Herodotus Tweets - Book 2

2.182 Amasis dedicated offerings in Greece: he sent two statues of himself to Samos, e.g., because of his guest-friendship with Polycrates.

2.181 Amasis couldn’t perform w/his wife. He said she’d bewitched him & he threatened her. She got things working by praying to Aphrodite.

2.180 Amasis contributed 1000 talents of alum, and the Greeks in Egypt 1/3 talent of silver, toward the building of the temple at Delphi.

2.179 In the old days Naucratis was Egypt's only port. Anyone who sailed into another mouth of the Nile had to swear he hadn't intended to.

2.178 Amasis was a Hellenophile. He showed this by, for example, giving the city of Naucratis to the Greeks who came to Egypt.

2.177 Egypt was prosperous under Amasis. He's the guy who decreed that every Egyptian had to declare his means of livelihood annually.

2.176 Plus he dedicated big statues at temples in Memphis and Saïs, and he built the temple of Isis in Memphis.

2.175 The most impressive of Amasis’ projects was a monolithic chamber 32 x 21 x 12 feet. It took 3 yrs to get it from Elephantine to Saïs.

2.174 In his pre-king days, Amasis liked to joke around & drink. He was not above stealing if the supplies ran out. Sometimes he was caught.

2.173 Amasis worked mornings, then relaxed. Some told him this made him look less royal. He explained his “All work & no play…” philosophy.

2.172 Amasis became king after Apries was defeated. The Egyptians scorned him at first because of his low origins, but they came around.

2.171 They celebrate the Mysteries on the lake, a religious thing. I know more but won't speak of the details (ditto for the Thesmophoria).

2.170 He Who Must Not be Named [okay, Osiris] is also buried in Saïs. In the sacred precinct there there's a round lake.

2.169 Anyway, they fought at Momemphis and the rebels won. Apries was captured. Eventually the Egyptians killed him and buried him in Saïs.

2.168 The Egyptian warriors had perks, e.g., a tax-free plot of land; & those who served as the king's bodyguard also got a food allowance.

2.167 I don’t know if they learned it from the Egyptians, but the Greeks (particularly the Spartans) also tend 2 hold craftsmen in contempt.

2.166 The other warriors, the Calasiries, numbered up to 250,000. They too practiced warfare exclusively & inherited their military careers.

2.165 There were up to 160,000 Hermotybies, one of the warrior classes. Their positions were hereditary & they never learned another trade.

2.164 There are 7 classes among the Egyptians: priests, warriors (2 types), cowherds, swineherds, shopkeepers, interpreters, and helmsmen.

2.163 Apries led an army of 30,000 Carian and Ionian mercenaries against the rebels. The two sides met at the city of Momemphis.

2.162 Apries sent (the flatulent) Amasis to talk w/rebels. They made him their king. Revolt spread after Apries mutilated a new messenger.

2.161 Psammis ruled for 6 years and was succeeded by Apries, who ruled for 25. The Egyptians revolted after his expedition against Cyrene.

2.160 Eleans came and bragged to Psammis about how just the Olympics were. Psammis said they wouldn't be impartial if foreigners competed.

2.159 Necos ruled for sixteen years, after which the kingship passed to his son Psammis.

2.158 Psammetichus' son Necos ruled next. He began digging a canal between Bubastis in the Delta & the Red Sea. 120,000 men died digging it.

2.157 Psammetichus was king for 54 yrs. He besieged Azotus in Syria for 29 yrs--to my knowledge the longest siege ever endured by a city.

2.156 In the shrine at Buto there is a floating island in a lake where the goddess Leto lived. She hid Apollo there to save him from Typhon.

2.155 So much for Psammetichus. There’s an oracle at Buto in Egypt. I saw there a temple made of a single stone, each wall 60 x 60 ft.

2.154 Psammetichus settled the Ionian & Carian pirates who had helped him in Egypt. Egyptian children learned Greek from them.

