but the Egyptians are excessively careful in their observances, both
in other matters which concern the sacred rites and also in those which
follow:--Egypt, though it borders upon Libya, does not very much abound
in wild animals, but such as they have are one and all accounted by them
sacred, some of them living with men and others not. But if I should say
for what reasons the sacred animals have been thus dedicated, I should
fall into discourse of matters pertaining to the gods, of which I most
desire not to speak; and what I have actually said touching slightly
upon them, I said because I was constrained by necessity. About these
animals there is a custom of this kind:--persons have been appointed of
the Egyptians, both men and women, to provide the food for each kind
of beast separately, and their office goes down from father to son; and
those who dwell in the various cities perform vows to them thus, that
is, when they make a vow to the god to whom the animal belongs, they
shave the head of their children either the whole or the half or the
third part of it, and then set the hair in the balance against silver,
and whatever it weighs, this the man gives to the person who provides
for the animals, and she cuts up fish of equal value and gives it for
food to the animals. Thus food for their support has been appointed and
if any one kill any of these animals, the penalty, if he do it with his
own will, is death, and if against his will, such penalty as the priests
may appoint: but whosoever shall kill an ibis or a hawk, whether it be
with his will or against his will, must die. Of the animals that live
with men there are great numbers, and would be many more but for the
accidents which befall the cats. For when the females have produced
young they are no longer in the habit of going to the males, and these
seeking to be united with them are not able. To this end then they
contrive as follows,--they either take away by force or remove secretly
the young from the females and kill them (but after killing they do not
eat them), and the females being deprived of their young and desiring
more, therefore come to the males, for it is a creature that is fond
of its young. Moreover when a fire occurs, the cats seem to be divinely
possessed; for while the Egyptians stand at intervals and look after
the cats, not taking any care to extinguish the fire, the cats slipping
through or leaping over the men, jump into the fire; and when this
happens, great mourning comes upon the Egyptians. And in whatever houses
a cat has died by a natural death, all those who dwell in this house
shave their eyebrows only, but those in which a dog has died shave their
whole body and also their head. The cats when they are dead are carried
away to sacred buildings in the city of Bubastis, where after being
embalmed they are buried; but the dogs they bury each people in their
own city in sacred tombs; and the ichneumons are buried just in the same
way as the dogs. The shrewmice however and the hawks they carry away to
the city of Buto, and the ibises to Hermopolis; the bears (which are not
commonly seen) and the wolves, not much larger in size than foxes, they
bury on the spot where they are found lying.
Of the crocodile the nature is as follows:--during the four most wintry
months this creature eats nothing: she has four feet and is an animal
belonging to the land and the water both; for she produces and hatches
eggs on the land, and the most part of the day she remains upon dry
land, but the whole of the night in the river, for the water in truth
is warmer than the unclouded open air and the dew. Of all the mortal
creatures of which we have knowledge this grows to the greatest bulk
from the smallest beginning; for the eggs which she produces are not
much larger than those of geese and the newly-hatched young one is in
proportion to the egg, but as he grows he becomes as much as seventeen
cubits long and sometimes yet larger. He has eyes like those of a pig
and teeth large and tusky, in proportion to the size of his body; but
unlike all other beasts he grows no tongue, neither does he move his
lower jaw, but brings the upper jaw towards the lower, being in this too
unlike all other beasts. He has moreover strong claws and a scaly hide
upon his back which cannot be pierced; and he is blind in the water, but
in the air he is of a very keen sight. Since he has his living in the
water he keeps his mouth all full within of leeches; and whereas all
other birds and beasts fly from him, the trochilus is a creature which
is at peace with him, seeing that from her he receives benefit; for
the crocodile having come out of the water to the land and then having
opened his mouth (this he is wont to do generally towards the West
Wind), the trochilus upon that enters into his mouth and swallows down
the leeches, and he being benefited is pleased and does no harm to
the trochilus. Now for some of the Egyptians the crocodiles are sacred
animals, and for others not so, but they treat them on the contrary
as enemies: those however who dwell about Thebes and about the lake of
Moiris hold them to be most sacred, and each of these two peoples keeps
one crocodile selected from the whole number, which has been trained
to tameness, and they put hanging ornaments of molten stone and of gold
into the ears of these and anklets round the front feet, and they give
them food appointed and victims of sacrifices and treat them as well
as possible while they live, and after they are dead they bury them
in sacred tombs, embalming them: but those who dwell about the city
of Elephantine even eat them, not holding them to be sacred. They are
called not crocodiles but _champsai_, and the Ionians gave them the name
of crocodile, comparing their form to that of the crocodiles (lizards)
which appear in their country in the stone walls. There are many ways in
use of catching them and of various kinds: I shall describe that which
to me seems the most worthy of being told. A man puts the back of a pig
upon a hook as bait, and lets it go into the middle of the river, while
he himself upon the bank of the river has a young live pig, which he
beats; and the crocodile hearing its cries makes for the direction of
the sound, and when he finds the pig's back he swallows it down: then
they pull, and when he is drawn out to land, first of all the hunter
forthwith plasters up his eyes with mud, and having done so he very
easily gets the mastery of him, but if he does not do so he has much
trouble.
