Book 2
The rest of the Egyptians, who were until now Apries' friends, seeing this outrage done to the man who was most prominent among them, changed sides without delay and offered themselves to Amasis.
Learning of this, too, Apries armed his guard and marched against the Egyptians; he had a bodyguard of Carians and Ionians, thirty thousand of them, and his royal palace was in the city of Saïs, a great and marvellous palace.
Apries' men marched against the Egyptians, and so did Amasis' men against the foreigners. So they both came to Momemphis and were going to make trial of one another.
The Egyptians are divided into seven classes: priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, merchants, interpreters, and pilots. There are this many classes, each named after its occupation.
The warriors are divided into Kalasiries and Hermotubies, and they belong to the following districts (for all divisions in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt are made according to districts).
The Hermotubies are from the districts of Busiris, Saïs, +Akhmim [31.733,26.566] (inhabited place), Sawhaj, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Khemmis , and Papremis, the island called Prosopitis, and half of Natho—from all of these; their number, at its greatest, attained to a hundred and sixty thousand. None of these has learned any common trade; they are free to follow the profession of arms alone.
The Kalasiries are from the districts of Thebes [32.666,25.683] (deserted settlement), Qina, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Thebes , +Tall Bastah [31.516,30.566] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Bubastis , Aphthis, +San al-Hajar al-Qibliyah [31.866,30.966] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Tanis , Mendes, Sebennys, +Wannina (inhabited place), Al Qalyubiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Athribis , Pharbaïthis, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anytis, Myecphoris (this last is in an island opposite the city of +Tall Bastah [31.516,30.566] (deserted settlement), Ash Sharqiyah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Bubastis )—
from all of these; their number, at its greatest, attained to two hundred and fifty thousand men. These too may practise no trade but war, which is their hereditary calling.
Now whether this, too, the Greeks have learned from the Egyptians, I cannot confidently judge. I know that in Thrace (region (general)), Europe Thrace and Scythia (region (general)), Asia Scythia and Iran [53,32] (nation), Asia Persia and Lydia [27.516,38.683] (region (general)), Turkey, Asia Lydia and nearly all foreign countries, those who learn trades are held in less esteem than the rest of the people, and those who have least to do with artisans' work, especially men who are free to practise the art of war, are highly honored.
This much is certain: that this opinion, which is held by all Greeks and particularly by the Lacedaemonians, is of foreign origin. It is in Corinth [22.9083,37.9083] (Perseus) Corinth that artisans are held in least contempt.
The warriors were the only Egyptians, except the priests, who had special privileges: for each of them an untaxed plot of twelve acres was set apart. This acre is a square of a hundred Egyptian cubits each way, the Egyptian cubit being equal to the Samian.
These lands were set apart for all; it was never the same men who cultivated them, but each in turn.That is, each twelve-acre plot was cultivated by a new occupier every year. A thousand Kalasiries and as many Hermotubies were the king's annual bodyguard. These men, besides their lands, each received a daily provision of five minae's weight of roast grain, two minae of beef, and four cups of wine. These were the gifts received by each bodyguard.
When Apries with his guards and Amasis with the whole force of Egyptians came to the town of Momemphis, they engaged; and though the foreigners fought well, they were vastly outnumbered, and therefore were beaten.
Apries, they say, supposed that not even a god could depose him from his throne, so firmly did he think he was established; and now, defeated in battle and taken captive, he was brought to Saïs, to the royal dwelling which belonged to him once but now belonged to Amasis.
There, he was kept alive for a while in the palace and well treated by Amasis. But presently the Egyptians complained that there was no justice in keeping alive one who was their own and their king's bitterest enemy; whereupon Amasis gave Apries up to them, and they strangled him and then buried him in the burial-place of his fathers.
This is in the temple of Athena, very near to the sanctuary, on the left of the entrance. The people of Saïs buried within the temple precinct all kings who were natives of their district.
The tomb of Amasis is farther from the sanctuary than the tomb of Apries and his ancestors; yet it, too, is within the temple court; it is a great colonnade of stone, richly adorned, the pillars made in the form of palm trees. In this colonnade are two portals, and the place where the coffin lies is within their doors.
There is also at Saïs the burial-place of one whose name I think it impious to mention in speaking of such a matter; it is in the temple of Athena, behind and close to the length of the wall of the shrine.
Moreover, great stone obelisks stand in the precinct; and there is a lake nearby, adorned with a stone margin and made in a complete circle; it is, as it seemed to me, the size of the lake at Delos [25.2833,37.4] (Perseus) Delos which they call the Round Pond.
