Histories

In the center of this sacred enclosure a solid tower has been built, two hundred and twenty yards long and broad; a second tower rises from this and from it yet another, until at last there are eight.

The way up them mounts spirally outside the height of the towers; about halfway up is a resting place, with seats for repose, where those who ascend sit down and rest.

In the last tower there is a great shrine; and in it stands a great and well-covered couch, and a golden table nearby. But no image has been set up in the shrine, nor does any human creature lie there for the night, except one native woman, chosen from all women by the god, as the Chaldaeans say, who are priests of this god.

These same Chaldaeans say (though I do not believe them) that the god himself is accustomed to visit the shrine and rest on the couch, as in Thebes [32.666,25.683] (deserted settlement), Qina, Upper Egypt, Egypt, AfricaThebes of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt, as the Egyptians say

(for there too a woman sleeps in the temple of Theban Zeus,[*](Amon-Api (Greek *)ame/nwfis); cp. Hdt. 2.42.) and neither the Egyptian nor the Babylonian woman, it is said, has intercourse with men), and as does the prophetess of the god[*](Apollo.) at Patara [29.35,36.2167] (Perseus) Patara in Lycia (region (general)), Turkey, Asia Lycia, whenever she is appointed; for there is not always a place of divination there; but when she is appointed she is shut up in the temple during the night.