Book 2
This is what they say; and their doings in honor of Perseus are Greek, inasmuch as they celebrate games that include every form of contest, and offer animals and cloaks and skins as prizes.
When I asked why Perseus appeared only to them, and why, unlike all other Egyptians, they celebrate games, they told me that Perseus was by lineage of their city; for Danaus and Lynceus, who travelled to Greece [22,39] (nation), Europe Greece , were of +Akhmim [31.733,26.566] (inhabited place), Sawhaj, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Khemmis ; and they traced descent from these down to Perseus.
They told how he came to +Akhmim [31.733,26.566] (inhabited place), Sawhaj, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Khemmis , too, when he came to Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt for the reason alleged by the Greeks as well—namely, to bring the Gorgon's head from Libya [17,25] (nation), Africa Libya —and recognized all his relatives; and how he had heard the name of +Akhmim [31.733,26.566] (inhabited place), Sawhaj, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Khemmis from his mother before he came to Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt . It was at his bidding, they said, that they celebrated the games.
All these are the customs of Egyptians who live above the marsh country. Those who inhabit the marshes have the same customs as the rest of Egyptians, even that each man has one wife just like Greeks. They have, besides, devised means to make their food less costly.
When the river is in flood and flows over the plains, many lilies, which the Egyptians call lotus, grow in the water. They gather these and dry them in the sun; then they crush the poppy-like center of the plant and bake loaves of it.
The root of this lotus is edible also, and of a sweetish taste; it is round, and the size of an apple.
Other lilies grow in the river, too, that are like roses; the fruit of these is found in a calyx springing from the root by a separate stalk, and is most like a comb made by wasps; this produces many edible seeds as big as olive pits, which are eaten both fresh and dried.
They also use the byblus which grows annually: it is gathered from the marshes, the top of it cut off and put to other uses, and the lower part, about twenty inches long, eaten or sold. Those who wish to use the byblus at its very best, roast it before eating in a red-hot oven. Some live on fish alone. They catch the fish, take out the intestines, then dry them in the sun and eat them dried.
Fish that go in schools are seldom born in rivers; they are raised in the lakes, and this is how they behave: when the desire of spawning comes on them, they swim out to sea in schools, the males leading, and throwing out their milt, while the females come after and swallow and conceive from it.
When the females have grown heavy in the sea, then all the fish swim back to their own haunts. But the same no longer lead; now the leadership goes to the females. They go before in a school as the males had, and now and then throw off some of their eggs (which are like millet-seeds), which the males devour as they follow. These millet-seeds, or eggs, are fish.
The fish that are reared come from the eggs that survive and are not devoured. Those fish that are caught while swimming seawards show bruises on the left side of their heads; those that are caught returning, on the right side.
This happens because they keep close to the left bank as they swim seawards, and keep to the same bank also on their return, grazing it and keeping in contact with it as well as they can, I suppose lest the current make them miss their way.
When the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile begins to rise, hollow and marshy places near the river are the first to begin to fill, the water trickling through from the river, and as soon as they are flooded, they are suddenly full of little fishes.
Where these probably come from, I believe that I can guess. When the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile falls, the fish have dropped their eggs into the mud before they leave with the last of the water; and when in the course of time the flood comes again in the following year, from these eggs at once come the fish.
So much, then, for the fish. The Egyptians who live around the marshes use an oil drawn from the castor-berry, which they call kiki. They sow this plant, which grows wild in Greece [22,39] (nation), Europe Hellas , on the banks of the rivers and lakes;
sown in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt , it produces abundant fruit, though malodorous; when they gather this, some bruise and press it, others boil after roasting it, and collect the liquid that comes from it. This is thick and useful as oil for lamps, and gives off a strong smell.
Against the mosquitos that abound, the following have been devised by them: those who dwell higher up than the marshy country are well served by the towers where they ascend to sleep, for the winds prevent the mosquitos from flying aloft;
those living about the marshes have a different recourse, instead of the towers. Every one of them has a net, with which he catches fish by day, and at night he sets it around the bed where he rests, then creeps under it and sleeps.
If he sleeps wrapped in a garment or cloth, the mosquitos bite through it; but through the net they absolutely do not even venture.
The boats in which they carry cargo are made of the acacia,The “Mimosa Nilotica,” still used for boat-building in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt . which is most like the lotus of Shahhat [21.866,32.833] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Cyrene in form, and its sap is gum. Of this tree they cut logs of four feet long and lay them like courses of bricks,That is, like bricks laid not one directly over another but with the joints alternating. and build the boat
by fastening these four foot logs to long and close-set stakes; and having done so, they set crossbeams athwart and on the logs. They use no ribs. They caulk the seams within with byblus.
