank holds a living pig, which
he belabours. The crocodile hears its cries, and making for the sound,
encounters the pork, which he instantly swallows down. The men on the shore
haul, and when they have got him to land, the first thing the hunter does is to
plaster his eyes with mud. This once accomplished, the animal is despatched with
ease, otherwise he gives great trouble.
[2.71] The hippopotamus, in the canton of Papremis, is a
sacred animal, but not in any other part of Egypt. It may be thus described:- It
is a quadruped, cloven-footed, with hoofs like an ox, and a flat nose. It has
the mane and tail of a horse, huge tusks which are very conspicuous, and a voice
like a horse’s neigh. In size it equals the biggest oxen, and its skin is so
tough that when dried it is made into javelins.
[2.72] Otters also are found in the Nile, and are
considered sacred. Only two sorts of fish are venerated, that called the
lepidotus and the eel. These are regarded as sacred to the Nile, as likewise
among birds is the vulpanser, or fox-goose.
[2.73] They have also another sacred bird called the
phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great
rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the
people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies. Its
size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow:- The plumage is
partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly
that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem
to me to be credible: that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the
parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there
buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh
as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball, and puts his
parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the
ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt,
plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun. Such is
the story they tell of the doings of this bird.
[2.74] In the neighbourhood of Thebes there are some sacred
serpents which are perfectly harmless. They are of small size, and have two
horns growing out of the top of the head. These snakes, when they die, are
buried in the temple of Jupiter, the god to whom they are sacred.
[2.75] I went once to a certain place in Arabia, almost
exactly opposite the city of Buto, to make inquiries concerning the winged
serpents. On my arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents in such
numbers as it is impossible to describe: of the ribs there were a multitude of
heaps, some great, some small, some middle-sized. The place where the bones lie
is at the entrance of a narrow gorge between steep mountains, which there open
upon a spacious plain communicating with the great plain of Egypt. The story
goes that with the spring the winged snakes come flying from Arabia towards
Egypt, but are met in this gorge by the birds called ibises, who forbid their
entrance and destroy them all. The Arabians assert, and the Egyptians also
admit, that it is on account of the service thus rendered that the Egyptians
hold the ibis in so much reverence.
[2.76] The ibis is a bird of a deep-black colour, with legs
like a crane; its beak is strongly hooked, and its size is about that of the
land-rail. This is a description of the black ibis which contends with the
serpents. The commoner sort, for there are two quite distinct species, has the
head and the whole throat bare of feathers; its general plumage is white, but
the head and neck are jet black, as also are the tips of the wings and the
extremity of the tail; in its beak and legs it resembles the other species. The
winged serpent is shaped like the water-snake. Its wings are not feathered, but
resemble very closely those of the bat. And thus I conclude the subject of the
sacred animals.
[2.77] With respect to the Egyptians themselves, it is to
be remarked that those who live in the corn country, devoting themselves, as
they do, far more than any other people in the world, to the preservation of the
memory of past actions, are the best skilled in history of any men that I have
ever met. The following is the mode of life habitual to them:- For three
successive days in each month they purge the body by means of emetics and
clysters, which is done out of a regard for their health, since they have a
persuasion that every disease to which men are liable is occasioned by the
substances whereon they feed. Apart from any such precautions, they are, I
believe, next to the Libyans, the healthiest people in the world – an effect of
their climate, in my opinion, which has no sudden changes. Diseases almost
always attack men when they are exposed to a change, and never more than during
changes of the weather. They live on bread made of spelt, which they form into
loaves called in their own tongue cyllestis. Their drink is a wine which they
obtain from barley, as they have no vines in their country. Many kinds of fish
they eat raw, either salted or dried in the sun. Quails also, and ducks and
small birds, they eat uncooked, merely first salting them. All other birds and
fishes, excepting those which are set apart as sacred, are eaten either roasted
or boiled.
[2.78] In social meetings among the rich, when the banquet
is ended, a servant carries round to the several guests a coffin, in which there
is a wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble nature as nearly
as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest
in turn, the servant says, “Gaze here, and drink and be merry; for when you die,
such will you be.”
[2.79] The Egyptians adhere to their own national customs,
and adopt no foreign usages. Many of these customs are worthy of note: among
others their song, the Linus, which is sung under various names not only in
Egypt but in Phoenicia, in Cyprus, and in other places; and which seems to be
exactly the same as that in use among the Greeks, and by them called Linus.
There were very many things in Egypt which filled me with astonishment, and this
was one of them. Whence could the Egyptians have got the Linus? It appears to
have been sung by them from the very earliest times. For the Linus in Egyptian
is called Maneros; and they told me that Maneros was the only son of their first
king, and that on his untimely death he was honoured by the Egyptians with these
dirgelike strains, and in this way they got their first and only melody.
[2.80] There is another custom in which the Egyptians
resemble a particular Greek people, namely the Lacedaemonians. Their young men,
when they meet their elders in the streets, give way to them and step aside; and
if an elder come in where young men are present, these latter rise from their
seats. In a third point they differ entirely from all the nations of Greece.
Instead of speaking to each other when they meet in the streets, they make an
obeisance, sinking the hand to the knee.
[2.81] They wear a linen tunic fringed about the legs, and
called calasiris; over this they have a white woollen garment thrown on
afterwards. Nothing of woollen, however, is taken into their temples or buried
with them, as their religion forbids it. Here their practice resembles the rites
called Orphic and Bacchic, but which are in reality Egyptian and Pythagorean;
for no one initiated in these mysteries can be buried in a woollen shroud, a
religious reason being assigned for the observance.
[2.82] The Egyptians likewise discovered to which of the
gods each month and day is sacred; and found out from the day of a man’s birth
what he will meet with in the course of his life, and how he will end his days,
and what sort of man he will be – discoveries whereof the Greeks engaged in
poetry have made a use. The Egyptians have also discovered more prognostics than
all the rest of mankind besides. Whenever a prodigy takes place, they watch and
record the result; then, if anything similar ever happens again, they expect the
same consequences.
[2.83] With respect to divination, they hold that it is a
gift which no mortal possesses, but only certain of the gods: thus they have an
oracle of Hercules, one of Apollo, of Minerva, of Diana, of Mars, and of
Jupiter. Besides these, there is the oracle of Latona at Buto, which is held in
much higher repute than any of the rest. The mode of delivering the oracles is
not uniform, but varies at the different shrines.
[2.84] Medicine is practised among them on a plan of
separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more: thus the
country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure diseases of
the eye, others of the head, others again of the teeth, others of the
intestines, and some those which are not local.
[2.85] The following is the way in which they conduct their
mournings and their funerals:- On the death in any house of a man of
consequence, forthwith the women of the family beplaster their heads, and
sometimes even their faces, with mud; and then, leaving the body indoors, sally
forth and wander through the city, with their dress fastened by a band, and
their bosoms bare, beating themselves as they walk. All the female relations
join them and do the same. The men too, similarly begirt, beat their breasts
separately. When these ceremonies are over, the body is carried away to be
embalmed.
[2.86] There are a set of men in Egypt who practice the art
of embalming, and make it their proper business. These persons, when a body is
brought to them, show the bearers various models of corpses, made in wood, and
painted so as to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after the
manner of him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection with such a
matter; the second sort is inferior to the first, and less costly; the third is
the cheapest of all. All this the embalmers explain, and then ask in which way
it is wished that the corpse should be prepared. The bearers tell them, and
having concluded their bargain, take their departure, while the embalmers, left
to themselves, proceed to their task. The mode of embalming, according to the
most perfect process, is the following:- They take first a crooked piece of
iron, and with it draw out the brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a
portion, while the skull is cleared of the rest by rinsing with drugs; next they
make a cut along the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and take out the whole
contents of the abdomen, which they then cleanse, washing it thoroughly with
palm wine, and again frequently with an infusion of pounded aromatics. After
this they fill the cavity with the purest bruised myrrh, with cassia, and every
other sort of spicery except frankincense, and sew up the opening. Then the body
is placed in natrum for seventy days, and covered entirely over. After the
expiration of that space of time, which must not be exceeded, the body is
washed, and wrapped round, from head to foot, with bandages of fine linen cloth,
smeared over with gum, which is used generally by the Egyptians in the place of
glue, and in this state it is given back to the relations, who enclose it in a
wooden case which they have had made for the purpose, shaped into the figure of
a man. Then fastening the case, they place it in a sepulchral chamber, upright
against the wall. Such is the most costly way of embalming the dead.
[2.87] If persons wish to avoid expense, and choose the
second process, the following is the method pursued:- Syringes are filled with
oil made from the cedar-tree, which is then, without any incision or
disembowelling, injected into the abdomen. The passage by which it might be
likely to return is stopped, and the body laid in natrum the prescribed number
of days. At the end of the time the cedar-oil is allowed to make its escape; and
such is its power that it brings with it the whole stomach and intestines in a
liquid state. The natrum meanwhile has dissolved the flesh, and so nothing is
left of the dead body but the skin and the bones. It is returned in this
condition to the relatives, without any further trouble being bestowed upon it.
[2.88] The third method of embalming, which is practised in
the case of the poorer classes, is to clear out the intestines with a clyster,
and let the body lie in natrum the seventy days, after which it is at once given
to those who come to fetch it away.
[2.89] The wives of men of rank are not given to be
embalmed immediately after death, nor indeed are any of the more beautiful and
valued women. It is not till they have been dead three or four days that they
are carried to the embalmers. This is done to prevent indignities from being
offered them. It is said that once a case of this kind occurred: the man was
detected by the information of his fellow-workman.
[2.90] Whensoever any one, Egyptian or foreigner, has lost
his life by falling a prey to a crocodile, or by drowning in the river, the law
compels the inhabitants of the city near which the body is cast up to have it
embalmed, and to bury it in one of the sacred repositories with all possible
magnificence. No one may touch the corpse, not even any of the friends or
relatives, but only the priests of the Nile, who prepare it for burial with
their own hands – regarding it as something more than the mere body of a man –
and themselves lay it in the tomb.
[2.91] The Egyptians are averse to adopt Greek customs, or,
in a word, those of any other nation. This feeling is almost universal among
them. At Chemmis, however, which is a large city in the Thebaic canton, near
Neapolis, there is a square enclosure sacred to Perseus, son of Danae. Palm
trees grow all round the place, which has a stone gateway of an unusual size,
surmounted by two colossal statues, also in stone. Inside this precinct is a
temple, and in the temple an image of Perseus. The people of Chemmis say that
Perseus often appears to them, sometimes within the sacred enclosure, sometimes
in the open country: one of the sandals which he has worn is frequently found –
two cubits in length, as they affirm – and then all Egypt flourishes greatly. In
the worship of Perseus Greek ceremonies are used; gymnastic games are celebrated
in his honour, comprising every kind of contest, with prizes of cattle, cloaks,
and skins. I made inquiries of the Chemmites why it was that Perseus appeared to
them and not elsewhere in Egypt, and how they came to celebrate gymnastic
contests unlike the rest of the Egyptians: to which they answered, “that Perseus
belonged to their city by descent. Danans and Lynceus were Chemmites before they
set sail for Greece, and from them Perseus was descended,” they said, tracing
the genealogy; “and he, when he came to Egypt for the purpose” (which the Greeks
also assign) “of bringing away from Libya the Gorgon’s head, paid them a visit,
and acknowledged them for his kinsmen – he had heard the name of their city from
his mother before he left Greece – he bade them institute a gymnastic contest in
his honour, and that was the reason why they observed the practice.”
