From This
Point He Turned And Began To Go Back; And When He Came To The River
Phasis, What Happened
Then I cannot say for certain, whether the king
Sesostris himself divided off a certain portion of his army and
Left
the men there as settlers in the land, or whether some of his soldiers
were wearied by his distant marches and remained by the river Phasis.
For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived
for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to
consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had
remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians;
but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion
of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not
only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself
amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also
still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of
all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The
Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves
that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the
river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are
their neighbors, say that they have learnt it lately from the
Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision,
and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians.
Of the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able
to say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a most
ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse
with the Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely
that those of the Phenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease to
follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not
circumcise their children.
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