And that the Common People, partly out of Ignorance, and partly out of a desire they had that this God should be a Grecian, readily receiv’d these Mysteries and Sacred Rites among them; and that Orpheus took the occasion following to fix the Birth of the God and his Rites and Ceremonies among the Greeks: As thus, Cadmus (they say) was born at Thebes in Egypt, and amongst other Children begat Semele: That she was got with Child by one unknown, and was deliver’d at Seven Months end of a Child very like to Osiris, as the Egyptians describe him. But such Births are not us’d to live, either because it is not the pleasure of the Gods it should be so, or that the Law of Nature will not admit it. The Matter coming to Cadmus his Ear, being before warn’d by the Oracle to protect the Laws of his Country, he wrapt the Infant in Gold, and instituted Sacrifices to be offer’d to him, as if Osiris had appear’d again in this shape; and caus’d it to be spread abroad, that it was begotten of Jupiter, thereby both to honour Osiris, and to cover his Daughter’s Shame.
The Priests say that the Grecians have arrogated to themselves both their Gods and Demy-Gods (or Heroes), and say that divers Colonies were transported over to them out of Egypt: For Hercules was an Egyptian, and by his Valour made his way into most parts of the World, and set up a Pillar in Africa; and of this they endeavour to make proof from the Grecians themselves.[c]
APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
The Egyptians that pretended so great antiquity, three hundred kings before Amasis: and as Mela writes, 13,000 years from the beginning of their chronicles, that bragged so much of their knowledge of old, for they invented arithmetic, astronomy, geometry; of their wealth and power, that vaunted of 20,000 cities; yet at the same time their idolatry and superstition was most gross; they worshipped, so Diodorus Siculus records, sun and moon under the name of Isis and Osiris, and after, such men as were beneficial to them, or any creature that did them good. In the city of Bubasti they adored a cat, saith Herodotus, ibis and storks, an ox (saith Pliny), leaks and onions, Manobius.
Porrum et cæpe deos imponere nubibus ausi,
Hos tu Nile deos colis.—Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.