[2.92] The customs hitherto described are those of the
Egyptians who live above the marsh-country. The inhabitants of the marshes have
the same customs as the rest, as well in those matters which have been mentioned
above as in respect of marriage, each Egyptian taking to himself, like the
Greeks, a single wife; but for greater cheapness of living the marsh-men
practise certain peculiar customs, such as these following. They gather the
blossoms of a certain water-lily, which grows in great abundance all over the
flat country at the time when the Nile rises and floods the regions along its
banks – the Egyptians call it lotus – they gather, I say, the blossoms of this
plant and dry them in the sun, after which they extract from the centre of each
blossom a substance like the head of a poppy, which they crush and make into
bread. The root of the lotus is likewise eatable, and has a pleasant sweet
taste: it is round, and about the size of an apple. There is also another
species of the lily in Egypt, which grows, like the lotus, in the river, and
resembles the rose. The fruit springs up side by side with the blossom, on a
separate stalk, and has almost exactly the look of the comb made by wasps. It
contains a number of seeds, about the size of an olive-stone, which are good to
eat: and these are eaten both green and dried. The byblus (papyrus), which grows
year after year in the marshes, they pull up, and, cutting the plant in two,
reserve the upper portion for other purposes, but take the lower, which is about
a cubit long, and either eat it or else sell it. Such as wish to enjoy the
byblus in full perfection bake it first in a closed vessel, heated to a glow.
Some of these folk, however, live entirely on fish, which are gutted as soon as
caught, and then hung up in the sun: when dry, they are used as food.
[2.93] Gregarious fish are not found in any numbers in the
rivers; they frequent the lagunes, whence, at the season of breeding, they
proceed in shoals towards the sea. The males lead the way, and drop their milt
as they go, while the females, following close behind, eagerly swallow it down.
From this they conceive, and when, after passing some time in the sea, they
begin to be in spawn, the whole shoal sets off on its return to its ancient
haunts. Now, however, it is no longer the males, but the females, who take the
lead: they swim in front in a body, and do exactly as the males did before,
dropping, little by little, their grains of spawn as they go, while the males in
the rear devour the grains, each one of which is a fish. A portion of the spawn
escapes and is not swallowed by the males, and hence come the fishes which grow
afterwards to maturity. Whan any of this sort of fish are taken on their passage
to the sea, they are found to have the left side of the head scarred and
bruised; while if taken on their return, the marks appear on the right. The
reason is that as they swim down the Nile seaward, they keep close to the bank
of the river upon their left, and returning again up stream they still cling to
the same side, hugging it and brushing against it constantly, to be sure that
they miss not their road through the great force of the current. When the Nile
begins to rise, the hollows in the land and the marshy spots near the river are
flooded before any other places by the percolation of the water through the
riverbanks; and these, almost as soon as they become pools, are found to be full
of numbers of little fishes. I think that I understand how it is this comes to
pass. On the subsidence of the Nile the year before, though the fish retired
with the retreating waters, they had first deposited their spawn in the mud upon
the banks; and so, when at the usual season the water returns, small fry are
rapidly engendered out of the spawn of the preceding year. So much concerning
the fish.
[2.94] The Egyptians who live in the marshes use for the
anointing of their bodies an oil made from the fruit of the sillicyprium, which
is known among them by the name of “kiki.” To obtain this they plant the
sillicyprium (which grows wild in Greece) along the banks of the rivers and by
the sides of the lakes, where it produces fruit in great abundance, but with a
very disagreeable smell. This fruit is gathered, and then bruised and pressed,
or else boiled down after roasting: the liquid which comes from it is collected
and is found to be unctuous, and as well suited as olive-oil for lamps, only
that it gives out an unpleasant odour.
[2.95] The contrivances which they use against gnats,
wherewith the country swarms, are the following. In the parts of Egypt above the
marshes the inhabitants pass the night upon lofty towers, which are of great
service, as the gnats are unable to fly to any height on account of the winds.
In the marsh-country, where there are no towers, each man possesses a net
instead. By day it serves him to catch fish, while at night he spreads it over
the bed in which he is to rest, and creeping in, goes to sleep underneath. The
gnats, which, if he rolls himself up in his dress or in a piece of muslin, are
sure to bite through the covering, do not so much as attempt to pass the net.
[2.96] The vessels used in Egypt for the transport of
merchandise are made of the Acantha (Thorn), a tree which in its growth is very
like the Cyrenaic lotus, and from which there exudes a gum. They cut a quantity
of planks about two cubits in length from this tree, and then proceed to their
ship-building, arranging the planks like bricks, and attaching them by ties to a
number of long stakes or poles till the hull is complete, when they lay the
cross-planks on the top from side to side. They give the boats no ribs, but
caulk the seams with papyrus on the inside. Each has a single rudder, which is
driven straight through the keel. The mast is a piece of acantha-wood, and the
sails are made of papyrus. These boats cannot make way against the current
unless there is a brisk breeze; they are, therefore, towed up-stream from the
shore: down-stream they are managed as follows. There is a raft belonging to
each, made of the wood of the tamarisk, fastened together with a wattling of
reeds; and also a stone bored through the middle about two talents in weight.
The raft is fastened to the vessel by a rope, and allowed to float down the
stream in front, while the stone is attached by another rope astern. The result
is that the raft, hurried forward by the current, goes rapidly down the river,
and drags the “baris” (for so they call this sort of boat) after it; while the
stone, which is pulled along in the wake of the vessel, and lies deep in the
water, keeps the boat straight. There are a vast number of these vessels in
Egypt, and some of them are of many thousand talents’ burthen.
[2.97] When the Nile overflows, the country is converted
into a sea, and nothing appears but the cities, which look like the islands in
the Egean. At this season boats no longer keep the course of the river, but sail
right across the plain. On the voyage from Naucratis to Memphis at this season,
you pass close to the pyramids, whereas the usual course is by the apex of the
Delta, and the city of Cercasorus. You can sail also from the maritime town of
Canobus across the flat to Naucratis, passing by the cities of Anthylla and
Archandropolis.
[2.98] The former of these cities, which is a place of
note, is assigned expressly to the wife of the ruler of Egypt for the time
being, to keep her in shoes. Such has been the custom ever since Egypt fell
under the Persian yoke. The other city seems to me to have got its name of
Archandropolis from Archander the Phthian, son of Achaeus, and son-in-law of
Danaus. There might certainly have been another Archander; but, at any rate, the
name is not Egyptian.
[2.99] Thus far I have spoken of Egypt from my own
observation, relating what I myself saw, the ideas that I formed, and the
results of my own researches. What follows rests on the accounts given me by the
Egyptians, which shall now repeat, adding thereto some particulars which fell
under by own notice.
The priests said that Min was the first king of Egypt, and
that it was he who raised the dyke which protects Memphis from the inundations
of the Nile. Before his time the river flowed entirely along the sandy range of
hills which skirts Egypt on the side of Libya. He, however, by banking up the
river at the bend which it forms about a hundred furlongs south of Memphis, laid
the ancient channel dry, while he dug a new course for the stream halfway
between the two lines of hills. To this day, the elbow which the Nile forms at
the point where it is forced aside into the new channel is guarded with the
greatest care by the Persians, and strengthened every year; for if the river
were to burst out at this place, and pour over the mound, there would be danger
of Memphis being completely overwhelmed by the flood. Min, the first king,
having thus, by turning the river, made the tract where it used to run, dry
land, proceeded in the first place to build the city now called Memphis, which
lies in the narrow part of Egypt; after which he further excavated a lake
outside the town, to the north and west, communicating with the river, which was
itself the eastern boundary. Besides these works, he also, the priests said,
built the temple of Vulcan which stands within the city, a vast edifice, very
worthy of mention.
[2.100] Next, they read me from a papyrus the names of
three hundred and thirty monarchs, who (they said) were his successors upon the
throne. In this number of generations there were eighteen Ethiopian kings, and
one queen who was a native; all the rest were kings and Egyptians. The queen
bore the same name as the Babylonian princess, namely, Nitocris. They said that
she succeeded her brother; he had been king of Egypt, and was put to death by
his subjects, who then placed her upon the throne. Bent on avenging his death,
she devised a cunning scheme by which she destroyed a vast number of Egyptians.
She constructed a spacious underground chamber, and, on pretence of inaugurating
it, contrived the following:- Inviting to a banquet those of the Egyptians whom
she knew to have had the chief share in the murder of her brother, she suddenly,
as they were feasting, let the river in upon them by means of a secret duct of
large size. This and this only did they tell me of her, except that, when she
had done as I have said, she threw herself into an apartment full of ashes, that
she might escape the vengeance whereto she would otherwise have been exposed.
[2.101] The other kings, they said, were personages of no
note or distinction, and left no monuments of any account, with the exception of
the last, who was named Moeris. He left several memorials of his reign – the
northern gateway of the temple of Vulcan, the lake excavated by his orders,
whose dimensions I shall give presently, and the pyramids built by him in the
lake, the size of which will be stated when I describe the lake itself wherein
they stand. Such were his works: the other kings left absolutely nothing.
[2.102] Passing over these monarchs, therefore, I shall
speak of the king who reigned next, whose name was Sesostris. He, the priests
said, first of all proceeded in a fleet of ships of war from the Arabian gulf
along the shores of the Erythraean sea, subduing the nations as he went, until
he finally reached a sea which could not be navigated by reason of the shoals.
Hence he returned to Egypt, where, they told me, he collected a vast armament,
and made a progress by land across the continent, conquering every people which
fell in his way. In the countries where the natives withstood his attack, and
fought gallantly for their liberties, he erected pillars, on which he inscribed
his own name and country, and how that he had here reduced the inhabitants to
subjection by the might of his arms: where, on the contrary, they submitted
readily and without a struggle, he inscribed on the pillars, in addition to
these particulars, an emblem to mark that they were a nation of women, that is,
unwarlike and effeminate.
[2.103] In this way he traversed the whole continent of
Asia, whence he passed on into Europe, and made himself master of Scythia and of
Thrace, beyond which countries I do not think that his army extended its march.
For thus far the pillars which he erected are still visible, but in the remoter
regions they are no longer found. Returning to Egypt from Thrace, he came, on
his way, to the banks of the river Phasis. Here I cannot say with any certainty
what took place. Either he of his own accord detached a body of troops from his
main army and left them to colonise the country, or else a certain number of his
soldiers, wearied with their long wanderings, deserted, and established
themselves on the banks of this stream.
[2.104] There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an
Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had
remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the
subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more
distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still
the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the
army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they
are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little,
since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the
circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only
nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The Phoenicians
and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of
the Egyptians; and the Syrians who dwell about the rivers Thermodon and
Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macronians, say that they have
recently adopted it from the Colchians. Now these are the only nations who use
circumcision, and it is plain that they all imitate herein the Egyptians. With
respect to the Ethiopians, indeed, I cannot decide whether they learnt the
practice of the Egyptians, or the Egyptians of them – it is undoubtedly of very
ancient date in Ethiopia – but that the others derived their knowledge of it
from Egypt is clear to me from the fact that the Phoenicians, when they come to
have commerce with the Greeks, cease to follow the Egyptians in this custom, and
allow their children to remain uncircumcised.
[2.105] I will add a further proof to the identity of the
Egyptians and the Colchians. These two nations weave their linen in exactly the
same way, and this is a way entirely unknown to the rest of the world; they also
in their whole mode of life and in their language resemble one another. The
Colchian linen is called by the Greeks Sardinian, while that which comes from
Egypt is known as Egyptian.
[2.106] The pillars which Sesostris erected in the
conquered countries have for the most part disappeared; but in the part of Syria
called Palestine, I myself saw them still standing, with the writing
above-mentioned, and the emblem distinctly visible. In Ionia also, there are two
representations of this prince engraved upon rocks, one on the road from Ephesus
to Phocaea, the other between Sardis and Smyrna. In each case the figure is that
of a man, four cubits and a span high, with a spear in his right hand and a bow
in his left, the rest of his costume being likewise half Egyptian, half
Ethiopian. There is an inscription across the breast from shoulder to shoulder,
in the sacred character of Egypt, which says, “With my own shoulders I conquered
this land.” The conqueror does not tell who he is, or whence he comes, though
elsewhere Sesostris records these facts. Hence it has been imagined by some of
those who have seen these forms, that they are figures of Memnon; but such as
think so err very widely from the truth.
