And As To The
Reason Why Light And Honour Are Allotted To This Night, About This
There Is A Sacred Story Told.
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. 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.
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.
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:
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