The Boys' and Girls' Herodotus · Herodotus
FROM SESOSTRIS TO SETHON.
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."
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.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.