Beans Moreover The Egyptians Do Not At All Sow In Their Land,
And Those Which They Grow They Neither Eat Raw Nor Boil For Food; Nay
The Priests Do Not Endure Even To Look Upon Them, Thinking This To Be
An Unclean Kind Of Pulse:
And there is not one priest only for each of
the gods but many, and of them one is chief-priest, and whenever a
priest dies his son is appointed to his place.
The males of the ox kind they consider to belong to Epaphos, and on
account of him they test them in the following manner: - If the priest
sees one single black hair upon the beast he counts it not clean for
sacrifice; and one of the priests who is appointed for the purpose
makes investigation of these matters, both when the beast is standing
upright and when it is lying on its back, drawing out its tongue
moreover, to see if it is clean in respect of the appointed signs,
which I shall tell of in another part of the history: he looks also at
the hairs of the tail to see if it has them growing in a natural
manner; and if it be clean in respect of all these things, he marks it
with a piece of papyrus, rolling this round the horns, and then when
he has plastered sealing-earth over it he sets upon it the seal of his
signet-ring, and after that they take the animal away. But for one who
sacrifices a beast not sealed the penalty appointed is death. In this
way then the beast is tested; and their appointed manner of sacrifice
is as follows: - they lead the sealed beast to the altar where they
happen to be sacrificing, and then kindle a fire: after that, having
poured libations of wine over the altar so that it runs down upon the
victim and having called upon the god, they cut its throat, and having
cut its throat they sever the head from the body. The body then of the
beast they flay, but upon the head they make many imprecations first,
and then they who have a market and Hellenes sojourning among them for
trade, these carry it to the market-place and sell it, while they who
have no Hellenes among them cast it away into the river: and this is
the form of imprecations which they utter upon the heads, praying that
if any evil be about to befall either themselves who are offering
sacrifice or the land of Egypt in general, it may come rather upon
this head. Now as regards the heads of the beasts which are sacrificed
and the pouring over them of the wine, all the Egyptians have the same
customs equally for all their sacrifices; and by reason of this custom
none of the Egyptians eat of the head either of this or of any other
kind of animal: but the manner of disembowelling the victims and of
burning them is appointed among them differently for different
sacrifices; I shall speak however of the sacrifices to that goddess
whom they regard as the greatest of all, and to whom they celebrate
the greatest feast.
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