[2.107] This Sesostris, the priests went on to say, upon
his return home, accompanied by vast multitudes of the people whose countries he
had subdued, was received by his brother, whom he had made viceroy of Egypt on
his departure, at Daphnae near Pelusium, and invited by him to a banquet, which
he attended, together with his sons. Then his brother piled a quantity of wood
all round the building, and having so done set it alight. Sesostris, discovering
what had happened, took counsel instantly with his wife, who had accompanied him
to the feast, and was advised by her to lay two of their six sons upon the fire,
and so make a bridge across the flames, whereby the rest might effect their
escape. Sesostris did as she recommended, and thus while two of his sons were
burnt to death, he himself and his other children were saved.
[2.108] The king then returned to his own land and took
vengeance upon his brother, after which he proceeded to make use of the
multitudes whom he had brought with him from the conquered countries, partly to
drag the huge masses of stone which were moved in the course of his reign to the
temple of Vulcan – partly to dig the numerous canals with which the whole of
Egypt is intersected. By these forced labours the entire face of the country was
changed; for whereas Egypt had formerly been a region suited both for horses and
carriages, henceforth it became entirely unfit for either. Though a flat country
throughout its whole extent, it is now unfit for either horse or carriage, being
cut up by the canals, which are extremely numerous and run in all directions.
The king’s object was to supply Nile water to the inhabitants of the towns
situated in the mid-country, and not lying upon the river; for previously they
had been obliged, after the subsidence of the floods, to drink a brackish water
which they obtained from wells.
[2.109] Sesostris also, they declared, made a division of
the soil of Egypt among the inhabitants, assigning square plots of ground of
equal size to all, and obtaining his chief revenue from the rent which the
holders were required to pay him year by year. If the river carried away any
portion of a man’s lot, he appeared before the king, and related what had
happened; upon which the king sent persons to examine, and determine by
measurement the exact extent of the loss; and thenceforth only such a rent was
demanded of him as was proportionate to the reduced size of his land. From this
practice, I think, geometry first came to be known in Egypt, whence it passed
into Greece. The sun-dial, however, and the gnomon with the division of the day
into twelve parts, were received by the Greeks from the Babylonians.
[2.110] Sesostris was king not only of Egypt, but also of
Ethiopia. He was the only Egyptian monarch who ever ruled over the latter
country. He left, as memorials of his reign, the stone statues which stand in
front of the temple of Vulcan, two of which, representing himself and his wife,
are thirty cubits in height, while the remaining four, which represent his sons,
are twenty cubits. These are the statues, in front of which the priest of
Vulcan, very many years afterwards, would not allow Darius the Persian to place
a statue of himself; “because,” he said, “Darius had not equalled the
achievements of Sesostris the Egyptian: for while Sesostris had subdued to the
full as many nations as ever Darius had brought under, he had likewise conquered
the Scythians, whom Darius had failed to master. It was not fair, therefore,
that he should erect his statue in front of the offerings of a king, whose deeds
he had been unable to surpass.” Darius, they say, pardoned the freedom of this
speech.
[2.111] On the death of Sesostris, his son Pheron, the
priests said, mounted the throne. He undertook no warlike expeditions; being
struck with blindness, owing to the following circumstance. The river had
swollen to the unusual height of eighteen cubits, and had overflowed all the
fields, when, a sudden wind arising, the water rose in great waves. Then the
king, in a spirit of impious violence, seized his spear, and hurled it into the
strong eddies of the stream. Instantly he was smitten with disease of the eyes,
from which after a little while he became blind, continuing without the power of
vision for ten years. At last, in the eleventh year, an oracular announcement
reached him from the city of Buto, to the effect, that “the time of his
punishment had run out, and he should recover his sight by washing his eyes with
urine. He must find a woman who had been faithful to her husband, and had never
preferred to him another man.” The king, therefore, first of all made trial of
his wife, but to no purpose he continued as blind as before. So he made the
experiment with other women, until at length he succeeded, and in this way
recovered his sight. Hereupon he assembled all the women, except the last, and
bringing them to the city which now bears the name of Erythrabolus (Red-soil),
he there burnt them all, together with the place itself. The woman to whom he
owed his cure, he married, and after his recovery was complete, he presented
offerings to all the temples of any note, among which the best worthy of mention
are the two stone obelisks which he gave to the temple of the Sun. These are
magnificent works; each is made of a single stone, eight cubits broad, and a
hundred cubits in height.
[2.112] Pheros, they said, was succeeded by a man of
Memphis, whose name, in the language of the Greeks, was Proteus. There is a
sacred precinct of this king in Memphis, which is very beautiful, and richly
adorned, situated south of the great temple of Vulcan. Phoenicians from the city
of Tyre dwell all round this precinct, and the whole place is known by the name
of “the camp of the Tyrians.” Within the enclosure stands a temple, which is
called that of Venus the Stranger. I conjecture the building to have been
erected to Helen, the daughter of Tyndarus; first, because she, as I have heard
say, passed some time at the court of Proteus; and secondly, because the temple
is dedicated to Venus the Stranger; for among all the many temples of Venus
there is no other where the goddess bears this title.
[2.113] The priests, in answer to my inquiries on the
subject of Helen, informed me of the following particulars. When Alexander had
carried off Helen from Sparta, he took ship and sailed homewards. On his way
across the Egean a gale arose, which drove him from his course and took him down
to the sea of Egypt; hence, as the wind did not abate, he was carried on to the
coast, when he went ashore, landing at the Salt-Pans, in that mouth of the Nile
which is now called the Canobic. At this place there stood upon the shore a
temple, which still exists, dedicated to Hercules. If a slave runs away from his
master, and taking sanctuary at this shrine gives himself up to the god, and
receives certain sacred marks upon his person, whosoever his master may be, he
cannot lay hand on him. This law still remained unchanged to my time. Hearing,
therefore, of the custom of the place, the attendants of Alexander deserted him,
and fled to the temple, where they sat as suppliants. While there, wishing to
damage their master, they accused him to the Egyptians, narrating all the
circumstances of the rape of Helen and the wrong done to Menelaus. These charges
they brought, not only before the priests, but also before the warden of that
mouth of the river, whose name was Thonis.
[2.114] As soon as he received the intelligence, Thonis
sent a message to Proteus, who was at Memphis, to this effect: “A stranger is
arrived from Greece; he is by race a Teucrian, and has done a wicked deed in the
country from which he is come. Having beguiled the wife of the man whose guest
he was, he carried her away with him, and much treasure also. Compelled by
stress of weather, he has now put in here. Are we to let him depart as he came,
or shall we seize what he has brought?” Proteus replied, “Seize the man, be he
who he may, that has dealt thus wickedly with his friend, and bring him before
me, that I may hear what he will say for himself.”
[2.115] Thonis, on receiving these orders, arrested
Alexander, and stopped the departure of his ships; then, taking with him
Alexander, Helen, the treasures, and also the fugitive slaves, he went up to
Memphis. When all were arrived, Proteus asked Alexander, “who he was, and whence
he had come?” Alexander replied by giving his descent, the name of his country,
and a true account of his late voyage. Then Proteus questioned him as to how he
got possession of Helen. In his reply Alexander became confused, and diverged
from the truth, whereon the slaves interposed, confuted his statements, and told
the whole history of the crime. Finally, Proteus delivered judgment as follows:
“Did I not regard it as a matter of the utmost consequence that no stranger
driven to my country by adverse winds should ever be put to death, I would
certainly have avenged the Greek by slaying thee. Thou basest of men, – after
accepting hospitality, to do so wicked a deed! First, thou didst seduce the wife
of thy own host – then, not content therewith, thou must violently excite her
mind, and steal her away from her husband. Nay, even so thou wert not satisfied,
but on leaving, thou must plunder the house in which thou hadst been a guest.
Now then, as I think it of the greatest importance to put no stranger to death,
I suffer thee to depart; but the woman and the treasures I shall not permit to
be carried away. Here they must stay, till the Greek stranger comes in person
and takes them back with him. For thyself and thy companions, I command thee to
begone from my land within the space of three days – and I warn you, that
otherwise at the end of that time you will be treated as enemies.”
[2.116] Such was the tale told me by the priests concerning
the arrival of Helen at the court of Proteus. It seems to me that Homer was
acquainted with this story, and while discarding it, because he thought it less
adapted for epic poetry than the version which he followed, showed that it was
not unknown to him. This is evident from the travels which he assigns to
Alexander in the Iliad – and let it be borne in mind that he has nowhere else
contradicted himself – making him be carried out of his course on his return
with Helen, and after divers wanderings come at last to Sidon in Phoenicia. The
passage is in the Bravery of Diomed, and the words are as follows:-
There were the robes, many-coloured, the work of Sidonian
women:
They from Sidon had come, what time god-shaped Alexander
Over the broad sea brought, that way, the high-born Helen.
In the Odyssey also the same fact is alluded to, in these
words:-
Such, so wisely prepared, were the drugs that her stores
afforded,
Excellent; gift which once Polydamna, partner of Thonis,
Gave her in Egypt, where many the simples that grow in the meadows,
Potent to cure in part, in part as potent to injure.
Menelaus too, in the same poem, thus addresses Telemachus:-
Much did I long to return, but the Gods still kept me in
Egypt –
Angry because I had failed to pay them their hecatombs duly.
In these places Homer shows himself acquainted with the
voyage of Alexander to Egypt, for Syria borders on Egypt, and the Phoenicians,
to whom Sidon belongs, dwell in Syria.
[2.117] From these various passages, and from that about
Sidon especially, it is clear that Homer did not write the Cypria. For
there it is said that Alexander arrived at Ilium with Helen on the third day
after he left Sparta, the wind having been favourable, and the sea smooth;
whereas in the Iliad, the poet makes him wander before he brings her
home. Enough, however, for the present of Homer and the Cypria.
[2.118] I made inquiry of the priests whether the story
which the Greeks tell about Ilium is a fable, or no. In reply they related the
following particulars, of which they declared that Menelaus had himself informed
them. After the rape of Helen, a vast army of Greeks, wishing to render help to
Menelaus, set sail for the Teucrian territory; on their arrival they
disembarked, and formed their camp, after which they sent ambassadors to Ilium,
of whom Menelaus was one. The embassy was received within the walls, and
demanded the restoration of Helen with the treasures which Alexander had carried
off, and likewise required satisfaction for the wrong done. The Teucrians gave
at once the answer in which they persisted ever afterwards, backing their
assertions sometimes even with oaths, to wit, that neither Helen, nor the
treasures claimed, were in their possession, – both the one and the other had
remained, they said, in Egypt; and it was not just to come upon them for what
Proteus, king of Egypt, was detaining. The Greeks, imagining that the Teucrians
were merely laughing at them, laid siege to the town, and never rested until
they finally took it. As, however, no Helen was found, and they were still told
the same story, they at length believed in its truth, and despatched Menelaus to
the court of Proteus.
[2.119] So Menelaus travelled to Egypt, and on his arrival
sailed up the river as far as Memphis, and related all that had happened. He met
with the utmost hospitality, received Helen back unharmed, and recovered all his
treasures. After this friendly treatment Menelaus, they said, behaved most
unjustly towards the Egyptians; for as it happened that at the time when he
wanted to take his departure, he was detained by the wind being contrary, and as
he found this obstruction continue, he had recourse to a most wicked expedient.
He seized, they said, two children of the people of the country, and offered
them up in sacrifice. When this became known, the indignation of the people was
stirred, and they went in pursuit of Menelaus, who, however, escaped with his
ships to Libya, after which the Egyptians could not say whither he went. The
rest they knew full well, partly by the inquiries which they had made, and
partly from the circumstances having taken place in their own land, and
therefore not admitting of doubt.
[2.120] Such is the account given by the Egyptian priests,
and I am myself inclined to regard as true all that they say of Helen from the
following considerations:- If Helen had been at Troy, the inhabitants would, I
think, have given her up to the Greeks, whether Alexander consented to it or no.
