About 40 stades from the temple of Æsculapius are the precincts and shrine of Isis, and of all the Greek shrines to the Egyptian goddess this is the holiest: for neither do the people of Tithorea live near it, nor may any approach the shrine whom Isis herself has not previously honoured by inviting them in dreams. The gods of the lower world have the same practice in the towns near the Mæander, they send visions in dreams to whoever they allow to approach their shrines. And twice every year, in Spring and Autumn, the people of Tithorea celebrate the Festival of Isis. The third day before each Festival those who have right of access purify the shrine in some secret manner: and remove to a place about 2 stades from the shrine whatever remains they find of the victims offered in sacrifice at the previous Festival, and bury them there. On the following day the traders make tents of reed or any other material at hand. On the next day they celebrate the Festival, and sell slaves, and cattle of every kind, and apparel, and silver and gold. And at noon they commence the sacrifice. The wealthier sacrifice oxen and deer, the poorer sacrifice geese and guineafowls, but they do not sacrifice swine or sheep or goats. Those whose duty it is to burn the victims in the shrine, first roll them up in bandages of linen or flax, after the process in use in Egypt. There is a solemn procession with all the victims, and some convey them into the shrine, while others burn the tents before it and depart with speed. And on one occasion they say a profane fellow, who had no right to approach the shrine, entered it with audacious curiosity at the time the sacrificial fire was lit, and the place seemed to him full of phantoms, and he returned to Tithorea, related what he had seen, and gave up the ghost. I heard a similar account from a Phœnician, of what happened on one occasion when the Egyptians were celebrating the Festival of Isis, at the time when they say she bewails Osiris: which is the season when the Nile begins to rise, and the Egyptians have a tradition that it is the tears of Isis that make the river rise and irrigate the fields. He told me that the Roman Governor of Egypt bribed a man to enter the shrine at Coptos during the Festival, and he came back, related what he had seen, and also died directly after. So Homer’s word seems true, that the gods are not seen by mortals with impunity.[143] The olives at Tithorea are not so plentiful as in Attica and Sicyonia. They are superior however in colour and flavour to those from Spain and Istria: all kinds of ointment are produced from them, and they send these olives to the Roman Emperor. [141] See chapter 6. [142] And consequently called _Dryads_. [143] Iliad, xx. 131. Compare Exodus, xxxiii. 20. CHAPTER XXXIII.