continent, until, having crossed from Asia into Europe, he subdued the Scythians and Thracians: to these the Egyptian army appears to me to have reached, and no farther; for in their country the columns appear to have been erected, but no where beyond them. From thence, wheeling round, he went back again; and when he arrived at the river Phasis, I am unable after this to say with certainty, whether king Sesostris himself, having detached a portion of his army, left them there to settle in that country, or whether some of the soldiers, being wearied with his wandering expedition, of their own accord remained by the river Phasis. 104. For the Colchians were evidently Egyptians, and I say this having myself observed it before I heard it from others; and as it was a matter of interest to me I inquired of both people, and the Colchians had more recollection of the Egyptians than the Egyptians had of the Colchians; yet the Egyptians said that they thought the Colchians were descended from the army of Sesostris; and I formed my conjecture, not only because they are swarthy and curly-headed, for this amounts to nothing, because others are so likewise, but chiefly from the following circumstances, because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians, are the only nations of the world who, from the first, have practised circumcision. For the Phoenicians, and the Syrians in Palestine, acknowledge that they learnt the custom from the Egyptians; and the Syrians about Thermodon and the river Parthenius, with their neighbours the Macrones, confess that they very lately learnt the same custom from the Colchians. And these are the only nations that are circumcised, and thus appear evidently to act in the same manner as the Egyptians. But of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, I am unable to say which learnt it from the other, for it is evidently a very ancient custom. And this appears to me a strong proof that the Phoenicians learnt this practice through their intercourse with the Egyptians, for all the Phoenicians who have any commerce with Greece no longer imitate the Egyptians in this usage, but abstain from circumcising their children. 105. I will now mention1 another fact respecting the Colchians, how they resemble the Egyptians. They alone and the Egyptians manufacture linen in the same manner; and the whole way of living, and the language, is similar in both "Come now, I will also mention." 5 See chap. 35.

nations; but the Colchian linen is called by the Greeks Sardonic, though that which comes from Egypt is called Egyptian. 106. As to the pillars which Sesostris king of Egypt erected in the different countries, most of them are evidently no longer in existence, but in Syrian Palestine I myself saw some still remaining, and the inscriptions before mentioned still on them, and the private parts of a woman. There are also in Ionia two images of this king, carved on rocks, one on the way from Ephesia to Phocæa, the other from Sardis to Smyrna. In both places a man is carved, four cubits and a half high, holding a spear in his right hand, and in his left a bow, and the rest of his equipment in unison, for it is partly Egyptian and partly Ethiopian; from one shoulder to the other across the breast extend sacred Egyptian characters engraved, which have the following meaning: "I ACQUIRED THIS REGION BY MY OWN SHOULDERS. Who or whence he is, he does not here show, but has elsewhere made known. Some, however, who have seen these monuments have conjectured them to be images of Memnon, herein being very far from the truth.

107. The priests said moreover of this Egyptian Sesostris, that returning and bringing with him many men from the nations whose territories he had subdued, when he arrived at the Pelusian Daphnæ, his brother, to whom he had committed the government of Egypt, invited him to an entertainment, and his sons with him, and caused wood to be piled up round the house, and having caused it to be piled up, set it on fire: but that Sesostris, being informed of this, immediately consulted with his wife, for he took his wife with him; and she advised him to extend two of his six sons across the fire, and form a bridge over the burning mass, and that the rest should step on them and make their escape. Sesostris did so, and two of his sons were in this manner burnt to death, but the rest, together with their father, were saved. 108. Sesostris having returned to Egypt, and taken revenge on his brother, employed the multitude of prisoners whom he brought from the countries he had subdued, in the following works: these were the persons who drew the huge stones which, in the time of this king, were conveyed to the temple of Vulcan; they, too, were compelled to dig all the canals now seen in Egypt; by their involuntary labour they made Egypt, which before was throughout practicable for horses and carriages,

unfit for these purposes; for from that time Egypt, though it was one level plain, became impassable for horses or carriages; and this is caused by the canals, which are numerous and in every direction. But the king intersected the country for this reason: such of the Egyptians as occupied the cities not on the river, but inland, when the river receded, being in want of water, were forced to use a brackish beverage which they drew from wells; and for this reason Egypt was intersected. 109. They said also that this king divided the country amongst all the Egyptians, giving an equal square allotment to each; and from thence he drew his revenues, having required them to pay a fixed tax every year; but if the river happened to take away a part of any one's allotment, he was to come to him and make known what had happened; whereupon the king sent persons to inspect and measure how much the land was diminished, that in future he might pay a proportionate part of the appointed tax. Hence land-measuring appears to me to have had its beginning, and to have passed over into Greece: for the pole and the sun-dial, and the division of the day into twelve parts, the Greeks learnt from the Babylonians. 110. This king then was the only Egyptian that ruled over Ethiopia; and he left as memorials before Vulcan's temple, statues of stone; two of thirty cubits, himself and his wife; and his four sons, each of twenty cubits. A long time after, the priest of Vulcan would not suffer Darius the Persian to place his statue before them, saying, "that deeds had not been achieved by him equal to those of Sesostris the Egyptian: for that Sesostris had subdued other nations, not fewer than Darius had done, and the Scythians besides; but that Darius was not able to conquer the Scythians; wherefore it was not right for one who had not surpassed him in achievements to place his statue before his offerings." They relate, however, that Darius pardoned these observations.