For surely neither Priam, nor his family, could have been so infatuated as to
endanger their own persons, their children, and their city, merely that
Alexander might possess Helen. At any rate, if they determined to refuse at
first, yet afterwards when so many of the Trojans fell on every encounter with
the Greeks, and Priam too in each battle lost a son, or sometimes two, or three,
or even more, if we may credit the epic poets, I do not believe that even if
Priam himself had been married to her he would have declined to deliver her up,
with the view of bringing the series of calamities to a close. Nor was it as if
Alexander had been heir to the crown, in which case he might have had the chief
management of affairs, since Priam was already old. Hector, who was his elder
brother, and a far braver man, stood before him, and was the heir to the kingdom
on the death of their father Priam. And it could not be Hector’s interest to
uphold his brother in his wrong, when it brought such dire calamities upon
himself and the other Trojans. But the fact was that they had no Helen to
deliver, and so they told the Greeks, but the Greeks would not believe what they
said – Divine Providence, as I think, so willing, that by their utter
destruction it might be made evident to all men that when great wrongs are done,
the gods will surely visit them with great punishments. Such, at least, is my
view of the matter.
[2.121] When Proteus died, Rhampsinitus, the priests
informed me, succeeded to the throne. His monuments were the western gateway of
the temple of Vulcan, and the two statues which stand in front of this gateway,
called by the Egyptians, the one Summer, the other Winter, each twenty-five
cubits in height. The statue of Summer, which is the northernmost of the two, is
worshipped by the natives, and has offerings made to it; that of Winter, which
stands towards the south, is treated in exactly the contrary way. King
Rhampsinitus was possessed, they said, of great riches in silver – indeed to
such an amount, that none of the princes, his successors, surpassed or even
equalled his wealth. For the better custody of this money, he proposed to build
a vast chamber of hewn stone, one side of which was to form a part of the outer
wall of his palace. The builder, therefore, having designs upon the treasures,
contrived, as he was making the building, to insert in this wall a stone, which
could easily be removed from its place by two men, or even by one. So the
chamber was finished, and the king’s money stored away in it. Time passed, and
the builder fell sick, when finding his end approaching, he called for his two
sons, and related to them the contrivance he had made in the king’s
treasure-chamber, telling them it was for their sakes he had done it, that so
they might always live in affluence. Then he gave them clear directions
concerning the mode of removing the stone, and communicated the measurements,
bidding them carefully keep the secret, whereby they would be Comptrollers of
the Royal Exchequer so long as they lived. Then the father died, and the sons
were not slow in setting to work: they went by night to the palace, found the
stone in the wall of the building, and having removed it with ease, plundered
the treasury of a round sum.
When the king next paid a visit to the apartment, he was
astonished to see that the money was sunk in some of the vessels wherein it was
stored away. Whom to accuse, however, he knew not, as the seals were all
perfect, and the fastenings of the room secure. Still each time that he repeated
his visits, he found that more money was gone. The thieves in truth never
stopped, but plundered the treasury ever more and more. At last the king
determined to have some traps made, and set near the vessels which contained his
wealth. This was done, and when the thieves came, as usual, to the
treasure-chamber, and one of them entering through the aperture, made straight
for the jars, suddenly he found himself caught in one of the traps. Perceiving
that he was lost, he instantly called his brother and telling him what had
happened, entreated him to enter as quickly as possible and cut off his head,
that when his body should be discovered it might not be recognised, which would
have the effect of bringing ruin upon both. The other thief thought the advice
good, and was persuaded to follow it then, fitting the stone into its place, he
went home, taking with him his brother’s head.
When day dawned, the king came into the room, and marvelled
greatly to see the body of the thief in the trap without a head, while the
building was still whole, and neither entrance nor exit was to be seen anywhere.
In this perplexity he commanded the body of the dead man to be hung up outside
the palace wall, and set a guard to watch it, with orders that if any persons
were seen weeping or lamenting near the place, they should be seized and brought
before him. When the mother heard of this exposure of the corpse of her son, she
took it sorely to heart, and spoke to her surviving child, bidding him devise
some plan or other to get back the body, and threatening, that if he did not
exert himself, she would go herself to the king, and denounce him as the robber.
The son said all he could to persuade her to let the matter
rest, but in vain; she still continued to trouble him, until at last he yielded
to her importunity, and contrived as follows:- Filling some skins with wine, he
loaded them on donkeys, which he drove before him till he came to the place
where the guards were watching the dead body, when pulling two or three of the
skins towards him, he untied some of the necks which dangled by the asses’
sides. The wine poured freely out, whereupon he began to beat his head, and
shout with all his might, seeming not to know which of the donkeys he should
turn to first. When the guards saw the wine running, delighted to profit by the
occasion, they rushed one and all into the road, each with some vessel or other,
and caught the liquor as it was spilling. The driver pretended anger, and loaded
them with abuse; whereon they did their best to pacify him, until at last he
appeared to soften, and recover his good humour, drove his asses aside out of
the road, and set to work to rearrange their burthens; meanwhile, as he talked
and chatted with the guards, one of them began to rally him, and make him laugh,
whereupon he gave them one of the skins as a gift. They now made up their minds
to sit down and have a drinking-bout where they were, so they begged him to
remain and drink with them. Then the man let himself be persuaded, and stayed.
As the drinking went on, they grew very friendly together, so presently he gave
them another skin, upon which they drank so copiously that they were all
overcome with the liquor, and growing drowsy lay down, and fell asleep on the
spot. The thief waited till it was the dead of the night, and then took down the
body of his brother; after which, in mockery, he shaved off the right side of
all the soldiers’ beards, and so left them. Laying his brother’s body upon the
asses, he carried it home to his mother, having thus accomplished the thing that
she had required of him.
When it came to the king’s ears that the thief’s body was
stolen away, he was sorely vexed. Wishing, therefore, whatever it might cost, to
catch the man who had contrived the trick, he had recourse (the priests said) to
an expedient, which I can scarcely credit. He sent his own daughter to the
common stews, with orders to admit all comers, but to require every man to tell
her what was the cleverest and wickedest thing he had done in the whole course
of his life. If any one in reply told her the story of the thief, she was to lay
hold of him and not allow him to get away. The daughter did as her father
willed, whereon the thief, who was well aware of the king’s motive, felt a
desire to outdo him in craft and cunning. Accordingly he contrived the following
plan:- He procured the corpse of a man lately dead, and cutting of one of the
arms at the shoulder, put it under his dress, and so went to the king’s
daughter. When she put the question to him as she had done to all the rest, he
replied that the wickedest thing he had ever done was cutting off the head of
his brother when he was caught in a trap in the king’s treasury, and the
cleverest was making the guards drunk and carrying off the body. As he spoke,
the princess caught at him, but the thief took advantage of the darkness to hold
out to her the hand of the corpse. Imagining it to be his own hand, she seized
and held it fast; while the thief, leaving it in her grasp, made his escape by
the door.
The king, when word was brought him of this fresh success,
amazed at the sagacity and boldness of the man, sent messengers to all the towns
in his dominions to proclaim a free pardon for the thief, and to promise him a
rich reward, if he came and made himself known. The thief took the king at his
word, and came boldly into his presence; whereupon Rhampsinitus, greatly
admiring him, and looking on him as the most knowing of men, gave him his
daughter in marriage. “The Egyptians,” he said, “excelled all the rest of the
world in wisdom, and this man excelled all other Egyptians.”
[2.122] The same king, I was also informed by the priests,
afterwards descended alive into the region which the Greeks call Hades, and
there played at dice with Ceres, sometimes winning and sometimes suffering
defeat. After a while he returned to earth, and brought with him a golden
napkin, a gift which he had received from the goddess. From this descent of
Rhampsinitus into Hades, and return to earth again, the Egyptians, I was told,
instituted a festival, which they certainly celebrated in my day. On what
occasion it was that they instituted it, whether upon this or upon any other, I
cannot determine. The following are the ceremonies:- On a certain day in the
year the priests weave a mande, and binding the eyes of one of their number with
a fillet, they put the mantle upon him, and take him with them into the roadway
conducting to the temple of Ceres, when they depart and leave him to himself.
Then the priest, thus blindfolded, is led (they say) by two wolves to the temple
of Ceres, distant twenty furlongs from the city, where he stays awhile, after
which he is brought back from the temple by the wolves, and left upon the spot
where they first joined him.
[2.123] Such as think the tales told by the Egyptians
credible are free to accept them for history. For my own part, I propose to
myself throughout my whole work faithfully to record the traditions of the
several nations. The Egyptians maintain that Ceres and Bacchus preside in the
realms below. They were also the first to broach the opinion that the soul of
man is immortal and that, when the body dies, it enters into the form of an
animal which is born at the moment, thence passing on from one animal into
another, until it has circled through the forms of all the creatures which
tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after which it enters again into a
human frame, and is born anew. The whole period of the transmigration is (they
say) three thousand years. There are Greek writers, some of an earlier, some of
a later date, who have borrowed this doctrine from the Egyptians, and put it
forward as their own. I could mention their names, but I abstain from doing so.
[2.124] Till the death of Rhampsinitus, the priests said,
Egypt was excellently governed, and flourished greatly; but after him Cheops
succeeded to the throne, and plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed
the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling them
instead to labour, one and all, in his service. Some were required to drag
blocks of stone down to the Nile from the quarries in the Arabian range of
hills; others received the blocks after they had been conveyed in boats across
the river, and drew them to the range of hills called the Libyan. A hundred
thousand men laboured constantly, and were relieved every three months by a
fresh lot. It took ten years’ oppression of the people to make the causeway for
the conveyance of the stones, a work not much inferior, in my judgment, to the
pyramid itself. This causeway is five furlongs in length, ten fathoms wide, and
in height, at the highest part, eight fathoms. It is built of polished stone,
and is covered with carvings of animals. To make it took ten years, as I said –
or rather to make the causeway, the works on the mound where the pyramid stands,
and the underground chambers, which Cheops intended as vaults for his own use:
these last were built on a sort of island, surrounded by water introduced from
the Nile by a canal. The pyramid itself was twenty years in building. It is a
square, eight hundred feet each way, and the height the same, built entirely of
polished stone, fitted together with the utmost care. The stones of which it is
composed are none of them less than thirty feet in length.
[2.125] The pyramid was built in steps, battlement-wise, as
it is called, or, according to others, altar-wise. After laying the stones for
the base, they raised the remaining stones to their places by means of machines
formed of short wooden planks. The first machine raised them from the ground to
the top of the first step. On this there was another machine, which received the
stone upon its arrival, and conveyed it to the second step, whence a third
machine advanced it still higher. Either they had as many machines as there were
steps in the pyramid, or possibly they had but a single machine, which, being
easily moved, was transferred from tier to tier as the stone rose – both
accounts are given, and therefore I mention both. The upper portion of the
pyramid was finished first, then the middle, and finally the part which was
lowest and nearest the ground. There is an inscription in Egyptian characters on
the pyramid which records the quantity of radishes, onions, and garlic consumed
by the labourers who constructed it; and I perfectly well remember that the
interpreter who read the writing to me said that the money expended in this way
was 1600 talents of silver. If this then is a true record, what a vast sum must
have been spent on the iron tools used in the work, and on the feeding and
clothing of the labourers, considering the length of time the work lasted, which
has already been stated, and the additional time – no small space, I imagine –
which must have been occupied by the quarrying of the stones, their conveyance,
and the formation of the underground apartments.
[2.126] The wickedness of Cheops reached to such a pitch
that, when he had spent all his treasures and wanted more, he sent his daughter
to the stews, with orders to procure him a certain sum – how much I cannot say,
for I was not told; she procured it, however, and at the same time, bent on
leaving a monument which should perpetuate her own memory, she required each man
to make her a present of a stone towards the works which she contemplated. With
these stones she built the pyramid which stands midmost of the three that are in
front of the great pyramid, measuring along each side a hundred and fifty feet.
