- 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.
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 may 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.
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