111. After the death of Sesostris, they said that his son Pheron succeeded to the kingdom; that he undertook no military expedition, and happened to become blind through the following occurrence: the river having risen a very great Literally, "using it from wells."

7 Πόλος here means 66 ven.--See Baehr.

a concave dial," shaped like the vault of hea

height for that time, to eighteen cubits, when it overflowed the fields, a storm of wind arose, and the river was tossed about in waves; whereupon they say that the king with great arrogance laid hold of a javelin, and threw it into the midst of the eddies of the river; and that immediately afterwards he was seized with a pain in his eyes, and became blind. He continued blind for ten years; but in the eleventh year an oracle reached him from the city of Buto, importing "that the time of his punishment was expired, and he should recover his sight, by washing his eyes with the urine of a woman who had had intercourse with her own husband only, and had known no other man. He therefore made trial of his own wife first, and afterwards, when he did not recover his sight, he made trial of others indifferently; and at length having recovered his sight, he collected the women of whom he had made trial, except the one by washing with whose urine he had recovered his sight, into one city, which is now called Erythrebolus, and when he had assembled them together he had them all burnt, together with the city; but the woman, by washing in whose urine he recovered his sight, he took to himself to wife. Having escaped from this calamity in his eyes, he dedicated other offerings throughout all the celebrated temples, and, what is most worthy of mention, he dedicated to the temple of the sun works worthy of admiration, two stone obelisks, each consisting of one stone, and each a hundred cubits in length and eight cubits in breadth.

112. They said that a native of Memphis succeeded him in the kingdom, whose name in the Grecian language is Proteus: there is to this day an enclosure sacred to him at Memphis, which is very beautiful and richly adorned, situated to the south side of the temple of Vulcan. Tyrian Phoenicians dwell round this enclosure, and the whole tract is called the Tyrian camp. In this enclosure of Proteus, is a temple which is called after the foreign Venus; and I conjecture that this is the temple of Helen the daughter of Tyndarus, both because I have heard that Helen lived with Proteus, and also because it is named from the foreign Venus: for of all the other temples of Venus, none is any where called by the name

8

In chap. 154, we meet with "the camp of the Ionians and Carians."

of foreign. 113. When I inquired about Helen, the priests told me that the case was thus: that when Paris had carried Helen off from Sparta, he sailed away to his own country, and when he was in the Ægean, violent winds drove him out of his course into the Egyptian sea, and from thence (for the gale did not abate) he came to Egypt, and in Egypt to that which is now called the Canopic mouth of the Nile, and to Taricheæ. On that shore stood a temple of Hercules, which remains to this day; in which, if the slave of any person whatsoever takes refüge, and has sacred marks impressed on him, so devoting himself to the god, it is not lawful to lay hands on him. This custom continues the same to my time as it was from the first. The attendants of Paris therefore, when informed of the custom that prevailed respecting the temple, revolted from him, and sitting as suppliants of the god, accused Paris with a view to injure him, relating the whole account, how things stood with regard to Helen, and his injustice towards Menelaus. These accusations were made to the priests, and the governor of that mouth, whose name was Thonis. 114. Thonis having heard this, immediately sends a message to Proteus at Memphis, to the following effect: "A stranger of Trojan race has arrived, after having committed a nefarious deed in Greece; for having beguiled the wife of his own host, he has brought her with him, and very great treasures, having been driven by winds to this land. Whether then shall we allow him to depart unmolested, or shall we seize what he has brought with him?" Proteus sends back a messenger with the following answer: "Seize this man, whoever he may be, that has acted so wickedly towards his host, and bring him to me, that I may know what he will say for himself." 115. Thonis, having received this message, seizes Paris, and detains his ships; and then sent him up to Memphis with Helen and his treasures, and besides the suppliants also. When all were carried up, Proteus asked Paris who he was, and whence he had sailed; and he gave him an account of his family, and told him the name of his country, and moreover described his voyage and from whence he had set sail. Then Proteus asked him whence he got Helen; and when Paris prevaricated in his account, and did not speak the truth, they who had become suppliants accused him, relating the whole account of his crime. At last Proteus