[2.127] Cheops reigned, the Egyptians said, fifty years,
and was succeeded at his demise by Chephren, his brother.
Chephren imitated the conduct of his predecessor, and, like
him, built a pyramid, which did not, however, equal the dimensions of his
brother’s. Of this I am certain, for I measured them both myself. It has no
subterraneous apartments, nor any canal from the Nile to supply it with water,
as the other pyramid has. In that, the Nile water, introduced through an
artificial duct, surrounds an island, where the body of Cheops is said to lie.
Chephren built his pyramid close to the great pyramid of Cheops, and of the same
dimensions, except that he lowered the height forty feet. For the basement he
employed the many-coloured stone of Ethiopia. These two pyramids stand both on
the same hill, an elevation not far short of a hundred feet in height. The reign
of Chephren lasted fifty-six years.
[2.128] Thus the affliction of Egypt endured for the space
of one hundred and six years, during the whole of which time the temples were
shut up and never opened. The Egyptians so detest the memory of these kings that
they do not much like even to mention their names. Hence they commonly call the
pyramids after Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the
place.
[2.129] After Chephren, Mycerinus (they said), son of
Cheops, ascended the throne. This prince disapproved the conduct of his father,
re-opened the temples, and allowed the people, who were ground down to the
lowest point of misery, to return to their occupations, and to resume the
practice of sacrifice. His justice in the decision of causes was beyond that of
all the former kings. The Egyptians praise him in this respect more highly than
any of their other monarchs, declaring that he not only gave his judgments with
fairness, but also, when any one was dissatisfied with his sentence, made
compensation to him out of his own purse, and thus pacified his anger. Mycerinus
had established his character for mildness, and was acting as I have described,
when the stroke of calamity fell on him. First of all his daughter died, the
only child that he possessed. Experiencing a bitter grief at this visitation, in
his sorrow he conceived the wish to entomb his child in some unusual way. He
therefore caused a cow to be made of wood, and after the interior had been
hollowed out, he had the whole surface coated with gold; and in this novel tomb
laid the dead body of his daughter.
[2.130] The cow was not placed under ground, but continued
visible to my times: it was at Sais, in the royal palace, where it occupied a
chamber richly adorned. Every day there are burnt before it aromatics of every
kind; and all night long a lamp is kept burning in the apartment. In an
adjoining chamber are statues which the priests at Sais, declared to represent
the various concubines of Mycerinus. They are colossal figures in wood, of the
number of about twenty, and are represented naked. Whose images they really are,
I cannot say – I can only repeat the account which was given to me.
[2.131] Concerning these colossal figures and the sacred
cow, there is also another tale narrated, which runs thus: “Mycerinus was
enamoured of his daughter, and offered her violence – the damsel for grief
hanged herself, and Mycerinus entombed her in the cow. Then her mother cut off
the hands of all her tiring – maids, because they had sided with the father, and
betrayed the child; and so the statues of the maids have no hands.” All this is
mere fable in my judgment, especially what is said about the hands of the
colossal statues. I could plainly see that the figures had only lost their hands
through the effect of time. They had dropped off, and were still lying on the
ground about the feet of the statues.
[2.132] As for the cow, the greater portion of it is hidden
by a scarlet coverture; the head and neck, however, which are visible, are
coated very thickly with gold, and between the horns there is a representation
in gold of the orb of the sun. The figure is not erect, but lying down, with the
limbs under the body; the dimensions being fully those of a large animal of the
kind. Every year it is taken from the apartment where it is kept, and exposed to
the light of day – this is done at the season when the Egyptians beat themselves
in honour of one of their gods, whose name I am unwilling to mention in
connection with such a matter. They say that the daughter of Mycerinus requested
her father in her dying moments to allow her once a year to see the sun.
[2.133] After the death of his daughter, Mycerinus was
visited with a second calamity, of which I shall now proceed to give an account.
An oracle reached him from the town of Buto, which said, “Six years only shalt
thou live upon the earth, and in the seventh thou shalt end thy days.” Mycerinus,
indignant, sent an angry message to the oracle, reproaching the god with his
injustice – “My father and uncle,” he said, “though they shut up the temples,
took no thought of the gods, and destroyed multitudes of men, nevertheless
enjoyed a long life; I, who am pious, am to die so soon!” There came in reply a
second message from the oracle – “For this very reason is thy life brought so
quickly to a close – thou hast not done as it behoved thee. Egypt was fated to
suffer affliction one hundred and fifty years – the two kings who preceded thee
upon the throne understood this – thou hast not understood it.” Mycerinus, when
this answer reached him, perceiving that his doom was fixed, had prepared, which
he lighted every day at eventime, and feasted and enjoyed himself unceasingly
both day and night, moving about in the marsh-country and the woods, and
visiting all the places that he heard were agreeable sojourns. His wish was to
prove the oracle false, by turning the nights into days, and so living twelve
years in the space of six.
[2.134] He too left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to
his father’s. It is a square, each side of which falls short of three plethra by
twenty feet, and is built for half its height of the stone of Ethiopia. Some of
the Greeks call it the work of Rhodopis the courtesan, but they report falsely.
It seems to me that these persons cannot have any real knowledge who Rhodopis
was; otherwise they would scarcely have ascribed to her a work on which
uncounted treasures, so to speak, must have been expended. Rhodopis also lived
during the reign of Amasis, not of Mycerinus, and was thus very many years later
than the time of the kings who built the pyramids. She was a Thracian by birth,
and was the slave of Iadmon, son of Hephaestopolis, a Samian. Aesop, the
fable-writer, was one of her fellow-slaves. That Aesop belonged to Iadmon is
proved by many facts – among others, by this. When the Delphians, in obedience
to the command of the oracle, made proclamation that if any one claimed
compensation for the murder of Aesop he should receive it, the person who at
last came forward was Iadmon, grandson of the former Iadmon, and he received the
compensation. Aesop therefore must certainly have been the former Iadmon’s
slave.
[2.135] Rhodopis really arrived in Egypt under the conduct
of Xantheus the Samian; she was brought there to exercise her trade, but was
redeemed for a vast sum by Charaxus, a Mytilenaean, the son of Scamandronymus,
and brother of Sappho the poetess. After thus obtaining her freedom, she
remained in Egypt, and, as she was very beautiful, amassed great wealth, for a
person in her condition; not, however, enough to enable her to erect such a work
as this pyramid. Any one who likes may go and see to what the tenth part of her
wealth amounted, and he will thereby learn that her riches must not be imagined
to have been very wonderfully great. Wishing to leave a memorial of herself in
Greece, she determined to have something made the like of which was not to be
found in any temple, and to offer it at the shrine at Delphi. So she set apart a
tenth of her possessions, and purchased with the money a quantity of iron spits,
such as are fit for roasting oxen whole, whereof she made a present to the
oracle. They are still to be seen there, lying of a heap, behind the altar which
the Chians dedicated, opposite the sanctuary. Naucratis seems somehow to be the
place where such women are most attractive. First there was this Rhodopis of
whom we have been speaking, so celebrated a person that her name came to be
familiar to all the Greeks; and, afterwards, there was another, called Archidice,
notorious throughout Greece, though not so much talked of as her predecessor.
Charaxus, after ransoming Rhodopis, returned to Mytilene, and was often lashed
by Sappho in her poetry. But enough has been said on the subject of this
courtesan.
[2.136] After Mycerinus, the priests said, Asychis ascended
the throne. He built the eastern gateway of the temple of Vulcan, which in size
and beauty far surpasses the other three. All the four gateways have figures
graven on them, and a vast amount of architectural ornament, but the gateway of
Asychis is by far the most richly adorned. In the reign of this king, money
being scarce and commercial dealings straitened, a law was passed that the
borrower might pledge his father’s body to raise the sum whereof he had need. A
proviso was appended to this law, giving the lender authority over the entire
sepulchre of the borrower, so that a man who took up money under this pledge, if
he died without paying the debt, could not obtain burial either in his own
ancestral tomb, or in any other, nor could he during his lifetime bury in his
own tomb any member of his family. The same king, desirous of eclipsing all his
predecessors upon the throne, left as a monument of his reign a pyramid of
brick. It bears an inscription, cut in stone, which runs thus:- “Despise me not
in comparison with the stone pyramids; for I surpass them all, as much as Jove
surpasses the other gods. A pole was plunged into a lake, and the mud which
clave thereto was gathered; and bricks were made of the mud, and so I was
formed.” Such were the chief actions of this prince.
[2.137] He was succeeded on the throne, they said, by a
blind man, a native of Anysis, whose own name also was Anysis. Under him Egypt
was invaded by a vast army of Ethiopians, led by Sabacos, their king. The blind
Anysis fled away to the marsh-country, and the Ethiopian was lord of the land
for fifty years, during which his mode of rule was the following:- When an
Egyptian was guilty of an offence, his plan was not to punish him with death:
instead of so doing, he sentenced him, according to the nature of his crime, to
raise the ground to a greater or a less extent in the neighbourhood of the city
to which he belonged. Thus the cities came to be even more elevated than they
were before. As early as the time of Sesostris, they had been raised by those
who dug the canals in his reign; this second elevation of the soil under the
Ethiopian king gave them a very lofty position. Among the many cities which thus
attained to a great elevation, none (I think) was raised so much as the town
called Bubastis, where there is a temple of the goddess Bubastis, which well
deserves to be described. Other temples may be grander, and may have cost more
in the building, but there is none so pleasant to the eye as this of Bubastis.
The Bubastis of the Egyptians is the same as the Artemis (Diana) of the Greeks.
[2.138] The following is a description of this edifice:-
Excepting the entrance, the whole forms an island. Two artificial channels from
the Nile, one on either side of the temple, encompass the building, leaving only
a narrow passage by which it is approached. These channels are each a hundred
feet wide, and are thickly shaded with trees. The gateway is sixty feet in
height, and is ornamented with figures cut upon the stone, six cubits high and
well worthy of notice. The temple stands in the middle of the city, and is
visible on all sides as one walks round it; for as the city has been raised up
by embankment, while the temple has been left untouched in its original
condition, you look down upon it wheresoever you are. A low wall runs round the
enclosure, having figures engraved upon it, and inside there is a grove of
beautiful tall trees growing round the shrine, which contains the image of the
goddess. The enclosure is a furlong in length, and the same in breadth. The
entrance to it is by a road paved with stone for a distance of about three
furlongs, which passes straight through the market-place with an easterly
direction, and is about four hundred feet in width. Trees of an extraordinary
height grow on each side the road, which conducts from the temple of Bubastis to
that of Mercury.
[2.139] The Ethiopian finally quitted Egypt, the priests
said, by a hasty flight under the following circumstances. He saw in his sleep a
vision:- a man stood by his side, and counselled him to gather together all the
priests of Egypt and cut every one of them asunder. On this, according to the
account which he himself gave, it came into his mind that the gods intended
hereby to lead him to commit an act of sacrilege, which would be sure to draw
down upon him some punishment either at the hands of gods or men. So he resolved
not to do the deed suggested to him, but rather to retire from Egypt, as the
time during which it was fated that he should hold the country had now (he
thought) expired. For before he left Ethiopia he had been told by the oracles
which are venerated there, that he was to reign fifty years over Egypt. The
years were now fled, and the dream had come to trouble him; he therefore of his
own accord withdrew from the land.
[2.140] As soon as Sabacos was gone, the blind king left
the marshes, and resumed the government. He had lived in the marsh-region the
whole time, having formed for himself an island there by a mixture of earth and
ashes. While he remained, the natives had orders to bring him food unbeknown to
the Ethiopian, and latterly, at his request, each man had brought him, with the
food, a certain quantity of ashes. Before Amyrtaeus, no one was able to discover
the site of this island, which continued unknown to the kings of Egypt who
preceded him on the throne for the space of seven hundred years and more. The
name which it bears is Elbo. It is about ten furlongs across in each direction.
