Thus In The Period Of Eleven Thousand Three Hundred And Forty Years They Said That There Had Arisen No God In Human Form; Nor Even Before That Time Or Afterwards Among The Remaining Kings Who Arise In Egypt, Did They Report That Anything Of That Kind Had Come To Pass.

In this time they said that the sun had moved four times from his accustomed place of rising, and

Where he now sets he had thence twice had his rising, and in the place from whence he now rises he had twice had his setting; and in the meantime nothing in Egypt had been changed from its usual state, neither that which comes from the earth nor that which comes to them from the river nor that which concerns diseases or deaths. And formerly when Hecataios the historian was in Thebes, and had traced his descent and connected his family with a god in the sixteenth generation before, the priests of Zeus did for him much the same as they did for me (though I had not traced my descent). They led me into the sanctuary of the temple, which is of great size, and they counted up the number, showing colossal wooden statues in number the same as they said; for each chief-priest there sets up in his lifetime an image of himself: accordingly the priests, counting and showing me these, declared to me that each one of them was a son succeeding his own father, and they went up through the series of images from the image of the one who had died last, until they had declared this of the whole number. And when Hecataios had traced his descent and connected his family with a god in the sixteenth generation, they traced a descent in opposition to his, besides their numbering, not accepting it from him that a man had been born from a god; and they traced their counter-descent thus, saying that each one of the statues had been /piromis/ son of /piromis/, until they had declared this of the whole three hundred and forty-five statues, each one being surnamed /piromis/; and neither with a god nor a hero did they connect their descent. Now /piromis/ means in the tongue of Hellas "honourable and good man." From their declaration then it followed, that they of whom the images were had been of form like this, and far removed from being gods: but in the time before these men they said that gods were the rulers in Egypt, not mingling with men, and that of these always one had power at a time; and the last of them who was king over Egypt was Oros the son of Osiris, whom the Hellenes call Apollo: he was king over Egypt last, having deposed Typhon. Now Osiris in the tongue of Hellas is Dionysos.

Among the Hellenes Heracles and Dionysos and Pan are accounted the lastest-born of the gods; but with the Egyptians Pan is a very ancient god, and he is one of those which are called eight gods, while Heracles is of the second rank, who are called the twelve gods, and Dionysos is of the third rank, namely of those who were born of the twelve gods.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 57 of 71
Words from 29799 to 30343 of 37770