of the twelve gods; but of the other Heracles whom the Hellenes know I
was not able to hear in any part of Egypt: and moreover to prove that
the Egyptians did not take the name of Heracles from the Hellenes, but
rather the Hellenes from the Egyptians,—that is to say those of the
Hellenes who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon,—of that, I
say, besides many other evidences there is chiefly this, namely that the
parents of this Heracles, Amphitryon and Alcmene, were both of Egypt by
descent, 46 and also that the Egyptians say that they do not know
the names either of Poseidon or of the Dioscuroi, nor have these been
accepted by them as gods among the other gods; whereas if they had
received from the Hellenes the name of any divinity, they would
naturally have preserved the memory of these most of all, assuming that
in those times as now some of the Hellenes were wont to make voyages
4601 and were sea-faring folk, as I suppose and as my judgment compels
me to think; so that the Egyptians would have learnt the names of these
gods even more than that of Heracles. In fact however Heracles is a
very ancient Egyptian god; and (as they say themselves) it is seventeen
thousand years to the beginning of the reign of Amasis from the time
when the twelve gods, of whom they count that Heracles is one, were
begotten of the eight gods.
44. I moreover, desiring to know something certain of these matters so
far as might be, made a voyage also to Tyre of Phenicia, hearing that
in that place there was a holy temple of Heracles; and I saw that it
was richly furnished with many votive offerings besides, and especially
there were in it two pillars, 47 the one of pure gold and the other of
an emerald stone of such size as to shine by night: 48 and having come
to speech with the priests of the god, I asked them how long time it
was since their temple had been set up: and these also I found to be
at variance with the Hellenes, for they said that at the same time when
Tyre was founded, the temple of the god also had been set up, and that
it was a period of two thousand three hundred years since their people
began to dwell at Tyre. I saw also at Tyre another temple of Heracles,
with the surname Thasian; and I came to Thasos also and there I found a
temple of Heracles set up by the Phenicians, who had sailed out to seek
for Europa and had colonised Thasos; and these things happened full five
generations of men before Heracles the son of Amphitryon was born in
Hellas. So then my inquiries show clearly that Heracles is an ancient
god, and those of the Hellenes seem to me to act most rightly who have
two temples of Heracles set up, and who sacrifice to the one as an
immortal god and with the title Olympian, and make offerings of the dead
49 to the other as a hero.
45. Moreover, besides many other stories which the Hellenes tell without
due consideration, this tale is especially foolish which they tell about
Heracles, namely that when he came to Egypt, the Egyptians put on him
wreaths and led him forth in procession to sacrifice him to Zeus; and he
for some time kept quiet, but when they were beginning the sacrifice of
him at the altar, he betook himself to prowess and slew them all. I for
my part am of opinion that the Hellenes when they tell this tale are
altogether without knowledge of the nature and customs of the Egyptians;
for how should they for whom it is not lawful to sacrifice even beasts,
except swine 50 and the males of oxen and calves (such of them as are
clean) and geese, how should these sacrifice human beings? Besides this,
how is it in nature possible that Heracles, being one person only and
moreover a man (as they assert), should slay many myriads? Having said
so much of these matters, we pray that we may have grace from both the
gods and the heroes for our speech.
46. Now the reason why those of the Egyptians whom I have mentioned do
not sacrifice goats, female or male, is this:—the Mendesians count Pan
to be one of the eight gods (now these eight gods they say came into
being before the twelve gods), and the painters and image-makers
represent in painting and in sculpture the figure of Pan, just as the
Hellenes do, with goat's face and legs, not supposing him to be really
like this but to resemble the other gods; the cause however why they
represent him in this form I prefer not to say. The Mendesians then
reverence all goats and the males more than the females (and the
goatherds too have greater honour than other herdsmen), but of the goats
one especially is reverenced, and when he dies there is great mourning
in all the Mendesian district: and both the goat and Pan are called in
the Egyptian tongue Mendes. Moreover in my lifetime there happened in
that district this marvel, that is to say a he-goat had intercourse with
a woman publicly, and this was so done that all men might have evidence
of it.