[2.141] The next king, I was told, was a priest of Vulcan,
called Sethos. This monarch despised and neglected the warrior class of the
Egyptians, as though he did not need their services. Among other indignities
which he offered them, he took from them the lands which they had possessed
under all the previous kings, consisting of twelve acres of choice land for each
warrior. Afterwards, therefore, when Sanacharib, king of the Arabians and
Assyrians, marched his vast army into Egypt, the warriors one and all refused to
come to his aid. On this the monarch, greatly distressed, entered into the inner
sanctuary, and, before the image of the god, bewailed the fate which impended
over him. As he wept he fell asleep, and dreamed that the god came and stood at
his side, bidding him be of good cheer, and go boldly forth to meet the Arabian
host, which would do him no hurt, as he himself would send those who should help
him. Sethos, then, relying on the dream, collected such of the Egyptians as were
willing to follow him, who were none of them warriors, but traders, artisans,
and market people; and with these marched to Pelusium, which commands the
entrance into Egypt, and there pitched his camp. As the two armies lay here
opposite one another, there came in the night, a multitude of field-mice, which
devoured all the quivers and bowstrings of the enemy, and ate the thongs by
which they managed their shields. Next morning they commenced their fight, and
great multitudes fell, as they had no arms with which to defend themselves.
There stands to this day in the temple of Vulcan, a stone statue of Sethos, with
a mouse in his hand, and an inscription to this effect – “Look on me, and learn
to reverence the gods.”
[2.142] Thus far I have spoken on the authority of the
Egyptians and their priests. They declare that from their first king to this
last-mentioned monarch, the priest of Vulcan, was a period of three hundred and
forty-one generations; such, at least, they say, was the number both of their
kings, and of their high-priests, during this interval. Now three hundred
generations of men make ten thousand years, three generations filling up the
century; and the remaining forty-one generations make thirteen hundred and forty
years. Thus the whole number of years is eleven thousand, three hundred and
forty; in which entire space, they said, no god had ever appeared in a human
form; nothing of this kind had happened either under the former or under the
later Egyptian kings. The sun, however, had within this period of time, on four
several occasions, moved from his wonted course, twice rising where he now sets,
and twice setting where he now rises. Egypt was in no degree affected by these
changes; the productions of the land, and of the river, remained the same; nor
was there anything unusual either in the diseases or the deaths.
[2.143] When Hecataeus the historian was at Thebes, and,
discoursing of his genealogy, traced his descent to a god in the person of his
sixteenth ancestor, the priests of Jupiter did to him exactly as they afterwards
did to me, though I made no boast of my family. They led me into the inner
sanctuary, which is a spacious chamber, and showed me a multitude of colossal
statues, in wood, which they counted up, and found to amount to the exact number
they had said; the custom being for every high priest during his lifetime to set
up his statue in the temple. As they showed me the figures and reckoned them up,
they assured me that each was the son of the one preceding him; and this they
repeated throughout the whole line, beginning with the representation of the
priest last deceased, and continuing till they had completed the series. When
Hecataeus, in giving his genealogy, mentioned a god as his sixteenth ancestor,
the priests opposed their genealogy to his, going through this list, and
refusing to allow that any man was ever born of a god. Their colossal figures
were each, they said, a Piromis, born of a Piromis, and the number of them was
three hundred and forty-five; through the whole series Piromis followed Piromis,
and the line did not run up either to a god or a hero. The word Piromis may be
rendered “gentleman.”
[2.144] Of such a nature were, they said, the beings
represented by these images – they were very far indeed from being gods.
However, in the times anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had gods for
its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above
the rest. The last of these was Horus, the son of Osiris, called by the Greeks
Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is
named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks.
[2.145] The Greeks regard Hercules, Bacchus, and Pan as the
youngest of the gods. With the Egyptians, contrariwise, Pan is exceedingly
ancient, and belongs to those whom they call “the eight gods,” who existed
before the rest. Hercules is one of the gods of the second order, who are known
as “the twelve”; and Bacchus belongs to the gods of the third order, whom the
twelve produced. I have already mentioned how many years intervened according to
the Egyptians between the birth of Hercules and the reign of Amasis. From Pan to
this period they count a still longer time; and even from Bacchus, who is the
youngest of the three, they reckon fifteen thousand years to the reign of that
king. In these matters they say they cannot be mistaken, as they have always
kept count of the years, and noted them in their registers. But from the present
day to the time of Bacchus, the reputed son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, is a
period of not more than sixteen hundred years; to that of Hercules, son of
Alcmena, is about nine hundred; while to the time of Pan, son of Penelope (Pan,
according to the Greeks, was her child by Mercury), is a shorter space than to
the Trojan war, eight hundred years or thereabouts.
[2.146] It is open to all to receive whichever he may
prefer of these two traditions; my own opinion about them has been already
declared. If indeed these gods had been publicly known, and had grown old in
Greece, as was the case with Hercules, son of Amphitryon, Bacchus, son of Semele,
and Pan, son of Penelope, it might have been said that the last-mentioned
personages were men who bore the names of certain previously existing deities.
But Bacchus, according to the Greek tradition, was no sooner born than he was
sewn up in Jupiter’s thigh, and carried off to Nysa, above Egypt, in Ethiopia;
and as to Pan, they do not even profess to know what happened to him after his
birth. To me, therefore, it is quite manifest that the names of these gods
became known to the Greeks after those of their other deities, and that they
count their birth from the time when they first acquired a knowledge of them.
Thus far my narrative rests on the accounts given by the Egyptians.
[2.147] In what follows I have the authority, not of the
Egyptians only, but of others also who agree with them. I shall speak likewise
in part from my own observation. When the Egyptians regained their liberty after
the reign of the priest of Vulcan, unable to continue any while without a king,
they divided Egypt into twelve districts, and set twelve kings over them. These
twelve kings, united together by intermarriages, ruled Egypt in peace, having
entered into engagements with one another not to depose any of their number, nor
to aim at any aggrandisement of one above the rest, but to dwell together in
perfect amity. Now the reason why they made these stipulations, and guarded with
care against their infraction, was because at the very first establishment of
the twelve kingdoms an oracle had declared – “That he among them who should pour
in Vulcan’s temple a libation from a cup of bronze would become monarch of the
whole land of Egypt.” Now the twelve held their meetings at all the temples.
[2.148] To bind themselves yet more closely together, it
seemed good to them to leave a common monument. In pursuance of this resolution
they made the Labyrinth which lies a little above Lake Moeris, in the
neighbourhood of the place called the city of Crocodiles. I visited this place,
and found it to surpass description; for if all the walls and other great works
of the Greeks could be put together in one, they would not equal, either for
labour or expense, this Labyrinth; and yet the temple of Ephesus is a building
worthy of note, and so is the temple of Samos. The pyramids likewise surpass
description, and are severally equal to a number of the greatest works of the
Greeks, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids. It has twelve courts, all of
them roofed, with gates exactly opposite one another, six looking to the north,
and six to the south. A single wall surrounds the entire building. There are two
different sorts of chambers throughout – half under ground, half above ground,
the latter built upon the former; the whole number of these chambers is three
thousand, fifteen hundred of each kind. The upper chambers I myself passed
through and saw, and what I say concerning them is from my own observation; of
the underground chambers I can only speak from report: for the keepers of the
building could not be got to show them, since they contained (as they said) the
sepulchres of the kings who built the Labyrinth, and also those of the sacred
crocodiles. Thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of the lower chambers.
The upper chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all
other human productions; for the passages through the houses, and the varied
windings of the paths across the courts excited in me infinite admiration as I
passed from the courts into chambers, and from the chambers into colonnades, and
from the colonnades into fresh houses, and again from these into courts unseen
before. The roof was throughout of stone, like the walls; and the walls were
carved all over with figures; every court was surrounded with a colonnade which
was built of white stones exquisitely fitted together. At the corner of the
Labyrinth stands a pyramid, forty fathoms high, with large figures engraved on
it, which is entered by a subterranean passage.
[2.149] Wonderful as is the Labyrinth, the work called the
Lake of Moeris, which is close by the Labyrinth, is yet more astonishing. The
measure of its circumference is sixty schoenes, or three thousand six hundred
furlongs, which is equal to the entire length of Egypt along the sea-coast. The
lake stretches in its longest direction from north to south, and in its deepest
parts is of the depth of fifty fathoms. It is manifestly an artificial
excavation, for nearly in the centre there stand two pyramids, rising to the
height of fifty fathoms above the surface of the water, and extending as far
beneath, crowned each of them with a colossal statue sitting upon a throne. Thus
these pyramids are one hundred fathoms high, which is exactly a furlong
(stadium) of six hundred feet: the fathom being six feet in length, or four
cubits, which is the same thing, since a cubit measures six, and a foot four,
palms. The water of the lake does not come out of the ground, which is here
excessively dry, but is introduced by a canal from the Nile. The current sets
for six months into the lake from the river, and for the next six months into
the river from the lake. it runs outward it returns a talent of silver daily to
the royal treasury from the fish that are taken, but when the current is the
other way the return sinks to one-third of that sum.
[2.150] The natives told me that there was a subterranean
passage from this lake to the Libyan Syrtis, running westward into the interior
by the hills above Memphis. As I could not anywhere see the earth which had been
taken out when the excavation was made, and I was curious to know what had
become of it, I asked the Egyptians who live closest to the lake where the earth
had been put. The answer that they gave me I readily accepted as true, since I
had heard of the same thing being done at Nineveh of the Assyrians. There, once
upon a time, certain thieves, having formed a plan to get into their possession
the vast treasures of Sardanapalus, the Ninevite king, which were laid up in
subterranean treasuries, proceeded to tunnel a passage from the house where they
lived into the royal palace, calculating the distance and the direction. At
nightfall they took the earth from the excavation and carried it to the river
Tigris, which ran by Nineveh, continuing to get rid of it in this manner until
they had accomplished their purpose. It was exactly in the same way that the
Egyptians disposed of the mould from their excavation, except that they did it
by day and not by night; for as fast as the earth was dug, they carried it to
the Nile, which they knew would disperse it far and wide. Such was the account
which I received of the formation of this lake.
[2.151] The twelve kings for some time dealt honourably by
one another, but at length it happened that on a certain occasion, when they had
met to worship in the temple of Vulcan, the high-priest on the last day of the
festival, in bringing forth the golden goblets from which they were wont to pour
the libations, mistook the number and brought eleven goblets only for the twelve
princes. Psammetichus was standing last, and, being left without a cup, he took
his helmet, which was of bronze, from off his head, stretched it out to receive
the liquor, and so made his libation. All the kings were accustomed to wear
helmets, and all indeed wore them at this very time. Nor was there any crafty
design in the action of Psammetichus. The eleven, however, when they came to
consider what had been done, and bethought them of the oracle which had declared
“that he who, of the twelve, should pour a libation from a cup of bronze, the
same would be king of the whole land of Egypt,” doubted at first if they should
not put Psammetichus to death. Finding, however, upon examination, that he had
acted in the matter without any guilty intent, they did not think it would be
just to kill him; but determined, instead, to strip him of the chief part of his
power and to banish him to the marshes, forbidding him to leave them or to hold
any communication with the rest of Egypt.
[2.152] This was the second time that Psammetichus had been
driven into banishment. On a former occasion he had fled from Sabacos the
Ethiopian, who had put his father Necos to death; and had taken refuge in Syria
from whence, after the retirement of the Ethiop in consequence of his dream, he
was brought back by the Egyptians of the Saitic canton. Now it was his
ill-fortune to be banished a second time by the eleven kings, on account of the
libation which he had poured from his helmet; on this occasion he fled to the
marshes. Feeling that he was an injured man, and designing to avenge himself
upon his persecutors, Psammetichus sent to the city of Buto, where there is an
oracle of Latona, the most veracious of all the oracles of the Egyptians, and
having inquired concerning means of vengeance, received for answer that
“Vengeance would come from the sea, when brazen men should appear.” Great was
his incredulity when this answer arrived, for never, he thought, would brazen
men arrive to be his helpers. However, not long afterwards certain Carians and
Ionians who had left their country on a voyage of plunder, were carried by
stress of weather to Egypt where they disembarked, all equipped in their brazen
armour, and were seen by the natives, one of whom carried the tidings to
Psammetichus, and, as he had never before seen men clad in brass, he reported
that brazen men had come from the sea and were plundering the plain.
