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After Helius, Hephæstus, Ammon, and Hermes, says Diodorus,59 Cronos and his sister Rhea ruled. These became the parents of Isis and Osiris, of Typhon, Apollo, and Aphrodite. Plutarch tells us that, according to the legend of the Egyptians, Rhea and Cronos were the parents of Osiris and Isis, of Typhon and Nephthys. Osiris ruled happily over Egypt; but Typhon conspired against him with seventy-two associates; they inclosed Osiris in a chest and threw it into the Nile, and the stream carried it down to the sea. When Isis heard of it, she put on mourning, and sought with lamentation the body of Osiris. At last she found the chest in the neighbourhood of Byblus, where the sea had cast it up; she mourned over the corpse and carried it back to Egypt. And when Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, who grew up in Buto, came to his full strength, he prepared to avenge the wrong which Typhon had done to his father and mother. Thrice he fought with Typhon; the battle raged for many days, and Horus conquered.60
According to the accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus, Osiris (Dionysus) and Horus (the Apollo of the Greeks) were the last rulers of the divine race.61 In the list of Manetho, Ptah was followed in the kingdom by Ra and Shu (or, according to the Theban account, by Ammon, Tum, and Shu), Cronos, Osiris, Typhon, and Horus. These then are the younger gods; the evidence of the monuments shows that they were connected by race with each other, but not akin to the three gods who ruled before them. And as we also find that the five supplementary days added in the Egyptian year to the original number of 360 (p. 29) were dedicated to these gods, the first to Osiris, the second to Horus, the third to Typhon, the fourth to Isis, the fifth to Nephthys – the natural conclusion is that these gods were of later origin.62 On the other hand it is clear that the belief in Osiris and his power had already arisen at the time when the great pyramids were erected.
The two gods at the head of this circle, whom Diodorus and Plutarch call Cronos and Rhea, were known to the Egyptians under the names Seb and Nut.63 They are the spirits of the earth and sky. Osiris himself in the inscriptions and records is called "the king of the gods," "the lord of unnumbered days," "the king of life," "the regulator of eternity." The inscription on the lid of a coffin runs thus – "Ra gave thee the richly streaming light which gleams in thy eyes. Shu gave thee the pleasant air which in thy lifetime was inhaled in thy nostrils. Seb gave thee all fruits whereon thou livest. Osiris gave thee the Nile-water whereon thou livest."64 As a life-giving god, the colour of Osiris is green; his sacred tree is the evergreen tamarisk; and his sacred bird a kind of heron, distinguished by two long feathers at the back of the head. Osiris is always represented in a human form, and with a human head.
The chief seats of the worship of Osiris were Philæ and Abydus, in Upper Egypt. In the temple on the island of Philæ, formed by the Nile above Syene, the history of the god was represented.65 On a little island close by, where only the priests might tread, lay the grave of Osiris, overshadowed by tamarisks;66 here were libations offered to him, and Diodorus tells us that in Upper Egypt no more sacred form of oath was known than the oath by Osiris who rests at Philæ.67 In the temple of Osiris at Abydus (Arabat-el-Medfuneh) the wealthy Egyptians sought to be buried, that they might rest in the vicinity of the god's grave. In Lower Egypt Osiris68 was worshipped in the cities of Memphis, Sais,69 and Busiris. At Busiris (the name Pe-osiri meant "abode of Osiris"), on the Sebennytic arm of the Nile, in the middle of the Delta – it was the chief city of the district of Busiris – was situated the largest temple of Isis, as we learn from Herodotus, and here also, according to other evidence, the grave of Osiris was to be found.70 Here the whole land worshipped this god and goddess.71 Thousands of men and women assembled, according to Herodotus, made lamentation for Osiris, and brought an offering to the greatest goddess (Isis). Amid prayers the bull was flayed, the thighs and other parts cut out, and a part of the belly filled with bread, honey, and incense; these were drenched plentifully with oil, and set on fire, and so long as the sacrifice burned the people lamented. When the lamentation ended, the remainder of the sacrifice was eaten.72 Plutarch says that with Osiris the Egyptians lamented the receding of the Nile, the ceasing of the cool north wind, the death of vegetation, and decrease in the length of the day. On the 17th Athyr, the day on which Typhon slew Osiris (on this day the sun passes through the Scorpion), the priests instituted rites of lamentation, and, among other things, as a sign of the sorrow of Isis, they exhibited for four days a gilded cow, covered with a black veil of byssus – for the cow was the Egyptian symbol of this goddess. On the 19th