2.153 Psammetichus came to power and built a court for the bull god Apis, where he is kept when he appears. (The Greeks call Apis Epaphus.)

2.152 Another oracle said he would be helped by men of bronze coming from the sea, & he was: bronze-armored pirates helped him regain power.

2.151 Everything was fine until 1 of the 12, Psammetichus, was driven out by the rest because an oracle prophesied he'd rule Egypt alone.

2.150 The soil that was dug up when the lake was dug was dumped in the Nile & thus carried away. (I asked, as I hadn't seen it mounded up.)

2.149 Even more impressive is the man-made Lake Moeris, 420 miles in perimeter. Its water comes from the Nile. There are two pyramids in it.

2.148 These 12 made a labyrinth as a memorial. I've seen it: it surpasses the pyramids & all the Greeks' buildings combined in magnificence.

2.147 After Sethos the Egyptians divided Egypt into 12 provinces & set up 12 kings who were to be allies, bound by marriage alliances.

2.146 It's clear that the Greeks learned of Pan & Dionysus after they'd learned of the other gods, and gave that date as their birthdates.

2.145 Pan is the oldest Egyptian god. Dionysus is younger, but still 15,000 yrs before Amasis. But our Dionysus was 1600 yrs before my time.

2.144 These rulers were men, but before them gods ruled Egypt. The last god to rule was Horus (our Apollo), the son of Osiris (Dionysus).

2.143 Each Egyptian high priest sets up an image of himself in Thebes. I was shown 345 images. The priesthood passes from father to son.

2.142 From the 1st king to Sethos was 11,340 yrs during which time the sun rose & set backwards 4 times & nothing changed for the Egyptians.

2.141 Sethos came next. During his reign the Arabians and Assyrians attacked. They were defeated by mice, who ate their weapons and shields.

2.140 After the Ethiopians left Anysis (who was blind) ruled again. He'd been living on an island a little over a mile square all this time.

2.139 The Ethiopians left Egypt because their king had a troubling dream and because the oracles had said he would rule for 50 years only.

2.138 The temple is almost on an island, as two channels of the river pass by it. It's got a grand propylaea and a grove planted around it.

2.137 During the reign of the next king, Anysis, the Ethiopians invaded & ruled Egypt for 50 yrs. There is a remarkable temple in Bubastis.

2.136 After Mycerinus came Asuchis. In his time there was a law that one could take out a loan on the security of one's father's corpse.

2.135 Rhodopis was very skilled sexually. She came to Egypt from Samos. Her freedom was bought by Charaxus, the brother of the poet Sappho.

2.134 Mycerinus left a pyramid that some think was built by the courtesan Rhodopis. They're wrong. She, btw, was a fellow slave of Aesop.

2.133 Mycerinus received an oracle saying he would die in 6 yrs. He therefore stayed up night & day, reveling, to turn the 6 years into 12.

2.132 The cow is brought outside every year: they say that the girl begged Mycerinus when she was dying that she see the sun once a year.

2.131 Some say M. raped his daughter & she hanged herself & that the statues have no hands because the girls’ hands were cut off. Nonsense!

2.130 The cow is in a chamber in the royal palace at Saïs. In another room there are twenty statues of naked women, Mycerinus' concubines.

2.129 Cheops' son Mycerinus was just. He let the people worship freely. When his only child died he buried her in a hollowed-out wooden cow.

2.128 Cheops and Chephren ruled for 106 yrs combined. During that time the temples were closed & the Egyptians suffered all manner of evils.

2.127 Cheops reigned for 50 years and was succeeded by his brother Chephren. He built a pyramid too, but it was smaller than his brother's.

2.126 Cheops prostituted his daughter in order to help pay for it.

2.125 The pyramid was built like steps, the stones lifted w/levers to the upper tiers. If I remember right, it cost 1600 talents to build.