On this lake they enact by night the story of the god's sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries. I could say more about this, for I know the truth, but let me preserve a discreet silence.
Let me preserve a discreet silence, too, concerning that rite of Demeter which the Greeks call Thesmophoria A festival celebrated by Athenian women in autumn. , except as much of it as I am not forbidden to mention.
The daughters of Danaus were those who brought this rite out of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; afterwards, when the people of the +Peloponnese [22,37.5] (region), Greece, Europe Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, it was lost, except in so far as it was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in its home.
After Apries was deposed, Amasis became king; he was from a town called Siuph in the district of Saïs.
Now at first he was scorned and held in low regard by the Egyptians on the ground that he was a common man and of no high family; but presently he won them over by being shrewd and not arrogant.
He had among his countless treasures a golden washbowl, in which he and all those who ate with him were accustomed to clean their feet. This he broke in pieces and out of it made a god's image, which he set in a most conspicuous spot in the city; and the Egyptians came frequently to this image and held it in great reverence.
When Amasis learned what the townsfolk were doing, he called the Egyptians together and told them that the image had been made out of the washbowl, in which Egyptians had once vomited and urinated and cleaned their feet, but which now they greatly revered.
“Now then,” he said, “I have fared like the washbowl, since if before I was a common man, still, I am your king now.” And he told them to honor and show respect for him.
The following was how he scheduled his affairs: in the morning, until the the hour when the marketplace filled, he readily conducted whatever business was brought to him; the rest of the day, he drank and joked at the expense of his companions and was idle and playful.
But this displeased his friends, who admonished him thus: “O King, you do not conduct yourself well by indulging too much in vulgarity. You, a celebrated man, ought to conduct your business throughout the day, sitting on a celebrated throne; and thus the Egyptians would know that they are governed by a great man, and you would be better spoken of; as it is, what you do is by no means kingly.”
But he answered them like this: “Men that have bows string them when they must use them, and unstring them when they have used them; were bows kept strung forever, they would break, and so could not be used when needed.
Such, too, is the nature of man. Were one to be always at serious work and not permit oneself a bit of relaxation, he would go mad or idiotic before he knew it; I am well aware of that, and give each of the two its turn.” Such was his answer to his friends.
It is said that even when Amasis was a private man he was fond of drinking and joking and was not at all a sober man; and that when his drinking and pleasure-seeking cost him the bare necessities, he would go around stealing. Then when he contradicted those who said that he had their possessions, they would bring him to whatever place of divination was nearby, and sometimes the oracles declared him guilty and sometimes they acquitted him.
When he became king, he did not take care of the shrines of the gods who had acquitted him of theft, or give them anything for maintenance, or make it his practice to sacrifice there, for he knew them to be worthless and their oracles false; but he took scrupulous care of the gods who had declared his guilt, considering them to be gods in very deed and their oracles infallible.
Amasis made a marvellous outer court for the temple of Athena Apparently, Nit; also identified with Demeter (Hdt. 2.132, note). at Saïs, far surpassing all in its height and size, and in the size and quality of the stone blocks; moreover, he set up huge images and vast man-headed sphinxes,Visitors to +Karnak [32.65,25.716] (inhabited place), Qina, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Karnak will remember the double row of sphinxes leading to the temple. and brought enormous blocks of stone besides for the building.
Some of these he brought from the stone quarries of Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis ; the largest came from the city of Elephantine,The island opposite +Aswan [32.666,23.83] (governorate), Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Assuan ; the +Aswan [32.666,23.83] (governorate), Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Assuan quarries have always been famous. twenty days' journey distant by river from Saïs.
But what I admire most of his works is this: he brought from Elephantine a shrine made of one single block of stone; its transport took three years and two thousand men had the carriage of it, all of them pilots. This chamber is thirty-five feet long, twenty-three feet wide, thirteen feet high.
These are the external dimensions of the chamber which is made of one block; its internal dimensions are: thirty-one feet long, twenty feet wide, eight feet high. It stands at the entrance of the temple;
it was not dragged within (so they say) because while it was being drawn the chief builder complained aloud of the great expense of time and his loathing of the work, and Amasis taking this to heart would not let it be drawn further. Some also say that a man, one of those who heaved up the shrine, was crushed by it, and therefore it was not dragged within.
Furthermore, Amasis dedicated, besides monuments of marvellous size in all the other temples of note, the huge image that lies supine before Hephaestus' temple at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis ; this image is seventy-five feet in length; there stand on the same base, on either side of the great image, two huge statues hewn from the same block, each of them twenty feet high.
There is at Saïs another stone figure of like size, supine as is the figure at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis . It was Amasis, too, who built the great and most marvellous temple of Isis at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis .