Herodotus

“ The Egyptians consulted together, and then asked the Eleans if their own townsmen took part in the contests. The Eleans answered that this was so: all Greeks from Elis or elsewhere might contend. Then the Egyptians said that this rule was wholly wide of justice: “For,” said they, “it cannot be but that you will favour your own townsmen in the contest and deal unfairly by a stranger. Nay, if you will indeed make just rules and have therefore come to Egypt, you should admit only-strangers to the contest, and not Eleans.” Such was the counsel of the Egyptians to the Eleans. ”

“ But this displeased his friends, who thus admonished him: “O King, you are ill guided so to demean yourself. We would have you sit aloft on a throne of pride all day doing your business; thus would the Egyptians know that they have a great man for their ruler, and you would have the better name among them; but now your behaviour is nowise royal.” “Nay,” Amasis answered them, “men that have bows bend them at need only; were bows kept for ever bent they would break, and so would be of no avail when they were needed. Such too is the nature of men. ”

“ From no other man could I learn anything. But this much I learnt by the farthest inquiry that I could make, by my own travel and sight as far as the city of Elephantine, and beyond that by question and hearsay:—Beyond Elephantine, as one travels inland, the land rises. Here one must pass with the boat roped on both sides as men harness an ox; and if the rope break, the boat is carried away by the strength of the current. This part of the river is a four days’ journey by boat, and the Nile here is winding like the Maeander ”

“ Egypt is all that country which is inhabited by Egyptians, even as Cilicia and Assyria are the countries inhabited by Cilicians and Assyrians severally; and we know of no frontier (rightly so called) below Asia and Libya save only the borders of the Egyptians. But if we follow the belief of the Greeks, we shall consider all Egypt, down from the Cataracts and the city Elephantine, to be divided into two parts, and to claim both the names, the one part belonging to Libya and the other to Asia. For the Nile, beginning from the Cataracts, divides Egypt into two parts as it flows to the sea. ”

“ No mortal creature known to us grows from so small a beginning to such greatness; for its eggs are not much bigger than goose eggs, and the young crocodile is of a bigness answering thereto, but it grows to a length of seventeen cubits and more. It has eyes like pigs’ eyes, and great teeth and tusks answering to the bigness of its body. It is the only animal that has no tongue. ”

“ But it so fell out that Ladice was the only woman with whom Amasis could not have intercourse; and this continuing, Amasis said to this Ladice, “Woman, you have cast a spell on me, and most assuredly you shall come to the most terrible end of all women.” So, the king’s anger not abating for all her denial, Ladice vowed in her heart to Aphrodite that she would send the goddess a statue to Cyrene if Amasis had intercourse with her that night; for that would remedy the evil; and thereafter all went well, and Amasis loved his wife much. ”

“ This cow was not buried in the earth but was to be seen even in my time, in the town of Sais, where it lay in an adorned chamber of the palace; incense of all kinds is offered daily before it, and a lamp burns by it all through every night. There is another chamber near to this image, where stand the statues of Mycerinus’ concubines, as the priests of Sais told me; and indeed there are about twenty colossal wooden figures there, made like naked women, but I have only the priests’ word to show who they are. ”

“ This is the reason why the Egyptians of whom I have spoken sacrifice no goats, male or female: the Mendesians reckon Pan among the eight gods, who, they say, were before the twelve gods. Now in their painting and sculpture the image of Pan is made as among the Greeks with the head and the legs of a goat; not that he is deemed to be in truth such, or unlike to other gods; but why they so present him I have no wish to say. The Mendesians hold all goats sacred, the male even more than the female, and goatherds are held in especial honour: one he-goat is most sacred of all ”

“ Now, indeed, there are no men, neither in the rest of Egypt, nor in the whole world, who gain from the soil with so little labour they have not the toil of breaking up the land with the plough, nor of hoeing, nor of any other work which other men do to get them a crop; the river rises of itself, waters the fields, and then sinks back again; thereupon each man sows his field and sends swine into it to tread down the seed, and waits for the harvest; then he makes the swine to thresh his grain, and so garners it. ”