2.124 Cheops was the 1st bad Egyptian king. He shut up the temples and worked the people like dogs, making them build a road and a pyramid.

2.123 Believe what you will. My policy is to record what I've heard. The Egyptians think the soul experiences a 3000-year cycle of rebirths.

2.122 Rhampsinitus later descended alive to Hades & played dice w/Demeter, then came back up. The Egyptians have a festival celebrating it.

2.121 A wily thief tricked the Egyptian king Rhampsinitus repeatedly, e.g., stealing from a locked room, and won the hand of the princess.

2.120 I believe the Egyptians: if Helen had been in Troy Priam would have handed her over to the Greeks. She wasn't worth the price of war.

2.119 Menelaus got Helen back but was delayed in Egypt by contrary winds. He sacrificed 2 native kids to appease the winds, then sailed off.

2.118 The priests said they knew the story from Menelaus himself. After Troy fell, when Helen wasn’t there, he came to Egypt to get her.

2.117 These references prove that the Cypria was not composed by Homer: it says Paris went from Sparta to Troy in 2 days, with no straying.

2.116 I think Homer knew of this version of the Helen story. He opted not to use it, but he alludes to Paris' "wandering" in his epics.

2.115 Proteus rebuked Paris for stealing Helen & said he'd keep her in Egypt until her husband came. Paris had 3 days to leave the country.

2.114 They told their king, Proteus, who ordered that Paris be arrested and brought to him.

2.113 There's a story that Helen and Paris landed in Egypt en route to Troy. Paris' lackeys told the Egyptians he'd stolen Helen from hubby.

2.112 After Pheros came Proteus. In his precinct in Memphis there's a shrine to the Foreign Aphrodite. I think this refers to Helen of Troy.

2.111 S's son Pheros went blind after spearing a river. He was cured by washing his eyes in the urine of a virtuous woman (not Mrs. Pheros).

2.110 Sesostris also ruled Ethiopia. He set up 45-ft statues of himself & his wife & 30-ft ones of his kids before the temple of Hephaestus.

2.109 Sesostris divided the land up equally among the Egyptians, and assessed annual taxes based on these allotments.

2.108 Sesostris took vengeance on his brother, then set his captives to work dragging rocks and digging the canals that now irrigate Egypt.

2.107 When Sesotris returned from his conquests his brother tried to burn him and his family alive, but most of them survived.

2.106 Most of the pillars Sesostris set up to mark his conquests no longer survive. But there are two statues of him in Ionia.

2.105 Another proof is that the Colchians work their linen like the Egyptians do, and their lifestyle and language are also similar.

2.104 The Colchians (who live in that area) are descended from them. My evidence: like the Egyptians, the Colchians practice circumcision.

2.103 He also conquered the Thracians & Scythians in Europe. Some of the men with him settled near the Phasis River [east of the Black Sea].

2.102 Sesotris ruled after all those 330. He conquered people along the Indian Ocean by sea, & on land he conquered people throughout Asia.

2.101 Most of the kings didn't do anything special, but Moeris built a lake and some pyramids and a propylaea near the temple of Hephaestus.

2.100 After Min there were 330 sovereigns. Nitocris ruled after her bro was killed. She drowned those responsible in a custom-built chamber.

2.99 Min, the first king of Egypt, dammed up the river south of what is now Memphis, which he then founded after the land had dried out.

2.98 Anthylla is noteworthy because the city is obliged to provide shoes for the wife of the reigning king of Egypt.

2.97 When the Nile floods you can sail across Egypt's plains and right by the pyramids themselves. One city you'll pass by is Anthylla.

2.96 The Egyptians make boats from acacia wood, with sails of papyrus. They sail downstream but usually have to be towed upstream.

2.95 Egypt has lots of mosquitoes. South of the marshes ppl sleep in towers to avoid them. In the marshes they use mosquito netting.

2.94 The Egyptians use oil made from the fruit of the castor bean. It can be used in lamps, like olive oil, but it smells bad.