Psammetichus, perceiving at once that the oracle was accomplished, made friendly
advances to the strangers, and engaged them, by splendid promises, to enter into
his service. He then, with their aid and that of the Egyptians who espoused his
cause, attacked the eleven and vanquished them.
[2.153] When Psammetichus had thus become sole monarch of
Egypt, he built the southern gateway of the temple of Vulcan in Memphis, and
also a court for Apis, in which Apis is kept whenever he makes his appearance in
Egypt. This court is opposite the gateway of Psammetichus, and is surrounded
with a colonnade and adorned with a multitude of figures. Instead of pillars,
the colonnade rests upon colossal statues, twelve cubits in height. The Greek
name for Apis is Epaphus.
[2.154] To the Ionians and Carians who had lent him their
assistance Psammetichus assigned as abodes two places opposite to each other,
one on either side of the Nile, which received the name of “the Camps.” He also
made good all the splendid promises by which he had gained their support; and
further, he intrusted to their care certain Egyptian children whom they were to
teach the language of the Greeks. These children, thus instructed, became the
parents of the entire class of interpreters in Egypt. The Ionians and Carians
occupied for many years the places assigned them by Psammetichus, which lay near
the sea, a little below the city of Bubastis, on the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile.
King Amasis long afterwards removed the Greeks hence, and settled them at
Memphis to guard him against the native Egyptians. From the date of the original
settlement of these persons in Egypt, we Greeks, through our intercourse with
them, have acquired an accurate knowledge of the several events in Egyptian
history, from the reign of Psammetichus downwards; but before his time no
foreigners had ever taken up their residence in that land. The docks where their
vessels were laid up and the ruins of their habitations were still to be seen in
my day at the place where they dwelt originally, before they were removed by
Amasis. Such was the mode by which Psammetichus became master of Egypt.
[2.155] I have already made mention more than once of the
Egyptian oracle, and, as it well deserves notice, I shall now proceed to give an
account of it more at length. It is a temple of Latona, situated in the midst of
a great city on the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile, at some distance up the river
from the sea. The name of the city, as I have before observed, is Buto; and in
it are two other temples also, one of Apollo and one of Diana. Latona’s temple,
which contains the oracle, is a spacious building with a gateway ten fathoms in
height. The most wonderful thing that was actually to be seen about this temple
was a chapel in the enclosure made of a single stone, the length and height of
which were the same, each wall being forty cubits square, and the whole a single
block! Another block of stone formed the roof and projected at the eaves to the
extent of four cubits.
[2.156] This, as I have said, was what astonished me the
most, of all the things that were actually to be seen about the temple. The next
greatest marvel was the island called Chemmis. This island lies in the middle of
a broad and deep lake close by the temple, and the natives declare that it
floats. For my own part I did not see it float, or even move; and I wondered
greatly, when they told me concerning it, whether there be really such a thing
as a floating island. It has a grand temple of Apollo built upon it, in which
are three distinct altars. Palm trees grow on it in great abundance, and many
other trees, some of which bear fruit, while others are barren. The Egyptians
tell the following story in connection with this island, to explain the way in
which it first came to float:- “In former times, when the isle was still fixed
and motionless, Latona, one of the eight gods of the first order, who dwelt in
the city of Buto, where now she has her oracle, received Apollo as a sacred
charge from Isis, and saved him by hiding him in what is now called the floating
island. Typhon meanwhile was searching everywhere in hopes of finding the child
of Osiris.” (According to the Egyptians, Apollo and Diana are the children of
Bacchus and Isis, while Latona is their nurse and their preserver. They call
Apollo, in their language, Horus; Ceres they call Isis; Diana, Bubastis. From
this Egyptian tradition, and from no other, it must have been that Aeschylus,
the son of Euphorion, took the idea, which is found in none of the earlier
poets, of making Diana the daughter of Ceres.) The island, therefore, in
consequence of this event, was first made to float. Such at least is the account
which the Egyptians give.
[2.157] Psammetichus ruled Egypt for fifty-four years,
during twenty-nine of which he pressed the siege of Azotus without intermission,
till finally he took the place. Azotus is a great town in Syria. Of all the
cities that we know, none ever stood so long a siege.
[2.158] Psammetichus left a son called Necos, who succeeded
him upon the throne. This prince was the first to attempt the construction of
the canal to the Red Sea – a work completed afterwards by Darius the Persian –
the length of which is four days’ journey, and the width such as to admit of two
triremes being rowed along it abreast. The water is derived from the Nile, which
the canal leaves a little above the city of Bubastis, near Patumus, the Arabian
town, being continued thence until it joins the Red Sea. At first it is carried
along the Arabian side of the Egyptian plain, as far as the chain of hills
opposite Memphis, whereby the plain is bounded, and in which lie the great stone
quarries; here it skirts the base of the hills running in a direction from west
to east, after which it turns and enters a narrow pass, trending southwards from
this point until it enters the Arabian Gulf. From the northern sea to that which
is called the southern or Erythraean, the shortest and quickest passage, which
is from Mount Casius, the boundary between Egypt and Syria, to the Gulf of
Arabia, is a distance of exactly one thousand furlongs. But the way by the canal
is very much longer on account of the crookedness of its course. A hundred and
twenty thousand of the Egyptians, employed upon the work in the reign of Necos,
lost their lives in making the excavation. He at length desisted from his
undertaking, in consequence of an oracle which warned him “that he was labouring
for the barbarian.” The Egyptians call by the name of barbarians all such as
speak a language different from their own.
[2.159] Necos, when he gave up the construction of the
canal, turned all his thoughts to war, and set to work to build a fleet of
triremes, some intended for service in the northern sea, and some for the
navigation of the Erythraean. These last were built in the Arabian Gulf where
the dry docks in which they lay are still visible. These fleets he employed
wherever he had occasion, while he also made war by land upon the Syrians and
defeated them in a pitched battle at Magdolus, after which he made himself
master of Cadytis, a large city of Syria. The dress which he wore on these
occasions he sent to Branchidae in Milesia, as an offering to Apollo. After
having reigned in all sixteen years, Necos died, and at his death bequeathed the
throne to his son Psammis.
[2.160] In the reign of Psammis, ambassadors from Elis
arrived in Egypt, boasting that their arrangements for the conduct of the
Olympic Games were the best and fairest that could be devised, and fancying that
not even the Egyptians, who surpassed all other nations in wisdom, could add
anything to their perfection. When these persons reached Egypt, and explained
the reason of their visit, the king summoned an assembly of all the wisest of
the Egyptians. They met, and the Eleans having given them a full account of all
their rules and regulations with respect to the contests said that they had come
to Egypt for the express purpose of learning whether the Egyptians could improve
the fairness of their regulations in any particular. The Egyptians considered
awhile and then made inquiry, “If they allowed their own citizens to enter the
lists?” The Eleans answered, “That the lists were open to all Greeks, whether
they belonged to Elis or to any other state.” Hereupon the Egyptians observed,
“That if this were so, they departed from justice very widely, since it was
impossible but that they would favour their own countrymen and deal unfairly by
foreigners. If therefore they really wished to manage the games with fairness,
and if this was the object of their coming to Egypt, they advised them to
confine the contests to strangers, and allow no native of Elis to be a
candidate.” Such was the advice which the Egyptians gave to the Eleans.
[2.161] Psammis reigned only six years. He attacked
Ethiopia, and died almost directly afterwards. Apries, his son, succeeded him
upon the throne, who, excepting Psammetichus, his great-grandfather, was the
most prosperous of all the kings that ever ruled over Egypt. The length of his
reign was twenty-five years, and in the course of it he marched an army to
attack Sidon, and fought a battle with the king of Tyre by sea. When at length
the time came that was fated to bring him woe, an occasion arose which I shall
describe more fully in my Libyan history, only touching it very briefly here. An
army despatched by Apries to attack Cyrene, having met with a terrible reverse,
the Egyptians laid the blame on him, imagining that he had, of malice prepense,
sent the troops into the jaws of destruction. They believed he had wished a vast
number of them to be slain in order that he himself might reign with more
security over the rest of the Egyptians. Indignant therefore at this usage, the
soldiers who returned and the friends of the slain broke instantly into revolt.
[2.162] Apries, on learning these circumstances, sent
Amasis to the rebels to appease the tumult by persuasion. Upon his arrival, as
he was seek. ing to restrain the malcontents by his exhortations, one of them,
coming behind him, put a helmet on his head, saying, as he put it on, that he
thereby crowned him king. Amasis was not altogether displeased at the action, as
his conduct soon made manifest; for no sooner had the insurgents agreed to make
him actually their king than he prepared to march with them against Apries. That
monarch, on tidings of these events reaching him, sent Patarbemis, one of his
courtiers, a man of high rank, to Amasis with orders to bring him alive into his
presence. Patarbemis, on arriving at the place where Amasis was, called on him
to come back with him to the king, whereupon Amasis broke a coarse jest, and
said, “Prythee take that back to thy master.” When the envoy, notwithstanding
this reply, persisted in his request, exhorting Amasis to obey the summons of
the king, he made answer “that this was exactly what he had long been intending
to do; Apries would have no reason to complain of him on the score of delay; he
would shortly come himself to the king, and bring others with him.” Patarbemis,
upon this, comprehending the intention of Amasis, partly from his replies and
partly from the preparations which he saw in progress, departed hastily, wishing
to inform the king with all speed of what was going on. Apries, however, when he
saw him approaching without Amasis, fell into a paroxysm of rage, and not giving
himself time for reflection, commanded the nose and ears of Patarbemis to be cut
off. Then the rest of the Egyptians, who had hitherto espoused the cause of
Apries, when they saw a man of such note among them so shamefully outraged,
without a moment’s hesitation went over to the rebels, and put themselves at the
disposal of Amasis.
[2.163] Apries, informed of this new calamity, armed his
mercenaries, and led them against the Egyptians: this was a body of Carians and
Ionians, numbering thirty thousand men, which was now with him at Says, where
his palace stood – a vast building, well worthy of notice. The army of Apries
marched out to attack the host of the Egyptians, while that of Amasis went forth
to fight the strangers; and now both armies drew near the city of Momemphis and
prepared for the coming fight.
[2.164] The Egyptians are divided into seven distinct
classes – these are, the priests, the warriors, the cowherds, the swineherds,
the tradesmen, the interpreters, and the boatmen. Their titles indicate their
occupations. The warriors consist of Hermotybians and Calascirians, who come
from different cantons, the whole of Egypt being parcelled out into districts
bearing this name.
[2.165] The following cantons furnish the Hermotybians:-
The cantons of Busiris, Sais, Chemmis, Papremis, that of the island called
Prosopitis, and half of Natho. They number, when most numerous, a hundred and
sixty thousand. None of them ever practices a trade, but all are given wholly to
war.
[2.166] The cantons of the Calascirians are different –
they include the following:- The cantons of Thebes, Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis,
Mendes, Sebennytus, Athribis, Pharbaethus, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis, and
Myecphoris – this last canton consists of an island which lies over against the
town of Bubastis. The Calascirians, when at their greatest number, have amounted
to two hundred and fifty thousand. Like the Hermotybians, they are forbidden to
pursue any trade, and devote themselves entirely to warlike exercises, the son
following the father’s calling.
[2.167] Whether the Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians
their notions about trade, like so many others, I cannot say for certain. I have
remarked that the Thracians, the Scyths, the Persians, the Lydians, and almost
all other barbarians, hold the citizens who practice trades, and their children,
in less repute than the rest, while they esteem as noble those who keep aloof
from handicrafts, and especially honour such as are given wholly to war. These
ideas prevail throughout the whole of Greece, particularly among the
Lacedaemonians. Corinth is the place where mechanics are least despised.
