[88]. Cited by Diogenes Laertius, i. 9 (Müller, Frag. hist. graec. ii. 328).
[89]. Reinach, Textes, p. 13; Müller, Frag. ii. 437; Clemens Alex, i. 15. Megasthenes had previously resided at the court of Sibyrtius, satrap of Arachosia (southern Afghanistan). Arrian, Anab. V. vi. 1.
[90]. Clemens Alex. Str. v. (Sylberg), pp. 607 seq. Justin Coh. ad Graecos, 25.
[91]. Cf. Ecclesiasticus l. 26; Zech. ix. 2.
[92]. At Elephantine we learn from the papyri recently from there (Pap. 1, Sachau) that the Jews had a shrine consecrated to יהו and that in 410 B.C.E. it was destroyed by the priests of a rival Egyptian temple.
[93]. Reinach, Textes, p. 39. Müller, Frag. iii. 35.
Chapter VII
EGYPT
[94]. This fragment, of the authenticity of which little doubt can be entertained, must be distinguished from the books attributed to Hecataeus about the Jews and Abraham. Josephus uses both in his “Defense” against Apion (i. 22 seq.), but their authenticity was questioned even in ancient times (cf. Herennius Philo, cited by Origenes, C. Cels. i. 15; Reinach, Textes, p. 157). They are almost certainly Jewish works of the first century B.C.E.
The text of the real Hecataeus (Reinach, Textes, p. 14 seq.) is anything but certain. We have it only in a long citation by Diodorus, xl. 3. This book of Diodorus, however, has disappeared, and is found only in the Bibliotheca made by the Byzantine patriarch Photius in the ninth century C.E. (cod. 244).
[95]. There were in Egypt a number of colonies of military settlers. They are distinguished by certain privileges, and, in legal terminology, by the term τῆς ἐπιγονῆς, placed after the words of nationality. Just as there are Πέρσαι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς, so there are Ἰουδαῖοι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς. In the Hibeh Papyri, i. 96, of 259 B.C.E., we read an agreement between the Jew Alexander, son of Andronicus, decurion in the troop of Zoilus, and Andronicus, a Jew τῆς ἐπιγονῆς The groom Daniel (?) in a papyrus of the second century B.C.E. (Grenfell, An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment and Other Papyri, no. 43.) and the farm laborer Teuphilus (Grenfell-Hunt, Fayûm Towns and their Papyri, no. 123) are also humble men, and probably in the same stage of cultivation as other men of their calling.