Athyr, in the night, they went down to the sea, and the priests brought out the chest, and the congregation cried, "Osiris is found!"73 Moreover, according to Plutarch, the holy rites represented the burial of Osiris: in these the wood was cut for the chest, the linen torn for cerements, and libations poured. A serpent was also slain in effigy.74 About the time of the winter solstice, as Plutarch tells us in another place, the Egyptians carried "the cow," i. e. Isis, seven times round the temple, and this procession was called the search for Osiris.75 On the monuments the Isis worshipped with Osiris appears generally in a youthful shape, with the horns of a cow on her head, the moon's disk between the horns, with the flower-sceptre and symbol of life in her hands. The inscriptions denote her as the "royal consort," the "great goddess." An image in which she was represented in the form of a cow was seen by Herodotus in the royal palace of the last Pharaohs at Sais. "In a beautifully-adorned chamber lay the wooden image of a cow, resting on her knees, not larger than a full-grown cow. The body was covered with a purple robe; on the neck and head could be seen the thick gilding, and between the horns a golden disk. Every day incense was burned before the image; and at night a lamp was kindled before it. Once a year," continues Herodotus, "this cow was carried out into the open, when the Egyptians lamented the god, whose name I do not think proper to mention now."76
Osiris and Isis, the spirits of blessing and life, were attacked by Typhon. Plutarch observes that the Egyptians called Typhon Set,77 and this statement is confirmed by the inscriptions. The colour of Set was burning red,78 like the glowing sun in the dust of the desert; the ass was the sacred animal of this god, and a peculiarly-formed animal his symbol on the monuments. In poisonous serpents also the Egyptians saw this destructive deity, and they brought the crocodile and hippopotamus into association with him. The third of the five additional days of the year (p. 29), which belonged to Set, was to the Egyptians an unlucky day.79 On a papyrus he is called "the almighty destroyer and blighter,"80 and with this agrees the statement of Plutarch, that Typhon, according to the Egyptians, had filled the whole earth and sea – which they call "the foam of Typhon" – with evils; and they considered all animals, trees, and vegetables, all incidents of a harmful and destructive nature to be works, parts and actions of Typhon.81
The evil god can limit and overcome the beneficent power of nature, but not for ever. Osiris had left behind a young son, who could hold Typhon in check, though unable to suppress him entirely. Horus, as Plutarch tells us, was born about the time of the winter solstice, and the festival of the delivery of Isis was celebrated at the time of the vernal equinox.82 On the monuments we find Horus (Har), "the avenger of his father Osiris," as the inscriptions call him, represented as a naked child, with finger on lip, sitting on a lotus-leaf, or on a crook, the symbol of dominion. Hence he is the young Horus, the Harpocrates of the Greeks, the Harpechruti —i. e., "Har, the child" – of the Egyptians. Then, according to the legend, he grows up at Buto; he becomes a handsome youth, the strong Horus (Har-ver, Arveris of the Greeks), the "great helper," the "pillar of the world." In the temple at Philæ we see him pouring libations before the bier of Osiris; on other monuments he guides the sun's bark through the hours of the day.83 At Hermopolis, as Plutarch tells us, a hippopotamus was to be seen, on which a hawk – the sacred bird of Horus, in which form the god is often represented – fought with a serpent; and, according to the belief of the Egyptians, Typhon escaped from Horus in the shape of a crocodile.84 The monuments represent Horus on the sun-boat in the act of stabbing a serpent with a human head,85 i. e., Apopis, the serpent Apep; or standing on crocodiles with serpents in his hands; or as a winged sun's disk contending with a hippopotamus. In an invocation of Horus, belonging to the fourth century B.C., we find the following: "Come to me quickly on this day to guide the holy bark (the sun's-boat), to force back all lions to the land of Egypt, and all crocodiles into the Nile. Shamelessness and sin (?) come and appear upon earth; but when Horus is invoked he destroys them. All mankind rejoice when they see the sun. They praise the son of Osiris, and the serpent turns back."86 Hence to the Egyptians Horus was the triumphant god of light (Har-phre, Horus-sun), who subdues gloom, and winter, and drought. As a victorious god arousing fresh life, he gives to the kings of Egypt life and victory. The Greeks called the Egyptian Ra Helius, and Horus Apollo; and these names correspond to the Egyptian conception of these deities. The chief seats of the worship of Horus were the two cities which the Greeks called the great and little cities of Apollo (Edfu and Kus) and Ombus. At Edfu Hathor was worshipped beside Horus (p. 52).