2.93 Certain fish migrate at breeding time, the males leading. They shed their seed en route & the females swallow it & so become pregnant.

2.92 The Egyptians who live in the marshes make bread out of lotuses, and they eat papyrus and the fruit of lilies. Also dried fish.

2.91 The Egyptians avoid following Greek customs, although in Chemmis they honor Perseus. His ancestors, they say, came from their city.

2.90 Anyone who was killed by a crocodile or whose death is somehow caused by the river is buried in a holy coffin and with special rites.

2.89 The corpses of beautiful or important women are brought to be embalmed only after a few days to decrease the likelihood of necrophilia.

2.88 The cheapest method involves purging the belly of its contents and embalming it in natron for 70 days.

2.87 With the next plan the brain is left intact, but a viscera-dissolving solution is injected into the corpse via the anus.

2.86 Professional embalmers offer 3 levels of service. The most expensive involves extracting the corpse's brain through its nostrils.

2.85 When a respected family member dies, the women cover their faces with mud and walk around the city with their breasts showing.

2.84 Egypt is full of doctors, all specialists. There are doctors for the eyes, head, teeth, & belly, & for diseases w/o physical symptoms.

2.83 There are a number of oracles in Egypt, each practicing different methods of divination. The most revered is Leto's oracle in Buto.

2.82 They believe that your day of birth determines your destiny, and they keep track of any portents that occur and note their outcomes.

2.81 They wear linen tunics with wool cloaks, but they can't bring wool into a temple or be buried in it, as it's against their religion.

2.80 They share this custom with the Spartans: young men yield the road to their elders and get up from their seats when old men approach.

2.79 The Egyptians are faithful to their ancestral customs. They sing a song that honors the only son of their 1st king, who died untimely.

2.78 After fancy dinner parties a guy carries around a wooden statue of a corpse & reminds the guests that they'll all be dead one day too.

2.77 The Egyptians, who are the 2nd most healthy people of all (after the Libyans), purge themselves for 3 days every month with emetics.

2.76 The snake-killing ibises are black, others mostly white. The snakes' wings are like bats'. And that's it for Egypt's sacred animals!

2.75 It's said that winged serpents fly to Egypt every spring, but they're killed by ibises. I've seen the snakes' bones lying in heaps.

2.74 And in Thebes there are small, horned snakes, harmless to man, that are sacred to Zeus. They are buried in Zeus' shrine when they die.

2.73 Another sacred bird is the phoenix. They say that it comes once in 500 years and that it carries its father's corpse to Helios' shrine.

2.72 There are otters in the river. Some consider them sacred. Eels and the lepidotus are sacred among fish, the fox-goose among birds.

2.71 Hippopotamuses are snub-nosed, cloven-hooved, four-footed pachyderms. They're as big as the biggest oxen.

2.70 The Egyptians hunt crocodiles using pigs as bait. When they've hooked one and hauled it in, they smear its eyes with mud and subdue it.

2.69 For some Egyptians, crocodiles are sacred, for some not. The Thebans have a tame, sacred croc that they spoil & decorate with jewelry.

2.68 The crocodile is a 4-legged, egg-laying creature that lives on land & in the sea. It enjoys a symbiotic relationship w/the sandpiper.

2.67 Dead cats are mummified and buried in Bubastis, whereas dogs are buried in sacred tombs in their own cities.

2.66 Cats are a big deal. When a cat dies of natural causes, its people shave their eyebrows; for a dog they shave their heads and bodies.

2.65 The Egyptians don't have a lot of animals, but they consider the ones they do have sacred. Killing an animal can be punished by death.

2.64 Egyptians are scrupulous about some things. They won't have sex in holy places or enter a shrine after sex unless they've washed first.

2.63 In Heliopolis & Buto they just perform sacrifices. But in Papremis the festival of Ares involves people hitting one another with clubs.