47. The pig is accounted by the Egyptians an abominable animal; and
first, if any of them in passing by touch a pig, he goes into the river
and dips himself forthwith in the water together with his garments; and
then too swineherds, though they be native Egyptians, unlike all others
do not enter any of the temples in Egypt, nor is anyone willing to give
his daughter in marriage to one of them or to take a wife from among
them; but the swineherds both give in marriage to one another and take
from one another. Now to the other gods the Egyptians do not think it
right to sacrifice swine; but to the Moon and to Dionysos alone at the
same time and on the same full-moon they sacrifice swine, and then eat
their flesh: and as to the reason why, when they abominate swine at all
their other feasts, they sacrifice them at this, there is a story told
by the Egyptians; and this story I know, but it is not a seemly one for
me to tell. Now the sacrifice of the swine to the Moon is performed as
follows:—when the priest has slain the victim, he puts together the end
of the tail and the spleen and the caul, and covers them up with the
whole of the fat of the animal which is about the paunch, and then he
offers them with fire; and the rest of the flesh they eat on that day of
full moon upon which they have held the sacrifice, but on any day after
this they will not taste of it: the poor however among them by reason of
the scantiness of their means shape pigs of dough and having baked them
they offer these as a sacrifice.
48. Then for Dionysos on the eve of the festival each one kills a pig by
cutting its throat before his own doors, and after that he gives the pig
to the swineherd who sold it to him, to carry away again; and the rest
of the feast of Dionysos is celebrated by the Egyptians in the same
way as by the Hellenes in almost all things except choral dances, but
instead of the phallos they have invented another contrivance, namely
figures of about a cubit in height worked by strings, which women carry
about the villages, with the privy member made to move and not much
less in size than the rest of the body: and a flute goes before and they
follow singing the praises of Dionysos. As to the reason why the figure
has this member larger than is natural and moves it, though it moves no
other part of the body, about this there is a sacred story told.
49. Now I think that Melampus the son of Amytheon was not without
knowledge of these rites of sacrifice, but was acquainted with them: for
Melampus is he who first set forth to the Hellenes the name of Dionysos
and the manner of sacrifice and the procession of the phallos. Strictly
speaking indeed, he when he made it known did not take in the whole, but
those wise men who came after him made it known more at large. Melampus
then is he who taught of the phallos which is carried in procession for
Dionysos, and from him the Hellenes learnt to do that which they do. I
say then that Melampus being a man of ability contrived for himself an
art of divination, and having learnt from Egypt he taught the Hellenes
many things, and among them those that concern Dionysos, making changes
in some few points of them: for I shall not say that that which is done
in worship of the god in Egypt came accidentally to be the same with
that which is done among the Hellenes, for then these rites would have
been in character with the Hellenic worship and not lately brought in;
nor certainly shall I say that the Egyptians took from the Hellenes
either this or any other customary observance: but I think it most
probable that Melampus learnt the matters concerning Dionysos from
Cadmos the Tyrian and from those who came with him from Phenicia to the
land which we now call Boeotia.
50. Moreover the naming 51 of almost all the gods has come to Hellas
from Egypt: for that it has come from the Barbarians I find by inquiry
is true, and I am of opinion that most probably it has come from Egypt,
because, except in the case of Poseidon and the Dioscuroi (in accordance
with that which I have said before), and also of Hera and Hestia and
Themis and the Charites and Nereïds, the Egyptians have had the names
of all the other gods in their country for all time. What I say here
is that which the Egyptians think themselves: but as for the gods whose
names they profess that they do not know, these I think received their
naming from the Pelasgians, except Poseidon; but about this god the
Hellenes learnt from the Libyans, for no people except the Libyans have
had the name of Poseidon from the first and have paid honour to this
god always. Nor, it may be added, have the Egyptians any custom of
worshipping heroes.
51. These observances then, and others besides these which I shall
mention, the Hellenes have adopted from the Egyptians; but to make, as
they do, the images of Hermes with the phallos they have learnt not from
the Egyptians but from the Pelasgians, the custom having been received
by the Athenians first of all the Hellenes and from these by the rest;
for just at the time when the Athenians were beginning to rank among the
Hellenes, the Pelasgians became dwellers with them in their land, and
from this very cause it was that they began to be counted as Hellenes.
Whosoever has been initiated in the mysteries of the Cabeiroi, which the
Samothrakians perform having received them from the Pelasgians, that
man knows the meaning of my speech; for these very Pelasgians who
became dwellers with the Athenians used to dwell before that time in
Samothrake, and from them the Samothrakians received their mysteries. So
then the Athenians were the first of the Hellenes who made the images
of Hermes with the phallos, having learnt from the Pelasgians; and
the Pelasgians told a sacred story about it, which is set forth in the
mysteries in Samothrake.