Plutarch tells us that Isis, in the minds of the Egyptians, was the female receptive part of nature. Osiris was the light, Typhon the darkness, the obscuration of the sun and the moon; Osiris was the fruit-giving Nile-water, Typhon the salt and barren sea; Osiris was moisture, Typhon drought, the parching wind, which overcomes and consumes moisture; Osiris was health, Typhon disease; Osiris was the orderly, unchanging; Typhon the passionate, irrational, and giant-like; disturbances, blight, and tempest.87 It is incorrect, Plutarch observes, in conclusion, to call water, the sun, or the earth and sky Osiris and Isis; and not less so to call the glowing sun and hot wind Typhon. If we merely ascribe to Typhon all that is immoderate or irregular in these, whether in the way of excess or defect, and hold in reverence and honour all that is orderly and good and useful as the work of Isis, as the image, likeness, and essence of Osiris, we shall hardly go wrong.88
Thus there can be little doubt about the meaning of the myth. When the Nile receded and the sirocco from the south drove back the refreshing north wind, when the hot days – for these are the seventy-two fellow-conspirators of Typhon – parched up the soil; then had Typhon struck down Osiris. Then, as Plutarch says, "the Egyptians bewailed the decay of the fruits, and prayed the gods to send new in the place of those that were gone, and allow them to spring forth again." When the seed was cast into the ground, the Egyptians buried Osiris: but the sacred rites were an imitation of the sufferings of Isis, and the incidents which occurred when the body was deposited in the tomb. The progressive decay of productive power towards the north during the hot days, and the winter, which was indicated in the myth by the carrying of the corpse of Osiris to the sea, and the custom of carrying the chest to the coast (p. 57), is part of the Egyptian conception; that Isis discovers the body at Byblus on the Phenician coast is probably an invention of the Greeks, who confounded the Phenician horned goddess Astarte, Ashtaroth Karnaim, with Isis. When Egypt was again fertilised by the inundation, when the days began to lengthen after the winter solstice, when the sun shone with fresh brightness, and the new fruit budded forth, then Horus, the child born about the winter solstice, waxed strong at Buto in the north of Egypt – then he overcame Typhon. The renewed power of the sun, the returning life of nature, the fresh blessings of the new year – these are the avenging son of Osiris.
When the creative and receptive powers of nature had thus been comprehended in the forms of Osiris and Isis, the divinities in whom creative power and receptivity had hitherto been perceived naturally coalesced with these forms to a greater or less degree. Thus Ptah of Memphis, Tum of Thebes, the sun-god of Heliopolis, are combined with Osiris (the title Ptah-Osiris is not uncommon in the inscriptions,) though they are also retained as separate deities. Thus also Isis is identified with Neith of Sais, with Mut of Thebes, with Hathor, with Bast,89 the goddess of Bubastis. Horus, again, is identified with Chem and Ra, though at the same time his personality as the youthful, vigorous spirit of light is strongly marked. Plutarch is certainly right in his remark that the Egyptians regard Osiris as the personification of everything in heaven and the under world.90 All the other deities were transfigurations and manifestations of Osiris, mere modifications of his nature. When Osiris is called the soul of Ra,91 this can hardly have any other meaning but this, that the appearance of the sun-god in the visible world is an incarnation of the invisible nature of Osiris.
The Egyptians often represented their deities with the heads, or in the shape of, the animals sacred to them; that is, they recognised the nature of the deities who were primarily conceived under the form of men, in the races of the beasts which they allotted to them. To the Egyptians these animals must have appeared so closely and intimately connected with the deity to which they belonged, that the nature of the deity was better expressed and made more visible in the shape of the beast than in the shape of man. We must assume that the predominance of a distinct mark or characteristic property in the races of animals, that their simple, uniformly instinctive life created this conception in the mind of the Egyptians, to whom a fixed and unalterable course of action, an unchanging and typical nature, was the ideal. The force of nature, the regular recurrence of certain phenomena, coalesced in the Egyptian mind with the blind, unchanging action of animals. Yet animals were also seen to possess freedom and movement, and an individual existence. This combination of the type and the individual must have seemed to the Egyptians to correspond to the nature of their deities. The mystery of life, the natural law, which lay at the base of their worship, must for them have reached its most distinct and lively realisation in these animals.