“ Nor do the Egyptians think right to sacrifice swine to any god save the Moon and Dionysus; to these they sacrifice their swine at the same time, in the same season of full moon; then they eat of the flesh. The Egyptians have an account of the reason why they sacrifice swine at this festival, yet abominate them at others; I know it, but it is not fitting that I should relate it. But this is how they sacrifice swine to the Moon: the sacrificer lays the end of the tail and the spleen and the caul together and covers them up with all the fat that he finds about the belly, then burns all with fire ”

“ The third opinion is the most plausible by far, yet is of all the most in error. It has no more truth in it than the others. According to this, the Nile flows from where snows melt; but it flows from Libya through the midst of Ethiopia, and issues out into Egypt; how then can it flow from snow, seeing that it comes from the hottest places to lands that are for the most part colder? nay, a man who can reason about such matters will find his chief proof, that there is no likelihood of the river’s flowing from snow, in this—that the winds blowing from Libya and Ethiopia are hot. ”

“ Some of the Egyptians hold crocodiles sacred, others do not so, but treat them as enemies. The dwellers about Thebes and the lake Moeris deem them to be very sacred. There, in every place one crocodile is kept, trained to be tame; they put ornaments of glass and gold on its ears and bracelets on its forefeet, provide for it special food and offerings, and give the creatures the best of treatment while they live; after death the crocodiles are embalmed and buried in sacred coffins. But about Elephantine they are not held sacred, and are even eaten. ”

“ The outer court has a height of ten fathoms, and is adorned with notable figures six cubits high. The temple is in the midst of the city, the whole circuit of which commands a view down into it; for the city’s level has been raised, but that of the temple has been left as it was from the first, so that it can be seen into from without. A stone wall, carven with figures, runs round it; within is a grove of very tall trees growing round a great shrine, wherein is the image of the goddess; the temple is a square, each side measuring a furlong. ”

“ For even though a man has not before been told it he can at once see, if he have sense, that that Egypt to which the Greeks sail is land acquired by the Egyptians, given them by the river—not only the lower country but even all the land to three days’ voyage above the aforesaid lake, which is of the same nature as the other, though the priests added not this to what they said. ”

“ Inland from the sea as far as Heliopolis Egypt is a wide land, all flat and watery and marshy. From the sea up to Heliopolis it is a journey about as long as the way from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus at Pisa. If a reckoning be made there will be seen to be but a little difference of length, not more than fifteen furlongs, between these two journeys; for the journey from Athens to Pisa is fifteen furlongs short of fifteen hundred, which is the tale of furlongs between the sea and Heliopolis. ”

“ Therefore, as to Egypt, I believe those who so speak, and I am myself fully so persuaded; for I have seen that Egypt projects into the sea beyond the neighbouring land, and shells are plain to view on the mountains and things are coated with salt (insomuch that the very pyramids are wasted thereby) , and the only sandy mountain in Egypt is that which is above Memphis; moreover, Egypt is like neither to the neighbouring land of Arabia, nor to Libya, no, nor to Syria (for the seaboard of Arabia is inhabited by Syrians) ”

“ When he had been blind for ten years, an oracle from the city of Buto declared to him that the time of his punishment was drawing to an end, and that he should regain his sight by washing his eyes with the issue of a woman who had never had intercourse with any man but her own husband. ”

“ Yet I think that the sun never lets go all the water that he yearly draws up from the Nile, but keeps some back near to himself. Then as the winter becomes milder, the sun returns back to the middle of the heaven, and after that he draws from all rivers alike. Meantime the other rivers are swollen to high flood by the much water from the sky that falls into them, because the country is rained upon and cut into gullies; but in the summer they are low, lacking the rain and being drawn up too by the sun. ”