52. Now the Pelasgians formerly were wont to make all their sacrifices
calling upon the gods in prayer, as I know from that which I heard at
Dodona, but they gave no title or name to any of them, for they had
not yet heard any, but they called them gods ({theous}) from some such
notion as this, that they had set ({thentes}) in order all things and
so had the distribution of everything. Afterwards, when much time
had elapsed, they learnt from Egypt the names of the gods, all except
Dionysos, for his name they learnt long afterwards; and after a time
the Pelasgians consulted the Oracle at Dodona about the names, for this
prophetic seat is accounted to be the most ancient of the Oracles which
are among the Hellenes, and at that time it was the only one. So when
the Pelasgians asked the Oracle at Dodona whether they should adopt the
names which had come from the Barbarians, the Oracle in reply bade them
make use of the names. From this time they sacrificed using the names of
the gods, and from the Pelasgians the Hellenes afterwards received them:
53, but whence the several gods had their birth, or whether they all
were from the beginning, and of what form they are, they did not learn
till yesterday, as it were, or the day before: for Hesiod and Homer I
suppose were four hundred years before my time and not more, and these
are they who made a theogony for the Hellenes and gave the titles to
the gods and distributed to them honours and arts, and set forth their
forms: but the poets who are said to have been before these men were
really in my opinion after them. Of these things the first are said by
the priestesses of Dodona, and the latter things, those namely which
have regard to Hesiod and Homer, by myself.
54. As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in
Libya, the Egyptians tell the following tale. The priests of the Theban
Zeus told me that two women in the service of the temple had been
carried away from Thebes by Phenicians, and that they had heard that one
of them had been sold to go into Libya and the other to the Hellenes;
and these women, they said, were they who first founded the prophetic
seats among the nations which have been named: and when I inquired
whence they knew so perfectly of this tale which they told, they said
in reply that a great search had been made by the priests after these
women, and that they had not been able to find them, but they had heard
afterwards this tale about them which they were telling.
55. This I heard from the priests at Thebes, and what follows is said by
the prophetesses 52 of Dodona. They say that two black doves flew from
Thebes to Egypt, and came one of them to Libya and the other to their
land. And this latter settled upon an oak-tree 53 and spoke with human
voice, saying that it was necessary that a prophetic seat of Zeus should
be established in that place; and they supposed that that was of the
gods which was announced to them, and made one accordingly: and the dove
which went away to the Libyans, they say, bade the Libyans to make an
Oracle of Ammon; and this also is of Zeus. The priestesses of Dodona
told me these things, of whom the eldest was named Promeneia, the next
after her Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra; and the other people of
Dodona who were engaged about the temple gave accounts agreeing with
theirs.
56. I however have an opinion about the matter as follows:—If the
Phenicians did in truth carry away the consecrated women and sold one of
them into Libya and the other into Hellas, I suppose that in the country
now called Hellas, which was formerly called Pelasgia, this woman was
sold into the land of the Thesprotians; and then being a slave there she
set up a sanctuary of Zeus under a real oak-tree; 54 as indeed it was
natural that being an attendant of the sanctuary of Zeus at Thebes, she
should there, in the place to which she had come, have a memory of him;
and after this, when she got understanding of the Hellenic tongue, she
established an Oracle, and she reported, I suppose, that her sister had
been sold in Libya by the same Phenicians by whom she herself had been
sold.
57. Moreover, I think that the women were called doves by the people of
Dodona for the reason that they were Barbarians and because it seemed to
them that they uttered voice like birds; but after a time (they say) the
dove spoke with human voice, that is when the woman began to speak so
that they could understand; but so long as she spoke a Barbarian tongue
she seemed to them to be uttering voice like a bird: for had it been
really a dove, how could it speak with human voice? And in saying that
the dove was black, they indicate that the woman was Egyptian. The
ways of delivering oracles too at Thebes in Egypt and at Dodona closely
resemble one another, as it happens, and also the method of divination
by victims has come from Egypt.
58. Moreover, it is true also that the Egyptians were the first of men
who made solemn assemblies 55 and processions and approaches to the
temples, 56 and from them the Hellenes have learnt them, and my evidence
for this is that the Egyptian celebrations of these have been held from
a very ancient time, whereas the Hellenic were introduced 57 but lately.