The river-horse is sacred in the district of Papremis, but for the
other Egyptians he is not sacred; and this is the appearance which he
presents: he is four-footed, cloven-hoofed like an ox, flat-nosed, with
a mane like a horse and showing teeth like tusks, with a tail and voice
like a horse and in size as large as the largest ox; and his hide is
so exceedingly thick that when it has been dried shafts of javelins are
made of it. There are moreover otters in the river, which they consider
to be sacred: and of fish also they esteem that which is called the
_lepidotos_ to be sacred, and also the eel; and these they say are
sacred to the Nile: and of birds the fox-goose.
There is also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I did not
myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to them very
rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred
years; and these say that he comes regularly when his father dies; and
if he be like the painting he is of this size and nature, that is to
say, some of his feathers are of gold colour and others red, and in
outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. This bird
they say (but I cannot believe the story) contrives as follows:--setting
forth from Arabia he conveys his father, they say, to the temple of the
Sun (Helios) plastered up in myrrh, and buries him in the temple of the
Sun; and he conveys him thus:--he forms first an egg of myrrh as large
as he is able to carry, and then he makes trial of carrying it, and when
he has made trial sufficiently, then he hollows out the egg and places
his father within it and plasters over with other myrrh that part of the
egg where he hollowed it out to put his father in, and when his father
is laid in it, it proves (they say) to be of the same weight as it was;
and after he has plastered it up, he conveys the whole to Egypt to the
temple of the Sun. Thus they say that this bird does.
There are also about Thebes sacred serpents, not at all harmful to men,
which are small in size and have two horns growing from the top of the
head: these they bury when they die in the temple of Zeus, for to this
god they say that they are sacred. There is a region moreover in Arabia,
situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to
inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones
of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to
make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps
large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and
these heaps were many in number. This region in which the spines are
scattered upon the ground is of the nature of an entrance from a narrow
mountain pass to a great plain, which plain adjoins the plain in Egypt;
and the story goes that at the beginning of spring winged serpents from
Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birds called ibises meet them at the
entrance to this country and do not suffer the serpents to go by but
kill them. On account of this deed it is (say the Arabians) that the
ibis has come to be greatly honoured by the Egyptians, and the Egyptians
also agree that it is for this reason that they honour these birds. The
outward form of the ibis is this:--it is a deep black all over, and has
legs like those of a crane and a very curved beak, and in size it is
about equal to a rail: this is the appearance of the black kind which
fight with the serpents, but of those which most crowd round men's feet
(for there are two several kinds of ibises) the head is bare and also
the whole of the throat, and it is white in feathering except the head
and neck and the extremities of the wings and the rump (in all these
parts of which I have spoken it is a deep black), while in legs and in
the form of the head it resembles the other. As for the serpent its form
is like that of the watersnake; and it has wings not feathered but most
nearly resembling the wings of the bat. Let so much suffice as has been
said now concerning sacred animals.
