[63] Herodotus, ii. 172. For an earlier epoch, see the history of a certain Ahmes, son of Abouna, as it is narrated upon his sepulchral inscription, which dates from the reign of Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty (De Rougé, Mémoire sur l'Inscription d'Ahmes, Chef des Nautoniers, 4to. 1851, and Brugsch, Histoire d'Égypte, t. i. p. 80). Starting as a private soldier for the war against the Shepherds, undertaken for the re-conquest of Avaris, he was noticed by the king for his frequent acts of gallantry, and promoted until he finally became something in the nature of high admiral.
[64] Louvre, c. i. Cf. Maspero, un Gouverneur de Thèbes au temps de la douzième dynastie.
[65] Quoted by Maspero, Conférence sur l'Histoire des Âmes dans l'Égypte ancienne, d'après les Monuments du Musée du Louvre (Association scientifique de France, Bulletin hebdomadaire, No. 594; 23 Mars, 1879).
[66] Translated by Maspero (la Grande Inscription de Beni-Hassan in the Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptienne et assyrienne (t. i. pp. 173-174)).
[67] Brugsch-Bey, Histoire d'Égypte, pp. 14, 15.
[68] The saying of one of the characters of Petronius might be applied to Egypt: "This country is so thickly peopled with divinities that it is easier to find a god than a man." The place held by religious observances in the daily life of Egypt is clearly indicated by Herodotus (ii. 37): "The Egyptians," he says, "are very religious; they surpass all other nations in the adoration with which they regard their deities."
[69] Maspero, Histoire ancienne, pp. 26, 27.
[70] This formula frequently occurs in the texts. To cite but one occasion, we find upon a Theban invocation to Amen, translated by P. Pierret (Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptienne et assyrienne, t. i. p. 70), at the third line of the inscription: "Sculptor, thou modelest thine own members; thou begettest them, not having thyself been begotten."
[71] See the fine hymns quoted and translated by M. Maspero in his Histoire ancienne, pp. 30-37.
[72] Several of the bronzes which we reproduce may belong to the Ptolemaic epoch; but they are repetitions of types and attributes which had been fixed for many centuries by tradition. It is in this capacity chiefly that we reproduce them, as examples of those forms which seemed to the Egyptian imagination to offer the most satisfactory emblems of their gods.