And Accordingly It Came To Pass; For
After A Space Of Two Years Had Gone By, During Which The Shepherd Went
On Acting So, At Length, When He Opened The Door And Entered, Both
Children Fell Before Him In Entreaty And Uttered The Word /Bekos/,
Stretching Forth Their Hands.
At first when he heard this the shepherd
kept silence; but since this word was often repeated, as he visited
them constantly and attended to them, at last he declared the matter
to his master, and at his command he brought the children before his
face.
Then Psammetichos having himself also heard it, began to inquire
what nation of men named anything /bekos/, and inquiring he found that
the Phrygians had this name for bread. In this manner and guided by an
indication such as this, the Egyptians were brought to allow that the
Phrygians were a more ancient people than themselves. That so it came
to pass I heard from the priests of that Hephaistos who dwells at
Memphis; but the Hellenes relate, besides many other idle tales, that
Psammetichos cut out the tongues of certain women and then caused the
children to live with these women.
With regard then to the rearing of the children they related so much
as I have said: and I heard also other things at Memphis when I had
speech with the priests of Hephaistos. Moreover I visited both Thebes
and Heliopolis for this very cause, namely because I wished to know
whether the priests at these places would agree in their accounts with
those at Memphis; for the men of Heliopolis are said to be the most
learned in records of the Egyptians. Those of their narrations which I
heard with regard to the gods I am not earnest to relate in full, but
I shall name them only because I consider that all men are equally
ignorant of these matters: and whatever things of them I may record I
shall record only because I am compelled by the course of the story.
But as to those matters which concern men, the priests agreed with one
another in saying that the Egyptians were the first of all men on
earth to find out the course of the year, having divided the seasons
into twelve parts to make up the whole; and this they said they found
out from the stars: and they reckon to this extent more wisely than
the Hellenes, as it seems to me, inasmuch as the Hellenes throw in an
intercalated month every other year, to make the seasons right,
whereas the Egyptians, reckoning the twelve months at thirty days
each, bring in also every year five days beyond number, and thus the
circle of their season is completed and comes round to the same point
whence it set out. They said moreover that the Egyptians were the
first who brought into use appellations for the twelve gods and the
Hellenes took up the use from them; and that they were the first who
assigned altars and images and temples to the gods, and who engraved
figures on stones; and with regard to the greater number of these
things they showed me by actual facts that they had happened so. They
said also that the first man who became king of Egypt was Min; and
that in his time all Egypt except the district of Thebes was a swamp,
and none of the regions were then above water which now lie below the
lake of Moiris, to which lake it is a voyage of seven days up the
river from the sea: and I thought that they said well about the land;
for it is manifest in truth even to a person who has not heard it
beforehand but has only seen, at least if he have understanding, that
the Egypt to which the Hellenes come in ships is a land which has been
won by the Egyptians as an addition, and that it is a gift of the
river: moreover the regions which lie above this lake also for a
distance of three days' sail, about which they did not go on to say
anything of this kind, are nevertheless another instance of the same
thing: for the nature of the land of Egypt is as follows: - First when
you are still approaching it in a ship and are distant a day's run
from the land, if you let down a sounding-line you will bring up mud
and you will find yourself in eleven fathoms. This then so far shows
that there is a silting forward of the land. Then secondly, as to
Egypt itself, the extent of it along the sea is sixty /schoines/,
according to our definition of Egypt as extending from the Gulf of
Plinthine to the Serbonian lake, along which stretches Mount Casion;
from this lake then the sixty /schoines/ are reckoned: for those of
men who are poor in land have their country measured by fathoms, those
who are less poor by furlongs, those who have much land by parasangs,
and those who have land in very great abundance by /schoines/: now the
parasang is equal to thirty furlongs, and each /schoine/, which is an
Egyptian measure, is equal to sixty furlongs. So there would be an
extent of three thousand six hundred furlongs for the coast-land of
Egypt. From thence and as far as Heliopolis inland Egypt is broad, and
the land is all flat and without springs of water and formed of mud:
and the road as one goes inland from the sea to Heliopolis is about
the same in length as that which leads from the altar of the twelve
gods at Athens to Pisa and the temple of Olympian Zeus: reckoning up
you would find the difference very small by which these roads fail of
being equal in length, not more indeed than fifteen furlongs; for the
road from Athens to Pisa wants fifteen furlongs of being fifteen
hundred, while the road to Heliopolis from the sea reaches that number
completely.
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