_The cruel Busiris._
LVI. The cruelty of Busiris, king of Egypt, who is said to have put to
death all strangers that came, or rather were brought into his dominions,
has been so trumpeted by the voice of fame, as to become a proverb.
Apolodorus was the first broacher of the rumour of this barbarity;
and the poets, whose votes in establishing the truth of events are of
little weight, have concurred with him in propagating it. Diodorus
Siculus condemns this story for fabulous, and declares the origin of
it sprung from a barbarous custom which was practised in that country,
of sacrificing to the manes of Osiris all the fair-haired people that
came in their way; and, as almost all the Egyptians had black-hair,
the lot most commonly fell upon strangers. He adds, that Busiris, in
the Egyptian language, signifies the tomb of Osiris; and the name
which was meant to express the place where the sacrifice was made, by
equivocation, was brought to signify the author of the cruelty. Strabo,
who cites Eratosthenes for his author, who was a person very famous for
his knowledge of Egyptian antiquities, and who had the care of the great
library at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes, asserts, that
there never was in Egypt either king or tyrant of the name of Busiris,
and, with regard to the origin of the fable, says just as Diodorus does.