The bull is the sacred animal of the creative gods: the cow of the goddesses of birth and receptivity; the ram is sacred to Chnum; the hawk and the cat to the deities of light and the sun; the beetle to Ptah; a kind of heron to Osiris; the vulture to Ptah and Isis; a kind of ibis to Thoth; the dog-ape to Anubis, the "ruler in the west;92" the crocodile to the god Sebek, who was worshipped at Arsinoe, &c., &c. Herodotus tells us that when a cat died in a house, all the inhabitants shaved their eyebrows; and that at conflagrations the Egyptians directed all their attention to saving the cats, not to quenching the flames, and if, in spite of their efforts, a cat leapt into the flames and was burnt, the Egyptians made a great lamentation.93 "To each of the races of the sacred animals," says Diodorus, "a certain piece of land is consecrated, the products of which suffice for the food and tending of the race. Those entrusted with the care of each race have to feed them. To feed the hawks they cut up pieces of flesh, and call loudly to the birds till they come and take their food. The cats they coax by giving them bread and milk, or chopped fish from the Nile, and thus provide them with suitable food. These duties they do not scruple to perform before the whole people; on the contrary, they are proud of them as of the highest offices which they can attain to in the service of the gods. With special symbols to distinguish them, they proceed through town and country, and as it is known from the symbols what animal it is whose servants are approaching, all who meet them bow the knee and pay homage. If one of the animals dies, it is wrapped in a costly covering, and, amid loud lamentations and beating of the breast, it is carried away to embalment. Steeped in oil of cedar, or any other kind remarkable for its scent and powers of preservation, the corpse is then buried in the holy sepulchres. Anyone who intentionally kills a sacred animal is punished with death; and everyone who has caused the death of an ibis or a cat, intentionally or unintentionally, must die, and is often killed in the most cruel manner, without any sentence passed upon him, by the collected mob. So deeply rooted is the reverence for sacred animals in the feeling of the people, so persistently does everyone cling to the worship of them, that even at the time when Ptolemy was not yet declared an ally by the Romans, and the nation was most anxious to pay respect to visitors from Italy, and to give no cause for war, when a Roman had unintentionally killed a cat, the mob gathered at his house, and neither the officers sent by the king to quiet them, nor the prevailing awe of the Romans, could protect him from their vengeance. This fact I have not received from hearsay: I was in Egypt and saw the occurrence. But what is done for the animals which are kept in the temples is easy to narrate, but difficult for anyone to believe who has not seen it."94
Among the races of animals which, according to Egyptian belief, shared in the nature of the deities to which they were sacred, were certain pre-eminent specimens. These were recognised by certain signs by the priests, and passed for a special incarnation of the deity. They were brought into his temple, and there worshipped and prayed to as his manifestation. The most sacred among these selected animals was Apis, the bull, in the temple of Ptah, at Memphis. According to the account of Herodotus, the Egyptians believed that a ray of light from heaven had impregnated the cow, which brought forth an Apis: by Plutarch, the impregnation is said to take place by a ray of the moon.95 The priests recognized Apis in a black bull, which had a triangular white spot on the forehead, a fleshy growth under the tongue in the form of the sacred beetle of Ptah, white spots on his back in the shape of an eagle, and bi-coloured hairs in the tail.96 When an Apis was found, he was, says Diodorus, in the first place brought for forty successive days to the meadow of the "city of the Nile" (Nilopolis), where women were shown to him, who were afterwards excluded from the sight of the Apis. Then he was conveyed on a boat in a golden shrine like a god to the temple of Ptah, at Memphis. There he was bathed in the holy place, and anointed, and the most precious frankincense was constantly burned before him. He received the most beautiful garments, the richest bedding-places, and the most handsome cows as his "bed-fellows"; the most distinguished men provided him with the best food at a very great expense. When the Apis died of old age he was honoured with a splendid funeral. "When, on the death of Alexander, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, made himself master of Egypt, it happened that the Apis died, and the person entrusted with his care not only spent his own large fortune upon his burial, but borrowed, in addition, fifty talents from Ptolemy. Even in my own times certain feeders of the sacred animals have spent not less than one hundred talents on a single funeral."97