2.62 The festival celebrated in Saïs is the Festival of the Lamps, and everyone lets lamps burn around their houses during the night.

2.61 After the sacrifices in Busiris they beat their breasts in lament. But it wouldn't be right for me to tell you whom they're lamenting.

2.60 When they sail to Bubastis they shout obscenities & mock & flash people on the shore. Once arrived, they drink and conduct sacrifices.

2.59 The Egyptians hold festivals frequently. The top 6 in order of popularity are at Bubastis, Busiris, Saïs, Heliopolis, Buto, & Papremis.

2.58 The Greeks adopted a bunch of religious practices from the Egyptians--processions and public festivals and so on.

2.57 The Dodonaeans called the women “doves” due to their barbaric speech, & the story arose that real birds bid the oracles be established.

2.56 I think two women were sold to Libya and Greece. The latter built a shrine to Zeus and, after learning Greek, a place of prophecy.

2.55 But the priestesses of Dodona say that 2 black doves flew from Thebes to Libya & Dodona and bid oracles be established in both places.

2.54 Egyptian priests told me that two women, taken from Thebes, were sold & became the 1st priestesses at the oracles in Greece and Libya.

2.53 But we haven't long known the gods' stories, as Homer & Hesiod--who wrote c. 400 years before my time--gave the Greeks their theogony.

2.52 The oracle at Dodona bid the Pelasgians to adopt the Egyptians' names for the gods. The Greeks later got the names from the Pelasgians.

2.51 But the Greeks learned to make Hermes statues with erect penises not from the Egyptians but from the Pelasgians.

2.50 The names of almost all of the Greeks' gods came from the Egyptians. One exception is Poseidon, who came from the Libyans.

2.49 I think the Greeks adopted these Dionysiac rites from Egypt, which explains why the Greek and Egyptian practices are so similar.

2.48 They sacrifice pigs for the festival of Dionysus. They also carry around marionettes with huge penises that move up and down.

2.47 The Egyptians consider pigs unclean and will only sacrifice them to the Moon and Dionysus. Swineherds have to keep to themselves.

2.46 They worship goats in the province of Mendes. In my day something awful went on there: a he-goat mounted a woman in a public display.

2.45 The Greeks have a story that the Egyptians were going to sacrifice their Heracles when he up and killed them all. But this is nonsense.

2.44 I visited temples of Heracles in both Tyre and Thasos, and these pre-dated by a lot the birth of the Greeks' Heracles.

2.43 The Greeks, I believe, got the name of their Hera-cles from the Egyptians. One of the Egyptians’ Twelve Gods is named Heracles.

2.42 Some Egyptians won't sacrifice sheep, others goats: the Egyptians don't all worship the same gods (except all worship Isis and Osiris).

2.41 Cows are sacred to Isis and cannot be sacrificed. An Egyptian won't even kiss a Greek on the mouth because Greeks eat cows.

2.40 Sacrificial victims are disemboweled in various ways. In some cases the animal is stuffed with bread & spices & honey and then burned.

2.39 They sacrifice it by cutting its throat. The body is flayed but the head is cut off & disposed of, as they will not eat animal heads.

2.38 Bulls are thought to belong to Epaphus & are examined to insure they are pure, in markings etc. Only pure bulls can be sacrificed.

2.37 They're extreme in their reverence for the gods. Priests shave their entire bodies every other day and keep clean otherwise as well.

2.36 Likewise, they knead bread with their feet and mud with their hands. They write from right to left. They circumcise males.

2.35 Egypt has more wonders in it than any other place & the Egyptians' customs are the opposite of others'. Women urinate standing up, e.g.

2.34 But more is known about the Ister, as it flows through inhabited territory while the Nile flows through desert.

2.33 The youths reportedly returned home safely. The Nile, I suspect, must be as long as the Ister, which cuts Europe in two.

2.32 But some people from Cyrene said they'd heard of youths who had traveled inland very far and been captured by small, black-skinned men.