There is one rudder, passing through a hole in the boat's keel. The mast is of acacia-wood and the sails of byblus. These boats cannot move upstream unless a brisk breeze continues; they are towed from the bank; but downstream they are managed thus:
they have a raft made of tamarisk wood, fastened together with matting of reeds, and a pierced stone of about two talents' weight; the raft is let go to float down ahead of the boat, connected to it by a rope, and the stone is connected by a rope to the after part of the boat.
So, driven by the current, the raft floats swiftly and tows the “baris” (which is the name of these boats,) and the stone dragging behind on the river bottom keeps the boat's course straight. There are many of these boats; some are of many thousand talents' burden.
When the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile overflows the land, only the towns are seen high and dry above the water, very like the islands in the +Aegean Sea [25,38.5] (sea) Aegean sea . These alone stand out, the rest of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt being a sheet of water. So when this happens, folk are not ferried, as usual, in the course of the stream, but clean over the plain.
Indeed, the boat going up from Kawm Juayf [30.583,30.9] (inhabited place), Al Buhayrah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Naucratis to Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis passes close by the pyramids themselves, though the course does not go by here,The meaning of these words is not clear. Some think that they mean “though here the course is not so” and that perhaps ὁ ἐωθώς has been lost after οὗτος. but by the Delta's point and the town Cercasorus; but your voyage from the sea and +Canopus [30.5,31.316] (deserted settlement), Al-Iskandariyah, Urban, Egypt, Africa Canobus to Kawm Juayf [30.583,30.9] (inhabited place), Al Buhayrah, Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa Naucratis will take you over the plain near the town of Anthylla and that which is called Arkhandrus' town.
Anthylla is a town of some reputation, and is especially assigned to the consort of the reigning king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt , to provide her shoes. This has been done since Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt has been under Persian dominion.
The other town, I think, is named after Arkhandrus son of Phthius the Achaean, and son-in-law of Danaus; for it is called Arkhandrus' town. It may be that there was another Arkhandrus; but the name is not Egyptian.
So far, all I have said is the record of my own autopsy and judgment and inquiry. Henceforth I will record Egyptian chronicles, according to what I have heard, adding something of what I myself have seen.
The priests told me that Min was the first king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt , and that first he separated Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis from the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile by a dam. All the river had flowed close under the sandy mountains on the Libyan side, but Min made the southern bend of it, which begins about twelve and one half miles above Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis , by damming the stream, thereby drying up the ancient channel, and carried the river by a channel so that it flowed midway between the hills.
And to this day the Persians keep careful watch on this bend of the river, strengthening its dam every year to keep the current in; for were the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile to burst its dikes and overflow here, all Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis would be in danger of flooding.
Then, when this first king Min had made dry land of what he thus cut off, he first founded in it that city which is now called Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis (for even Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis lies in the narrow part of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt ), and outside of it he dug a lake from the river to its north and west (for the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile itself bounds it on the east); and secondly, he built in it the great and most noteworthy temple of Hephaestus.
After him came three hundred and thirty kings, whose names the priests recited from a papyrus roll. In all these many generations there were eighteen Ethiopian kings, and one queen, native to the country; the rest were all Egyptian men.
The name of the queen was the same as that of the Babylonian princess, Nitocris. She, to avenge her brother (he was king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt and was slain by his subjects, who then gave Nitocris the sovereignty) put many of the Egyptians to death by treachery.
She built a spacious underground chamber; then, with the pretence of inaugurating it, but with quite another intent in her mind, she gave a great feast, inviting to it those Egyptians whom she knew to have had the most complicity in her brother's murder; and while they feasted, she let the river in upon them by a vast secret channel.
This was all that the priests told of her, except that when she had done this she cast herself into a chamber full of hot ashes, to escape vengeance.
But of the other kings they related no achievement or act of great note, except of Moeris, the last of them.
This Moeris was remembered as having built the northern forecourt of the temple of Hephaestus, and dug a lake, of as great a circumference as I shall later indicate; and built pyramids there also, the size of which I will mention when I speak of the lake. All this was Moeris' work, they said; of none of the rest had they anything to record.
Leaving the latter aside, then, I shall speak of the king who came after them, whose name was Sesostris Rameses II., called by the Greeks Sesostris; said to have ruled in the fourteenth century B.C..
This king, the priests said, set out with a fleet of long shipsShips of war. from the Persian Gulf [53.83,25.583] (gulf), Asia Arabian Gulf and subjugated all those living by the +Red Sea [42,15] (sea) Red Sea , until he came to a sea which was too shallow for his vessels.