"The Egyptians," Diodorus remarks, "are of opinion that the soul of the dead Osiris passed into this bull, and thus continues among them, and will so continue among their descendants." Plutarch says that the Apis at Memphis was an image of the soul of Osiris. According to the usual account of the priests, Osiris and Apis were one; for they taught that the Apis was to be regarded as a fair image of the soul of Osiris. Strabo tells us, "The bull Apis, which is revered as a god, is the same as Osiris. The temple in which the Apis was kept stands beside the temple of Hephæstus (Ptah). There is also a temple of Serapis in that city, before which we saw sphinxes, buried in the sand, some to the middle, some to the neck."98 Evidence from other sources, no less than the monuments, confirms these accounts of Diodorus and Plutarch. The monuments exhibit the Apis with the sun's disk and the royal serpent between his horns, and Greek papyri tell us that the keeper with whom the Apis was placed was known as the "Herdman of Osorapi," i. e. of Osiris-Apis (Osarhapi).99 We may assume that this Osorapi was the Serapis or Sarapis of the Greeks, and the temple of Serapis a temple of Osorapi. The sphinxes buried in sand at Memphis have been discovered on the plateau on which the inhabitants buried their dead to the west of the ruins of this city. They are found here in two rows as often before the entrance of temples between Abusir and Sakkarah. It is by following this path of sphinxes that the discoverers were recently enabled to find the ruins of the temple of Serapis, i. e. the temple of the grave of Osiris-Apis, and the sepulchral chambers of the Apis-bulls hewn in the rocks around it. The oldest of the tombs hitherto opened belongs, according to the inscriptions, to an Apis buried in the time of Amenophis III. (1524-1488 B.C.). Above ground rises a massive structure, truncated at the top, and decorated with reliefs. This is the mortuary chapel. A sloping passage, the entrance to which lies before this structure, leads beneath the earth to a sepulchral chamber, where stands a sarcophagus with the mummy of the Apis. The relief on the structure above exhibits the king bringing a drink-offering to the Apis. Beside the picture of the bull we read, "The living Osiris, the lord of the sky: he is Tum (p. 51): his feathers are upon him: he gives life for evermore." On the sarcophagus of an Apis buried in a similar tomb in the reign of Horus (1455-1443 B.C.), we read: – "Apis-Osiris, the great deity who dwells in Amenti, the ever-living lord." King Ramses II. (1388-1322 B.C.), in the second half of his reign, caused a broad gallery to be excavated under the rock, on both sides of which chambers of about twenty feet high were subsequently cut out as occasion required; in these were placed the remains of the dead Apis-bulls in sarcophagi of basalt or granite. When the gallery of Ramses was no longer sufficient, Psammetichus I. caused a gallery still larger and more beautiful to be excavated, and provided with handsome cells. After Darius had extended this second gallery, the bodies of the bulls were buried in the chambers of it down to the times of the latest Ptolemies. As yet sixty-four tombs in all have been discovered; but of these only four were uninjured. All the rest had been already opened by the Arabs, plundered, and in part destroyed. The inscriptions on the tombs in the galleries give the same representation of the Apis as the older sepulchres. He is "the Osiris again restored to life," the "revived Apis of Ptah," "the living Apis, which is Osiris abiding in Amenti," the "second Ptah." On a sarcophagus we read: – "Here is Osiris Apis, who dwells in Amenti, the great God, the eternal Lord, the ruler for all time." Another inscription remarks "that he had been sought for three months in the valleys of Upper Egypt, and on the islands of Lower Egypt. When found he had been brought to his throne in the temple, to his father Ptah, in such and such a year, on such and such a day. The happy duration of his life had been six-and-twenty years; then the deity had been carried to burial, as he had established himself in the good Amenti in order to unite himself on his eternal throne with the house of centuries." Or, as it is said in another inscription, "the holiness of Apis has been brought to unite himself with the good Amenti."100
By this constantly renewed incarnation in the form of a bull, the emblem of generation, the god of life gave the Egyptians a guarantee for the continuance of his grace, and the perpetuation of their life in this world and the next. Whether other forms of incarnation beside this were ascribed to the god cannot be determined.