2.31 It takes 4 months to travel from Elephantine to the Deserters. Beyond that, no one knows, as it's all desert.

2.30 It’s another 56 days from Meroe to the land of the Deserters, named after some Egyptians who left Ethiopia during Psammetichus’ reign.

2.29 I went as far south as Elephantine & learned from others what is beyond it: it takes 56 days to travel from there to Meroe in Ethiopia.

2.28 No one knew about the Nile's source except a guy in Saïs, who said it comes from a bottomless spring somewhere north of Elephantine.

2.27 Wind doesn't blow from the river because, I think, breezes don't naturally come from extremely hot places.

2.26 The sun also causes Egypt's dryness. If the seasons & north/south switched places, the same thing would happen to the Ister in Europe.

2.25 Later the sun returns to its normal path. Unlike other rivers, which are augmented by seasonal rain, the Nile loses H20 in the winter.

2.24 Here's why I think the Nile floods in the summer: in the winter, the sun travels to the sky over Libya, dehydrating its rivers.

2.23 The Ocean theory can't be disproved, but I, at least, have no knowledge that Ocean exists. I think Homer made it up.

2.22 No. 3. It floods bc it comes from melting snow. This seems plausible but it's wrong: the Nile flows from the hottest places on Earth!

2.21 No. 2. The Nile floods because it comes from the Ocean, which flows around the whole world.

2.20 The Greeks have advanced 3 explanations for the Nile's behavior. The 1st 2 are stupid. No. 1. The Etesian winds cause the flooding.

2.19 I was unable to learn from the Egyptians why the river floods for 100 days beginning (unlike other rivers) on the summer solstice.

2.18 Besides, the oracle of Ammon has said that Egypt is all the land that is irrigated by the Nile.

2.17 But enough of the Ionians. My own opinion is that "Egypt" is all of the land that is inhabited by the Egyptians.

2.16 They also say the Nile separates Asia from Libya. If so, the Nile delta is in neither, as the river flows around it.

2.15 The Ionians are wrong to say Egypt is just the delta. The delta is an alluvial deposit. The Egyptians existed before it & moved to it.

2.14 If the land north of Memphis continues to increase in elevation, the river will not flood the Egyptians' fields, and they will starve.

2.13 Further, some 900 years ago the area north of Memphis used to be flooded if the river rose 12 ft. Now it has to rise 24 feet to flood.

2.12 Other evidence suggests the same thing: there are seashells on the mountains, and Egypt's soil appears to be silt from Ethiopia.

2.11 If the Nile flowed into the Red Sea, I expect it would be silted up in 10,000 yrs. I think Egypt was once a gulf like the Red Sea.

2.10 Much of Egypt is an alluvial deposit. I think the land north of Memphis was once a gulf, now silted up. The Nile is huge with 5 mouths.

2.9 It's 9 days by boat from Heliopolis south to Thebes (517 miles), and another 200 miles from Thebes to Elephantine.

2.8 South of Heliopolis Egypt is narrow, flat land bordered by mountains to the east and west. Beyond these the land widens again.

2.7 From the coast inland to Heliopolis [at the apex of the Nile delta] is 165 miles.

2.6 The Egyptian coastline is 60 schoeni long [about 397 miles].

2.5 I believe it, because it is clear when you travel there that Egypt is a gift of the river.

2.4 The Egyptians invented the year & 12 30-day months (+ 5 additional days). Their 1st king was Min. In his day Egypt was mostly marsh.

2.3 I heard this story re. Psammetichus from priests in Memphis. I also went to Thebes and Heliopolis to hear what people there had to say.

2.2 The Egyptians used to think they were the oldest of men, but their king Psammetichus disproved this by experimenting on newborns.

2.1 Cambyses succeeded his father as king. He invaded Egypt with an army composed of his various subjects, inc. the Greeks of Asia Minor.