“ There are men whose whole business this is and who have this special craft. These, when a dead body is brought to them, show the bringers wooden models of corpses, painted in exact imitation; the most perfect manner of embalming belongs, they say, to One whose name it were profane for me to speak in treating of such matters; the second way, which they show, is less perfect than the first, and cheaper, and the third is the least costly of all. ”

“ It is believed in Egypt that the rulers of the lower world are Demeter and Dionysus. Moreover, the Egyptians were the first to teach that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air (which cycle it completes in three thousand years) it enters once more into a human body at birth. Some of the Greeks, early and late, have used this doctrine as if it were their own ”

“ I hold rather that the Egyptians did not come into being with the making of that which Ionians call the Delta: they ever existed since men were first made; and as the land grew in extent many of them spread down over it, and many stayed behind. Be that as it may, the Theban province, a land of six thousand one hundred and twenty furlongs in circuit, was of old called Egypt. ”

“ Oxen that die are dealt with in the following way:—Cows are cast into the river, bulls are buried by each city in its suburbs, with one or both horns uncovered for a sign: then, when the carcase is decomposed, and the time appointed is at hand, a boat comes to each city from the island called Prosopitis, an island in the Delta, of nine schoeni in circuit. There are many other towns in Prosopitis; that one from which come the boats to gather the bones of the bulls is called Atarbechis; there stands in it a temple of Aphrodite of great sanctity. ”

“ Whereas all others live on wheat and barley, it is the greatest disgrace for an Egyptian so to live; they make food from a coarse grain which some call spelt. They knead dough with their feet, and gather mud and dung with their hands. The Egyptians and those who have learnt it from them are the only people who practise circumcision. Every man has two garments, every woman only one. The rings and sheets of sails are made fast elsewhere outside the boat, but inside it in Egypt. The Greeks write and calculate by moving the hand from left to right; the Egyptians do contrariwise ”

“ This is the story of Psammetichus’ conquest of Egypt. I have often made mention of the Egyptian oracle, and I will now treat fully of it, for this it deserves. This Egyptian oracle is in a temple sacred to Leto, and is situated in a great city by the Sebennytic arm of the Nile, on the way up from the sea. The name of the city where is this oracle is Buto; I have already named it. In Buto there is a temple of Apollo and Artemis. The shrine of Leto in which is the oracle is itself very great, and its outer court is ten fathoms high. ”

“ When anyone, be he Egyptian or stranger, is known to have been carried off by a crocodile or drowned by the river itself, such an one must by all means be embalmed and tended as fairly as may be and buried in a sacred coffin by the townsmen of the place where he is cast up; nor may any of his kinsfolk or his friends touch him, but his body is deemed something more than human, and is handled and buried by the priests of the Nile themselves. ”

“ Among the Egyptians themselves, those who dwell in the cultivated country are the most careful of all men to preserve the memory of the past, and none whom I have questioned have so many chronicles. I will now speak of the manner of life which they use. For three following days in every month they purge themselves, pursuing after health by means of emetics and drenches; for they think it is from the food which they eat that all sicknesses come to men. Even without this, the Egyptians are the healthiest of all men, next to the Libyans ”

“ They are beyond measure religious, more than any other nation; and these are among their customs:—They drink from cups of bronze, which they cleanse out daily; this is done not by some but by all. They are especially careful ever to wear newly-washed linen raiment. They practise circumcision for cleanliness’ sake; for they set cleanness above seemliness. Their priests shave the whole body every other day, that no lice or aught else that is foul may infest them in their service of the gods. ”

“ Gnats are abundant; this is how the Egyptians protect themselves against them: those who dwell higher up than the marshy country are well served by the towers whither they ascend to sleep, for the winds prevent the gnats from flying aloft; those living about the marshes have a different device, instead of the towers. Every man of them has a net, with which he catches fish by day, and for the night he sets it round the bed where he rests, then creeps under it and so sleeps. ”