Of the Egyptians themselves, those who dwell in the part of Egypt which
is sown for crops practise memory more than any other men and are
the most learned in history by far of all those of whom I have
had experience: and their manner of life is as follows:--For three
successive days in each month they purge, hunting after health with
emetics and clysters, and they think that all the diseases which exist
are produced in men by the food on which they live: for the Egyptians
are from other causes also the most healthy of all men next after the
Libyans (in my opinion on account of the seasons, because the seasons
do not change, for by the changes of things generally, and especially
of the seasons, diseases are most apt to be produced in men), and as to
their diet, it is as follows:--they eat bread, making loaves of maize,
which they call _kyllestis_, and they use habitually a wine made out of
barley, for vines they have not in their land. Of their fish some they
dry in the sun and then eat them without cooking, others they eat cured
in brine. Of birds they eat quails and ducks and small birds without
cooking, after first curing them; and everything else which they have
belonging to the class of birds or fishes, except such as have been
set apart by them as sacred, they eat roasted or boiled. In the
entertainments of the rich among them, when they have finished eating, a
man bears round a wooden figure of a dead body in a coffin, made as like
the reality as may be both by painting and carving, and measuring about
a cubit or two cubits each way; and this he shows to each of those who
are drinking together, saying: "When thou lookest upon this, drink and
be merry, for thou shalt be such as this when thou art dead." Thus they
do at their carousals. The customs which they practise are derived from
their fathers and they do not acquire others in addition; but besides
other customary things among them which are worthy of mention, they have
one song, that of Linos, the same who is sung of both in Phenicia and in
Cyprus and elsewhere, having however a name different according to the
various nations. This song agrees exactly with that which the Hellenes
sing calling on the name of Linos, so that besides many other things
about which I wonder among those matters which concern Egypt, I wonder
especially about this, namely whence they got the song of Linos. It is
evident however that they have sung this song from immemorial time, and
in the Egyptian tongue Linos is called Maneros. The Egyptians told me
that he was the only son of him who first became king of Egypt, and that
he died before his time and was honoured with these lamentations by
the Egyptians, and that this was their first and only song. In another
respect the Egyptians are in agreement with some of the Hellenes, namely
with the Lacedemonians, but not with the rest, that is to say, the
younger of them when they meet the elder give way and move out of the
path, and when their elders approach, they rise out of their seat. In
this which follows however they are not in agreement with any of the
Hellenes,--instead of addressing one another in the roads they do
reverence, lowering their hand down to their knee. They wear tunics of
linen about their legs with fringes, which they call _calasiris_; above
these they have garments of white wool thrown over: woolen garments
however are not taken into the temples, nor are they buried with them,
for this is not permitted by religion. In these points they are in
agreement with the observances called Orphic and Bacchic (which are
really Egyptian), and also with those of the Pythagoreans, for one who
takes part in these mysteries is also forbidden by religious rule to be
buried in woolen garments; and about this there is a sacred story told.
Besides these things the Egyptians have found out also to what god each
month and each day belongs, and what fortunes a man will meet with who
is born on any particular day, and how he will die, and what kind of
a man he will be: and these inventions were taken up by those of the
Hellenes who occupied themselves about poesy. Portents too have been
found out by them more than by all other men besides; for when a portent
has happened, they observe and write down the event which comes of it,
and if ever afterwards anything resembling this happens, they believe
that the event which comes of it will be similar. Their divination is
ordered thus:--the art is assigned not to any man but to certain of the
gods, for there are in their land Oracles of Heracles, of Apollo, of
Athene, of Artemis, or Ares, and of Zeus, and moreover that which they
hold most in honour of all, namely the Oracle of Leto which is in the
city of Buto. The manner of divination however is not established among
them according to the same fashion everywhere, but is different
in different places. The art of medicine among them is distributed
thus:--each physician is a physician of one disease and of no more; and
the whole country is full of physicians, for some profess themselves
to be physicians of the eyes, others of the head, others of the teeth,
others of the affections of the stomach, and others of the more obscure
ailments.
Their fashions of mourning and of burial are these:--Whenever any
household has lost a man who is of any regard amongst them, the whole
number of women of that house forthwith plaster over their heads or even
their faces with mud. Then leaving the corpse within the house they go
themselves to and fro about the city and beat themselves, with their
garments bound up by a girdle and their breasts exposed, and with them
go all the women who are related to the dead man, and on the other side
the men beat themselves, they too having their garments bound up by a
girdle; and when they have done this, they then convey the body to
the embalming. In this occupation certain persons employ themselves
regularly and inherit this as a craft. These, whenever a corpse is
conveyed to them, show to those who brought it wooden models of corpses
made like reality by painting, and the best of the ways of embalming
they say is that of him whose name I think it impiety to mention when
speaking of a matter of such a kind; the second which they show is
less good than this and also less expensive; and the third is the least
expensive of all. Having told them about this, they inquire of them in
which way they desire the corpse of their friend to be prepared. Then
they after they have agreed for a certain price depart out of the way,
and the others being left behind in the buildings embalm according to
the best of these ways thus:--First with the crooked iron tool they draw