[2.168] The warrior class in Egypt had certain special
privileges in which none of the rest of the Egyptians participated, except the
priests. In the first place each man had twelve arurae of land assigned him free
from tax. (The arura is a square of a hundred Egyptian cubits, the Egyptian
cubit being of the same length as the Samian.) All the warriors enjoyed this
privilege together, but there were other advantages which came to each in
rotation, the same man never obtaining them twice. A thousand Calascirians, and
the same number of Hermotybians, formed in alternate years the body-guard of the
king; and during their year of service these persons, besides their arurae,
received a daily portion of meat and drink, consisting of five pounds of baked
bread, two pounds of beef, and four cups of wine.
[2.169] When Apries, at the head of his mercenaries, and
Amasis, in command of the whole native force of the Egyptians, encountered one
another near the city of Momemphis, an engagement presently took place. The
foreign troops fought bravely, but were overpowered by numbers, in which they
fell very far short of their adversaries. It is said that Apries believed that
there was not a god who could cast him down from his eminence, so firmly did he
think that he had established himself in his kingdom. But at this time the
battle went against him, and his army being worsted, he fell into the enemy’s
hands and was brought back a prisoner to Sais, where he was lodged in what had
been his own house, but was now the palace of Amasis. Amasis treated him with
kindness, and kept him in the palace for a while; but finding his conduct blamed
by the Egyptians, who charged him with acting unjustly in preserving a man who
had shown himself so bitter an enemy both to them and him, he gave Apries over
into the hands of his former subjects, to deal with as they chose. Then the
Egyptians took him and strangled him, but having so done they buried him in the
sepulchre of his fathers. This tomb is in the temple of Minerva, very near the
sanctuary, on the left hand as one enters. The Saites buried all the kings who
belonged to their canton inside this temple; and thus it even contains the tomb
of Amasis, as well as that of Apries and his family. The latter is not so close
to the sanctuary as the former, but still it is within the temple. It stands in
the court, and is a spacious cloister built of stone and adorned with pillars
carved so as to resemble palm trees, and with other sumptuous ornaments. Within
the cloister is a chamber with folding doors, behind which lies the sepulchre of
the king.
[2.170] Here too, in this same precinct of Minerva at Sais,
is the burial-place of one whom I think it not right to mention in such a
connection. It stands behind the temple, against the backwall, which it entirely
covers. There are also some large stone obelisks in the enclosure, and there is
a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone. In form it is circular, and
in size, as it seemed to me, about equal to the lake in Delos called “the Hoop.”
[2.171] On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by
night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this
representation they call their Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the
proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips. So too, with
regard to the mysteries of Ceres, which the Greeks term “the Thesmophoria,” I
know them, but I shall not mention them, except so far as may be done without
impiety. The daughters of Danaus brought these rites from Egypt, and taught them
to the Pelasgic women of the Peloponnese. Afterwards, when the inhabitants of
the peninsula were driven from their homes by the Dorians, the rites perished.
Only in Arcadia, where the natives remained and were not compelled to migrate,
their observance continued.
[2.172] After Apries had been put to death in the way that
I have described above, Amasis reigned over Egypt. He belonged to the canton of
Sais, being a native of the town called Siouph. At first his subjects looked
down on him and held him in small esteem, because he had been a mere private
person, and of a house of no great distinction; but after a time Amasis
succeeded in reconciling them to his rule, not by severity, but by cleverness.
Among his other splendour he had a golden foot-pan, in which his guests and
himself were wont upon occasion to wash their feet. This vessel he caused to be
broken in pieces, and made of the gold an image of one of the gods, which he set
up in the most public place in the whole city; upon which the Egyptians flocked
to the image, and worshipped it with the utmost reverence. Amasis, finding this
was so, called an assembly, and opened the matter to them, explaining how the
image had been made of the foot-pan, wherein they had been wont formerly to wash
their feet and to put all manner of filth, yet now it was greatly reverenced.
“And truly,” he went on to say, “it had gone with him as with the foot-pan. If
he was a private person formerly, yet now he had come to be their king. And so
he bade them honour and reverence him.” Such was the mode in which he won over
the Egyptians, and brought them to be content to do him service.
[2.173] The following was the general habit of his life:-
from early dawn to the time when the forum is wont to fill, he sedulously
transacted all the business that was brought before him; during the remainder of
the day he drank and joked with his guests, passing the time in witty and,
sometimes, scarce seemly conversation. It grieved his friends that he should
thus demean himself, and accordingly some of them chid him on the subject,
saying to him – “Oh! king, thou dost but ill guard thy royal dignity whilst thou
allowest thyself in such levities. Thou shouldest sit in state upon a stately
throne, and busy thyself with affairs the whole day long. So would the Egyptians
feel that a great man rules them, and thou wouldst be better spoken of. But now
thou conductest thyself in no kingly fashion.” Amasis answered them thus:-
“Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to shoot; unbrace them when the shooting
is over. Were they kept always strung they would break, and fail the archer in
time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious
work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses, and
become mad or moody. Knowing this, I divide my life between pastime and
business.” Thus he answered his friends.
[2.174] It is said that Amasis, even while he was a private
man, had the same tastes for drinking and jesting, and was averse to engaging in
any serious employment. He lived in constant feasts and revelries, and whenever
his means failed him, he roamed about and robbed people. On such occasions the
persons from whom he had stolen would bring him, if he denied the charge, before
the nearest oracle; sometimes the oracle would pronounce him guilty of the
theft, at other times it would acquit him. When afterwards he came to be king,
he neglected the temples of such gods as had declared that he was not a thief,
and neither contributed to their adornment nor frequented them for sacrifice,
since he regarded them as utterly worthless and their oracles as wholly false:
but the gods who had detected his guilt he considered to be true gods whose
oracles did not deceive, and these he honoured exceedingly.
[2.175] First of all, therefore, he built the gateway of
the temple of Minerva at Sais, which is an astonishing work, far surpassing all
other buildings of the same kind both in extent and height, and built with
stones of rare size and excellency. In the next place, he presented to the
temple a number of large colossal statues and several prodigious andro-sphinxes,
besides certain stones for the repairs, of a most extraordinary size. Some of
these he got from the quarries over against Memphis, but the largest were
brought from Elephantine, which is twenty days’ voyage from Sais. Of all these
wonderful masses that which I most admire is a chamber made of a single stone,
which was quarried at Elephantine. It took three years to convey this block from
the quarry to Sais; and in the conveyance were employed no fewer than two
thousand labourers, who were all from the class of boatmen. The length of this
chamber on the outside is twenty-one cubits, its breadth fourteen cubits, and
its height, eight. The measurements inside are the following:- the length,
eighteen cubits and five-sixths; the breadth, twelve cubits; and the height,
five. It lies near the entrance of the temple, where it was left in consequence
of the following circumstance:- it happened that the architect, just as the
stone had reached the spot where it now stands, heaved a sigh, considering the
length of time that the removal had taken, and feeling wearied with the heavy
toil. The sigh was heard by Amasis who, regarding it as an omen, would not allow
the chamber to be moved forward any farther. Some, however, say that one of the
workmen engaged at the levers was crushed and killed by the mass, and that this
was the reason of its being left where it now stands.
[2.176] To the other temples of much note Amasis also made
magnificent offerings – at Memphis, for instance, he gave the recumbent colossus
in front of the temple of Vulcan, which is seventy-five feet long. Two other
colossal statues stand on the same base, each twenty feet high, carved in the
stone of Ethiopia, one on either side of the temple. There is also a stone
colossus of the same size at Says, recumbent like that at Memphis. Amasis
finally built the temple of Isis at Memphis, a vast structure, well worth
seeing.
[2.177] It is said that the reign of Amasis was the most
prosperous time that Egypt ever saw, – the river was more liberal to the land,
and the land brought forth more abundantly for the service of man than had ever
been known before; while the number of inhabited cities was not less than twenty
thousand. It was this king Amasis who established the law that every Egyptian
should appear once a year before the governor of his canton, and show his means
of living; or, failing to do so, and to prove that he got an honest livelihood,
should be put to death. Solon the Athenian borrowed this law from the Egyptians,
and imposed it on his countrymen, who have observed it ever since. It is indeed
an excellent custom.
[2.178] Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among other
favours which he granted them, gave to such as liked to settle in Egypt the city
of Naucratis for their residence. To those who only wished to trade upon the
coast, and did not want to fix their abode in the country, he granted certain
lands where they might set up altars and erect temples to the gods. Of these
temples the grandest and most famous, which is also the most frequented, is that
called “the Hellenium.” It was built conjointly by the Ionians, Dorians, and
Aeolians, the following cities taking part in the work:- the Ionian states of
Chios, Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae; Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus, and
Phaselis of the Dorians; and Mytilene of the Aeolians. These are the states to
whom the temple belongs, and they have the right of appointing the governors of
the factory; the other cities which claim a share in the building, claim what in
no sense belongs to them. Three nations, however, consecrated for themselves
separate temples – the Eginetans one to Jupiter, the Samians to Juno, and the
Milesians to Apollo.
[2.179] In ancient times there was no factory but Naucratis
in the whole of Egypt; and if a person entered one of the other mouths of the
Nile, he was obliged to swear that he had not come there of his own free will.
Having so done, he was bound to sail in his ship to the Canobic mouth, or were
that impossible owing to contrary winds, he must take his wares by boat all
round the Delta, and so bring them to Naucratis, which had an exclusive
privilege.
[2.180] It happened in the reign of Amasis that the temple
of Delphi had been accidentally burnt, and the Amphictyons had contracted to
have it rebuilt for three hundred talents, of which sum one-fourth was to be
furnished by the Delphians. Under these circumstances the Delphians went from
city to city begging contributions, and among their other wanderings came to
Egypt and asked for help. From few other places did they obtain so much – Amasis
gave them a thousand talents of alum, and the Greek settlers twenty minae.
[2.181] A league was concluded by Amasis with the
Cyrenaeans, by which Cyrene and Egypt became close friends and allies. He
likewise took a wife from that city, either as a sign of his friendly feeling,
or because he had a fancy to marry a Greek woman. However this may be, certain
it is that he espoused a lady of Cyrene, by name Ladice, daughter, some say, of
Battus or Arcesilaus, the king – others, of Critobulus, one of the chief
citizens. When the time came to complete the contract, Amasis was struck with
weakness. Astonished hereat – for he was not wont to be so afflicted – the king
thus addressed his bride: “Woman, thou hast certainly bewitched me – now
therefore be sure thou shalt perish more miserably than ever woman perished
yet.” Ladice protested her innocence, but in vain; Amasis was not softened.
Hereupon she made a vow internally, that if he recovered within the day (for no
longer time was allowed her), she would present a statue to the temple of Venus
at Cyrene. Immediately she obtained her wish, and the king’s weakness
disappeared. Amasis loved her greatly ever after, and Ladice performed her vow.
The statue which she caused to be made, and sent to Cyrene continued there to my
day, standing with its face looking outwards from the city. Ladice herself, when
Cambyses conquered Egypt, suffered no wrong; for Cambyses, on learning of her
who she was, sent her back unharmed to her country.
[2.182] Besides the marks of favour already mentioned,
Amasis also enriched with offerings many of the Greek temples. He sent to Cyrene
a statue of Minerva covered with plates of gold, and a painted likeness of
himself. To the Minerva of Lindus he gave two statues in stone, and a linen
corslet well worth inspection. To the Samian Juno he presented two statues of
himself, made in wood, which stood in the great temple to my day, behind the
doors. Samos was honoured with these gifts on account of the bond of friendship
subsisting between Amasis and Polycrates, the son of Aeaces: Lindus, for no such
reason, but because of the tradition that the daughters of Danaus touched there
in their flight from the sons of Aegyptus, and built the temple of Minerva. Such
were the offerings of Amasis. He likewise took Cyprus, which no man had ever
done before, and compelled it to pay him a tribute.
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