The Nine Books of the History of Herodotus, Volume 1

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Henry Slatter, High Street, 1846

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Page 93 - ... enraged with the river for this affront, and threatened to make his stream so weak, that henceforth women should easily cross it without wetting their knees. After this menace, deferring his expedition against Babylon, he divided his army into two parts ; and having so divided it, he marked out by lines one hundred and eighty channels, on each side of the river, diverging every way ; then having distributed his army, he commanded them to dig. His design was indeed executed by the great numbers...
Page 134 - Bubastis, they act as follows : for men and women embark together, and great numbers of both sexes in every barge : some of the women have castanets on which they play, and the men play on the flute during the whole voyage ; the rest of the women and men sing and clap their hands together at the same time.
Page 172 - Plutarch. iron spits to roast oxen upon, as were equivalent to the tenth of her possessions, and sent them to Delphi. They still lie, in a heap, behind the altar erected by the Chians, opposite the temple. — The harlots of Naucratis are generally very fascinating : for, in the first instance, this woman made herself so famous, that the name of Rhodopis became familiar to all the Hellenes. The second example, subsequently to Rhodopis, was given by a harlot called Archidice, celebrated throughout...
Page 129 - The pig is considered, by Egyptians, as an unclean animal : in the first place, if any one passing by a pig should touch the beast with his garments, he forthwith goes down to the river and plunges in [with all his clothes on] : secondly, the swine-herds, although native Egyptians, are the only people of the country that never enter a temple ; nor will any person give one of them his daughter in marriage; nor will he take a wife from among them: but the swine-herds take and give in marriage among...
Page 135 - When they are assembled at the sacrifice, in the city of Sais, they all on a certain night kindle a great number of lamps in the open air, around their houses ; the lamps are flat vessels filled with salt and oil, and the wick floats on the surface, and this burns all night ; and the festival is thence named "the lighting of lamps.
Page 162 - ... even nearly come up to ; and he, wishing to treasure up his wealth in safety, built a chamber of stone, of which one of the walls adjoined the outside of the palace. But the builder, forming a plan against it, devised the following contrivance ; he fitted one of the stones so that it might be easily taken out by two men, or even one. When the chamber was finished, the king laid up his treasures in it ; but in course of time...
Page 47 - The reply of Croesus attracted the attention of Cyrus ; he therefore ordered all the rest to withdraw, and asked Croesus what he thought should be done in the present conjuncture. He answered : " Since the gods have made me your servant, I think it my duty to acquaint you if I perceive anything deserving of remark.
Page 53 - The largest of these walls is about equal in circumference to the city of Athens ; the battlements of the first circle are white, of the second black, of the third purple, of the fourth blue, of the fifth bright red. Thus the battlements of all the circles are painted with different colours ; but the two last have their battlements plaited, the one with silver, the other with gold.
Page 151 - ... Memphis, filled in the elbow made by the Nile in the south; and thus, not only exhausted the old bed, but formed also a canal by which the river was made to flow in the mid-space between the [Libyan and Arabian] mountains. Even at the present day, this ancient elbow, repelling the Nile in his course, is attended to and watched with great care by the Persians, and fortified every year with additional works; for should the river rise over and burst this dyke, the whole of Memphis would be exposed...
Page 166 - And they worked to the number of a hundred thousand men at a time, each party during three months. The time during which the people were thus harassed by toil, lasted ten years on the road which they constructed, along which they drew the stones, a work, in my opinion, not much less than the pyramid...

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