59. The Egyptians hold their solemn assemblies not once in the year but
often, especially and with the greatest zeal and devotion 58 at the
city of Bubastis for Artemis, and next at Busiris for Isis; for in this
last-named city there is a very great temple of Isis, and this city
stands in the middle of the Delta of Egypt; now Isis is in the tongue of
the Hellenes Demeter: thirdly, they have a solemn assembly at the city
of Saïs for Athene, fourthly at Heliopolis for the Sun (Helios), fifthly
at the city of Buto in honour of Leto, and sixthly at the city of
Papremis for Ares.
60. Now, when they are coming to the city of Bubastis they do as
follows:—they sail men and women together, and a great multitude of each
sex in every boat; and some of the women have rattles and rattle with
them, while some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the
voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands; and
when as they sail they come opposite to any city on the way they bring
the boat to land, and some of the women continue to do as I have said,
others cry aloud and jeer at the women in that city, some dance, and
some stand up and pull up their garments. This they do by every city
along the river-bank; and when they come to Bubastis they hold festival
celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine of grapes is consumed upon
that festival than during the whole of the rest of the year. To this
place (so say the natives) they come together year by year 59 even to
the number of seventy myriads 5901 of men and women, besides children.
61. Thus it is done here; and how they celebrate the festival in honour
of Isis at the city of Busiris has been told by me before: 60 for, as I
said, they beat themselves in mourning after the sacrifice, all of them
both men and women, very many myriads of people; but for whom they beat
themselves it is not permitted to me by religion to say: and so many as
there are of the Carians dwelling in Egypt do this even more than the
Egyptians themselves, inasmuch as they cut their foreheads also with
knives; and by this it is manifested that they are strangers and not
Egyptians.
62. At the times when they gather together at the city of Saïs for their
sacrifices, on a certain night 61 they all kindle lamps many in number
in the open air round about the houses; now the lamps are saucers full
of salt and oil mixed, and the wick floats by itself on the surface, and
this burns during the whole night; and to the festival is given the name
Lychnocaia (the lighting of the lamps). Moreover those of the Egyptians
who have not come to this solemn assembly observe the night of the
festival and themselves also light lamps all of them, and thus not in
Saïs alone are they lighted, but over all Egypt: and as to the reason
why light and honour are allotted to this night, 62 about this there is
a sacred story told.
63. To Heliopolis and Buto they go year by year and do sacrifice only:
but at Papremis they do sacrifice and worship as elsewhere, and besides
that, when the sun begins to go down, while some few of the priests are
occupied with the image of the god, the greater number of them stand in
the entrance of the temple with wooden clubs, and other persons to the
number of more than a thousand men with purpose to perform a vow, these
also having all of them staves of wood, stand in a body opposite to
those: and the image, which is in a small shrine of wood covered over
with gold, they take out on the day before to another sacred building.
The few then who have been left about the image, draw a wain with four
wheels, which bears the shrine and the image that is within the shrine,
and the other priests standing in the gateway try to prevent it from
entering, and the men who are under a vow come to the assistance of the
god and strike them, while the others defend themselves. 63 Then there
comes to be a hard fight with staves, and they break one another's
heads, and I am of opinion that many even die of the wounds they
receive; the Egyptians however told me that no one died. This solemn
assembly the people of the place say that they established for the
following reason:—the mother of Ares, they say, used to dwell in this
temple, and Ares, having been brought up away from her, when he grew
up came thither desiring to visit his mother, and the attendants of his
mother's temple, not having seen him before, did not permit him to pass
in, but kept him away; and he brought men to help him from another city
and handled roughly the attendants of the temple, and entered to visit
his mother. Hence, they say, this exchange of blows has become the
custom in honour of Ares upon his festival.
64. The Egyptians were the first who made it a point of religion not to
lie with women in temples, nor to enter into temples after going away
from women without first bathing: for almost all other men except the
Egyptians and the Hellenes lie with women in temples and enter into a
temple after going away from women without bathing, since they hold that
there is no difference in this respect between men and beasts: for
they say that they see beasts and the various kinds of birds coupling
together both in the temples and in the sacred enclosures of the gods;
if then this were not pleasing to the god, the beasts would not do so.
65. Thus do these defend that which they do, which by me is disallowed:
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, 6301 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.
66. 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; 64 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 whose houses
a dog has died shave their whole body and also their head.
67. 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
shrew-mice however and the hawks they carry away to the city of Buto,
and the ibises to Hermopolis; 65 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.