SECTION OF GALLERY IN PYRAMID.
After him there reigned a blind man of the city of Anysis, whose name was Anysis. During his reign, the Ethiopians and their king, Sabacon, invaded Egypt with a large force; whereupon this blind king fled to the fens; and the Ethiopian reigned over Egypt for fifty years, during which time he performed the following actions: When any Egyptians committed any crime, he would not have any of them put to death, but passed sentence upon each according to the magnitude of his offence, enjoining them to heap up mounds of earth, each offender against his own city, and by this means the cities were made much higher; for first of all they had been raised considerably by those who dug the canals in the time of king Sesostris. Although other cities in Egypt were carried to a great height, in my opinion the greatest mounds were thrown up about the city of Bubastis, in which is a beautiful temple of Bubastis corresponding to the Grecian Diana. Her sacred precinct is thus situated: all except the entrance is an island; for two canals from the Nile extend to it, not mingling with each other, but each reaches as far as the entrance to the precinct, one flowing round it on one side, the other on the other. Each is a hundred feet broad, and shaded with trees. The portico is ten orgyæ in height, and is adorned with figures six cubits high, that are deserving of notice. This precinct, being in the middle of the city, is visible on every side to a person going round it; for while the city has been mounded up to a considerable height, the temple has not been moved, so that it is conspicuous as it was originally built. A wall sculptured with figures runs round it; and within is a grove of lofty trees, planted round a large temple in which the image is placed. The width and length of the precinct is each way a stade. Along the entrance is a road paved with stone, four plethra in width and about three stades in length, leading through the square eastward toward the temple of Mercury; on each side of the road grow trees of enormous height. They told me that the final departure of the Ethiopian occurred in the following manner: it appeared to him in a vision that a man, standing by him, advised him to assemble all the priests in Egypt, and to cut them in two down the middle; but he, fearing that the gods held out this as a pretext to him, in order that he, having been guilty of impiety in reference to sacred things, might draw down some evil on himself from gods or from men, would not do so; but as the time had expired during which it was foretold that he should reign over Egypt, he departed hastily from the country. When Sabacon of his own accord had departed from Egypt, the blind king resumed the government, having returned from the fens, where he had lived fifty years, on an island formed of ashes and earth. For when any of the Egyptians came to him bringing provisions, as they were severally ordered to do unknown to the Ethiopian, he bade them bring some ashes also as a present. The kings who preceded Amyrtæus were unable, for more than seven hundred years, to find out where this island was. It was called Elbo, and was about ten stades square.
After him reigned a priest of Vulcan, whose name was Sethon: he held in no account the military caste of the Egyptians, as not having need of their services; and accordingly, among other indignities, he took away their lands; to each of whom, under former kings, twelve chosen acres had been assigned. After this, when Sennacherib, king of the Arabians and Assyrians, marched a large army against Egypt, the Egyptian warriors refused to assist him; and the priest, being reduced to a strait, entered the temple, and bewailed before the image the calamities he was in danger of suffering. While he was lamenting, sleep fell upon him, and it appeared to him in a vision, that the god stood by and encouraged him, assuring him that he should suffer nothing disagreeable in meeting the Arabian army, for he would himself send assistants to him. Confiding in this vision, he took with him such of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him, and encamped in Pelusium, at the entrance into Egypt; but none of the military caste followed him, only tradesmen, mechanics, and sutlers. When they arrived there, a number of field mice, pouring in upon their enemies, devoured their quivers and their bows, and the handles of their shields; so that on the next day, when they fled bereft of their arms, many of them fell. And to this day, a stone statue of this king stands in the temple of Vulcan, with a mouse in his hand, and an inscription to the following effect: "Whoever looks on me, let him revere the gods."
HALL OF COLUMNS IN THE GREAT TEMPLE OF KARNAK.
The Egyptians and the priests show that from the first king to this priest of Vulcan who last reigned, were three hundred and forty-one generations of men; and the same number of chief priests and kings. Now, three hundred generations are equal to ten thousand years, for three generations of men are one hundred years; and the forty-one remaining generations that were over the three hundred, make one thousand three hundred and forty years. Thus, they say, in eleven thousand three hundred and forty years, no god has assumed the form of a man. They relate that during this time the sun has four times risen out of his usual quarter, and that he has twice risen where he now sets, and twice set where he now rises; yet, that no change in the things in Egypt was occasioned by this, either in respect to the productions of the earth or the river, or to diseases or deaths.
CHAPTER VI.
THIRD LINE; FROM THE TWELVE KINGS TO AMASIS.
What things both other men and the Egyptians agree in saying occurred in this country, I shall now proceed to relate, and shall add to them some things of my own observation. The Egyptians having become free, after the reign of the priest of Vulcan, since they were at no time able to live without a king, divided all Egypt into twelve parts and established twelve others. These contracted intermarriages, and agreed that they would not attempt the subversion of one another, and would maintain the strictest friendship. They made these regulations and strictly upheld them, for the reason that it had been foretold them by an oracle when they first assumed the government, "that whoever among them should offer a libation in the temple of Vulcan from a bronze bowl, should be king of all Egypt"; for they used to assemble in all the temples. Now, being determined to leave in common a memorial of themselves, they built a labyrinth, a little above the lake of Mœris, situated near that called the city of Crocodiles; this I have myself seen, and found it greater than can be described. For if any one should reckon up all the buildings and public works of the Greeks, they would be found to have cost less labor and expense than this labyrinth alone, though the temple in Ephesus is deserving of mention, and also that in Samos. The pyramids likewise were beyond description, and each of them comparable to many of the great Greek structures. Yet the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. For it has twelve courts enclosed with walls, with doors opposite each other, six facing the north, and six the south, contiguous to one another; and the same exterior wall encloses them. It contains two kinds of rooms, some under ground and some above, to the number of three thousand, fifteen hundred of each. The rooms above ground I myself went through and saw, and relate from personal inspection. But the underground rooms I know only from report; for the Egyptians who have charge of the building would, on no account, show me them, saying that they held the sepulchres of the kings who originally built this labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. I can therefore only relate what I have learnt by hearsay concerning the lower rooms; but the upper ones, which surpass all human works, I myself saw. The passages through the corridors, and the windings through the courts, from their great variety, presented a thousand occasions of wonder, as I passed from a court to the rooms, and from the rooms to halls, and to other corridors from the halls, and to other courts from the rooms. The roofs of all these are of stone, as also are the walls; but the walls are full of sculptured figures. Each court is surrounded with a colonnade of white stone, closely fitted. And adjoining the extremity of the labyrinth is a pyramid, forty orgyæ in height, on which large figures are carved, and a way to it has been made under ground.