For Not All The Egyptians Equally Reverence The Same Gods,
Except Only Isis And Osiris (Who They Say Is Dionysos), These They All
Reverence Alike:
But they who have a temple of Mendes or belong to the
Mendesian district, these abstain from goats and sacrifice sheep.
Now
the men of Thebes and those who after their example abstain from
sheep, say that this custom was established among them for the cause
which follows: - Heracles (they say) had an earnest desire to see Zeus,
and Zeus did not desire to be seen of him; and at last when Heracles
was urgent in entreaty Zeus contrived this device, that is to say, he
flayed a ram and held in front of him the head of the ram which he had
cut off, and he put on over him the fleece and then showed himself to
him. Hence the Egyptians make the image of Zeus with the face of a
ram; and the Ammonians do so also after their example, being settlers
both from the Egyptians and from the Ethiopians, and using a language
which is a medley of both tongues: and in my opinion it is from this
god that the Egyptians call Zeus /Amun/. The Thebans then do not
sacrifice rams but hold them sacred for this reason; on one day
however in the year, on the feast of Zeus, they cut up in the same
manner and flay one single ram and cover with its skin the image of
Zeus, and then they bring up to it another image of Heracles. This
done, all who are in the temple beat themselves in lamentation for the
ram, and then they bury it in a sacred tomb.
About Heracles I heard the account given that he was of the number 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, 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 and were seafaring 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.
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