This King Also Left Behind Him A Pyramid, Much Smaller Than That Of
His Father, Of A Square Shape And Measuring On Each Side Three Hundred
Feet Lacking Twenty, Built Moreover Of Ethiopian Stone Up To Half The
Height.
This pyramid some of the Hellenes say was built by the
courtesan Rhodopis, not therein speaking rightly:
And besides this it
is evident to me that they who speak thus do not even know who
Rhodopis was, for otherwise they would not have attributed to her the
building of a pyramid like this, on which have been spent (so to
speak) innumerable thousands of talents: moreover they do not know
that Rhodopis flourished in the reign of Amasis, and not in this
king's reign; for Rhodopis lived very many years later than the kings
who left behind them these pyramids. By descent she was of Thrace, and
she was a slave of Iadmon the son of Hephaistopolis a Samian, and a
fellow-slave of Esop the maker of fables; for he too was once the
slave of Iadmon, as was proved especially by this fact, namely that
when the people of Delphi repeatedly made proclamation in accordance
with an oracle, to find some one who would take up the blood-money for
the death of Esop, no one else appeared, but at length the grandson of
Iadmon, called Iadmon also, took it up; and thus it is showed that
Esop too was the slave of Iadmon. As for Rhodopis, she came to Egypt
brought by Xanthes the Samian, and having come thither to exercise her
calling she was redeemed from slavery for a great sum by a man of
Mytilene, Charaxos son of Scamandronymos and brother of Sappho the
lyric poet.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 99 of 134
Words from 27683 to 27972
of 37770
