The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia
World history
“Thereupon he had them whipped by those deputed for that purpose, and
ordered such Egyptians as were found celebrating a festival to be
slain. Thus the festivities ceased and the priests were punished. Apis,
wounded in the thigh, languished, lying in the temple, and when he
was dead the priests buried him, unknown to Cambyses. As to him, who
was already wanting in good sense, he was from that time smitten with
madness, the Egyptians say, in punishment of his crime.”
Among the funeral steles of the Apis, found by Mariette in the
excavations of the Serapeum at Memphis, and which are now in the
Egyptian Museum at the Louvre, are two connected with the facts
recounted by Herodotus: one, whose inscription is almost illegible,
contained the epitaph of the Apis who died in the reign of Cambyses,
and was born, as it seems, in the twenty-fifth year of Aahmes. We
possess, the catalogue says, his sarcophagus, sculptured by order of
Cambyses. The other is the epitaph of the bull who died in the fourth
year of Darius.
“We think,” says M. de Rougé, “that this is the same Apis whom
Cambyses, in his fury, wounded when, on his return from the unfortunate
Ethiopian expedition, he found the Egyptians abandoning themselves to
the rejoicings which accompanied the festivities of the theophany of a
new Apis (in 518 B.C.).” If this be so, this Apis must have survived
his wound nearly five years.
[Sidenote: [522-332 B.C.]]
Darius wished to repair the mistakes of his predecessor, and tried to
conciliate the Egyptians. He put to death the satrap Aryandes, whose
tyranny was already provoking revolts, and, learning that the Apis had
just died, he joined in the public mourning and promised one hundred
talents of gold to whoever should find a new Apis. He visited the
great temple of Ptah and would have placed his statue there beside
that of Sesostris [Ramses II]. The priests told him that he had not
yet equalled the exploits of Sesostris, since he had not subdued the
Scythians. Darius was not offended at this exhibition of national
pride; he answered simply that if he lived as long as Sesostris he
would endeavour to equal him. He had a great temple of Amen, whose
ruins still exist, built in the oasis of Thebes. Finally, he finished
the canal of communication which Seti I and Neku II had wished to
establish between the Nile and the Red Sea. According to Diodorus, his
memory was venerated by the Egyptians, who placed him in the number of
their great legislators.
The kings of Persia who form the XXVIIth Dynasty did not, however,
succeed in making themselves accepted by Egypt. They had not, like
the Shepherd kings, adopted her religion, her language, her writing,
and her manners, and therefore they were always foreigners to her.
Their dominion was rarely oppressive, and yet it was interrupted by
insurrections which always found a support in the Greek republics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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