At the time when the Nile began to rise, or shortly before it, there appeared in Egypt from year to year a peculiar kind of heron, distinguished by two long feathers on the back of the head.101 This was known to the Egyptians as Bennu. This bird, which announced or caused the fertilisation or new life of the land, could not but belong to the god of life. The whole race, or a select specimen, appears in special connection with Osiris, and the temple at Heliopolis. In the oldest portions of the Book of the Dead, which belong to the time of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, we find, "I am that great Bennu of On" (Heliopolis); and the commentary adds, "Bennu is Osiris, viz., the Osiris in On."102 The inscriptions say of the great Bennu that "it was self-begotten," that "it caused the divisions of time to arise."103 This production of himself signifies the creative power of Osiris, and the origin of the seasons might well be attributed to the bird which regularly appeared announcing the return of the period of fertilization. With the cultus of the Bennu at Heliopolis is connected the story of the phœnix. Herodotus tells us that he was informed by the inhabitants of Heliopolis that a bird, which, if it resembled the pictures, was gold-coloured and red, and like an eagle in shape and size, came from Arabia to their city once in every 500 years, and buried the corpse of his father in myrrh in the sanctuary of the sun-god.104 From later accounts we learn that the phœnix, on reaching the age of 500 years, prepared a funeral pile of spices, and burned himself upon it; then he recreated himself, and carried the remains of his old body to Heliopolis.105 Tacitus says: "In the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius (i. e. in the year 34 A.D.) after a lapse of centuries, the phœnix appeared in Egypt. This bird, which was sacred to the sun, returned after an interval of 500 years, according to the most common accounts; according to others after an interval of 1461 years. The first phœnix appeared in the reign of Sesostris; the second under Amasis; the third in the time of the third Ptolemy; and as there was only a lapse of 250 years between this Ptolemy and the reign of Tiberius, some regarded the last phœnix as a spurious one."106 Ælian remarks: "The Egyptians are not agreed when the 500 years are completed; and the priests were at variance whether the bird would appear then or later, and when he ought to come; but amid their dissensions the bird suddenly appeared at the right time."107 Pliny informs us that the cycle of the great year was connected with the life of this bird, and with his return the stars came again into their old position.108 Horapollo maintains that the phœnix was a symbol of the sun, and signified one who returned after a long time from a far country.109 There is no doubt, therefore, that the alleged appearance of the phœnix signified to the Egyptians the close of an astronomical period. On the monuments the planet Venus is described as the "star of Bennu-Osiris." As the morning star announced the day, the light returning out of darkness, it could easily be appropriated to Osiris, and that period might be connected with the cycles of the planet Venus.110
The selected cats of the sun-god and his daughter, the goddess of Bubastis, the hawk of Horus, the ibis of Thoth, the vulture of Mut, were regarded by the Egyptians with no less veneration than the bulls of Osiris. In a hymn to a male cat, which was kept for Ra at Heliopolis – the hymn is to be found on a memorial pillar of the fourth century B.C. – we read: "Thy head is the head of the sun-god; thy nose is the nose of Thoth, the twice mighty lord of Hermopolis. Thy ears are the ears of Osiris, who hears the voice of all who call upon him; thy mouth is the mouth of the god Tum, the lord of life, he has preserved thee from every stain. Thy heart is the heart of Ptah; he has purified thee from every stain of evil in thy members: thy teeth are the teeth of the god Chunsu (the moon-god). Thy thighs are the thighs of the god Horus, the avenger of his father Osiris, who has retaliated upon Set the mischief he purposed against Osiris."111 Selected crocodiles – and even the crocodile was worshipped, at least in some regions, as in the Thebais and around the lake of Moeris – were to be found at Thebes and Arsinoe. "For both these animals," says Herodotus "(and they are so tame that they allow themselves to be touched), the priests put ornaments of glass and gold in their ears, and bracelets on their fore-feet, and give them the best of food both of meal and from the sacrifices, and attend to them with the utmost care. When they die they are embalmed, and buried in the sacred tombs."112 Strabo, who travelled through Egypt more than four hundred years later than Herodotus, narrates that a sacred crocodile was kept in the lake of Moeris, which was tame to the priests. He was fed with the bread, wine, and flesh brought to him by visitors. "Our host," Strabo continues, "a man of distinction at Arsinoe, who showed us the sacred things of the city, took cakes, roast meat, and a drink mixed with honey, and went with us to the lake. On the shore lay the crocodile; the priests went up to him, two of them opened his jaws; and the third put in first the cakes, then the meat, and last of all he gave him the drink. Then the crocodile ran into the water and swam to the opposite bank. Another stranger came with similar presents: the priests took them, ran round the lake and offered them to the crocodile, when they had found him, in the same manner as before."113 Clement of Alexandria describes the glory of the Egyptian temples, and then continues thus: "The innermost shrine is veiled with a curtain of cloth of gold; when the priest removes the veil you see a cat, a crocodile, or a serpent of the land rolling on a purple coverlet."
