in entreaty and uttered the word
bekos, stretching
forth their hands. At first when he heard this
the shepherd kept silence; but since this word was
often repeated, as he visited them constantly and
attended to them, at last he declared the matter to
his master, and at his command he brought the children
before his face. Then Psammetichos having himself
also heard it, began to inquire what nation of men
named anything
bekos, and inquiring he found
that the Phrygians had this name for bread. In
this manner and guided by an indication such as this,
the Egyptians were brought to allow that the Phrygians
were a more ancient people than themselves. That
so it came to pass I heard from the priests of that
Hephaistos who dwells at Memphis; but the Hellenes
relate, besides many other idle tales, that Psammetichos
cut out the tongues of certain women and then caused
the children to live with these women.
With regard then to the rearing of the children they
related so much as I have said: and I heard also
other things at Memphis when I had speech with the
priests of Hephaistos. Moreover I visited both
Thebes and Heliopolis for this very cause, namely
because I wished to know whether the priests at these
places would agree in their accounts with those at
Memphis; for the men of Heliopolis are said to be the
most learned in records of the Egyptians. Those
of their narrations which I heard with regard to the
gods I am not earnest to relate in full, but I shall
name them only because I consider that all men are
equally ignorant of these matters: and whatever
things of them I may record I shall record only because
I am compelled by the course of the story. But
as to those matters which concern men, the priests
agreed with one another in saying that the Egyptians
were the first of all men on earth to find out the
course of the year, having divided the seasons into
twelve parts to make up the whole; and this they said
they found out from the stars: and they reckon
to this extent more wisely than the Hellenes, as it
seems to me, inasmuch as the Hellenes throw in an
intercalated month every other year, to make the seasons
right, whereas the Egyptians, reckoning the twelve
months at thirty days each, bring in also every year
five days beyond number, and thus the circle of their
season is completed and comes round to the same point
whence it set out. They said moreover that the
Egyptians were the first who brought into use appellations
for the twelve gods and the Hellenes took up the use
from them; and that they were the first who assigned
altars and images and temples to the gods, and who
engraved figures on stones; and with regard to the
greater number of these things they showed me by actual
facts that they had happened so. They said also
that the first man who became king of Egypt was Min;
and that in his time all Egypt except the district
of Thebes was a swamp, and none of the regions were
then above water which now lie below the lake of Moiris,
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