out the brain through the nostrils, extracting it partly thus and partly
by pouring in drugs; and after this with a sharp stone of Ethiopia they
make a cut along the side and take out the whole contents of the belly,
and when they have cleared out the cavity and cleansed it with palm-wine
they cleanse it again with spices pounded up: then they fill the belly
with pure myrrh pounded up and with cassia and other spices except
frankincense, and sew it together again. Having so done they keep it for
embalming covered up in natron for seventy days, but for a longer time
than this it is not permitted to embalm it; and when the seventy days
are past, they wash the corpse and roll its whole body up in fine linen
cut into bands, smearing these beneath with gum, which the Egyptians use
generally instead of glue. Then the kinsfolk receive it from them and
have a wooden figure made in the shape of a man, and when they have had
this made they enclose the corpse, and having shut it up within, they
store it then in a sepulchral chamber, setting it to stand upright
against the wall. Thus they deal with the corpses which are prepared in
the most costly way; but for those who desire the middle way and wish
to avoid great cost they prepare the corpse as follows:--having filled
their syringes with the oil which is got from cedar-wood, with this they
forthwith fill the belly of the corpse, and this they do without having
either cut it open or taken out the bowels, but they inject the oil by
the breech, and having stopped the drench from returning back they keep
it then the appointed number of days for embalming, and on the last
of the days they let the cedar oil come out from the belly, which they
before put in; and it has such power that it brings out with it the
bowels and interior organs of the body dissolved; and the natron
dissolves the flesh, so that there is left of the corpse only the skin
and the bones. When they have done this they give back the corpse at
once in that condition without working upon it any more. The third kind
of embalming, by which are prepared the bodies of those who have less
means, is as follows:--they cleanse out the belly with a purge and then
keep the body for embalming during the seventy days, and at once after
that they give it back to the bringers to carry away. The wives of men
of rank when they die are not given at once to be embalmed, nor such
women as are very beautiful or of greater regard than others, but on
the third or fourth day after their death (and not before) they are
delivered to the embalmers. They do so about this matter in order that
the embalmers may not abuse their women, for they say that one of them
was taken once doing so to the corpse of a woman lately dead, and his
fellow-craftsman gave information. Whenever any one, either of the
Egyptians themselves or of strangers, is found to have been carried off
by a crocodile or brought to his death by the river itself, the people
of any city by which he may have been cast up on land must embalm him
and lay him out in the fairest way they can and bury him in a sacred
burial-place, nor may any of his relations or friends besides touch him,
but the priests of the Nile themselves handle the corpse and bury it as
that of one who was something more than man.
Hellenic usages they will by no means follow, and to speak generally
they follow those of no other men whatever. This rule is observed by
most of the Egyptians; but there is a large city named Chemmis in the
Theban district near Neapolis, and in this city there is a temple of
Perseus the son of Danae which is of a square shape, and round it grow
date-palms: the gateway of the temple is built of stone and of very
great size, and at the entrance of it stand two great statues of stone.
Within this enclosure is a temple-house and in it stands an image of
Perseus. These people of Chemmis say that Perseus is wont often to
appear in their land and often within the temple, and that a sandal
which has been worn by him is found sometimes, being in length two
cubits, and whenever this appears all Egypt prospers. This they say, and
they do in honour of Perseus after Hellenic fashion thus,--they hold an
athletic contest, which includes the whole list of games, and they offer
in prizes cattle and cloaks and skins: and when I inquired why to them
alone Perseus was wont to appear, and wherefore they were separated from
all the other Egyptians in that they held an athletic contest, they said
that Perseus had been born of their city, for Danaos and Lynkeus were
men of Chemmis and had sailed to Hellas, and from them they traced a
descent and came down to Perseus: and they told me that he had come to
Egypt for the reason which the Hellenes also say, namely to bring from
Libya the Gorgon's head, and had then visited them also and recognised
all his kinsfolk, and they said that he had well learnt the name of
Chemmis before he came to Egypt, since he had heard it from his mother,
and that they celebrated an athletic contest for him by his own command.
All these are customs practised by the Egyptians who dwell above the
fens: and those who are settled in the fenland have the same customs for
the most part as the other Egyptians, both in other matters and also
in that they live each with one wife only, as do the Hellenes; but
for economy in respect of food they have invented these things
besides:--when the river has become full and the plains have been
flooded, there grow in the water great numbers of lilies, which the
Egyptians call _lotos_; these they cut with a sickle and dry in the
sun, and then they pound that which grows in the middle of the lotos and
which is like the head of a poppy, and they make of it loaves baked
with fire. The root also of this lotos is edible and has a rather sweet
taste: it is round in shape and about the size of an apple. There are
other lilies too, in flower resembling roses, which also grow in
the river, and from them the fruit is produced in a separate vessel
springing from the root by the side of the plant itself, and very
nearly resembles a wasp's comb: in this there grow edible seeds in great
numbers of the size of an olive-stone, and they are eaten either fresh
or dried. Besides this they pull up from the fens the papyrus which
grows every year, and the upper parts of it they cut off and turn to
other uses, but that which is left below for about a cubit in length
they eat or sell: and those who desire to have the papyrus at its very
best bake it in an oven heated red-hot, and then eat it. Some too of
these people live on fish alone, which they dry in the sun after having
caught them and taken out the entrails, and then when they are dry, they
use them for food.