When he left there after completing the sacred rites, a letter was presented to him from the governor of Egypt, reporting that after laborious search for a new Apis bull, they had finally, after a time, been able to find one, which (in the belief of the people of that region) is an indication of prosperity, fruitful crops, and various blessings.

About this matter it will be in place to give a brief explanation. Among the animals consecrated by ancient religious observance, the better known are Mnevis and Apis.Cf. Diod. Sic. i. 21, 10; Hdt. iii. 27, 28; Strabo, xvii. 1, 31; Pliny, viii. 184 ff. MnevisOlder than Apis, but later neglected; his shrine was in Heliopolis. is consecrated to the Sun, but about him there is nothing noteworthy to be said; Apis to the moon.Later also to the Sun; Macrob. i. 21, 20. Apis, then, is a bull distinguished by natural marks of various forms,There were twenty-nine in all. and most of all conspicuous for the image of a crescent moon on his right side. When this bull, after its destined span of life,Twenty-five years. is plunged in the sacred fountIts location was a secret known only to the priests. and dies (for it is not lawful for him to prolong his life beyond the time prescribed by the secret authority of the mystic books), there is slain with the same ceremony a cow, which has been found with special marks and presented to him. After his death another Apis is sought amid public mourning; and if it has been possible to find one, complete with all its marks, it is taken to Memphis, famed for the frequent presence of the god Aesculapius.

And when he has been led into the city by a hundred priests and conducted to his chamber, he begins to be an object of worship; and it is said that by manifest signs he gives indications of coming events; and some of those who approach him he evidently rejects by unfavourable signs, as once (so we read)In A.D. 49 in Egypt. Soon after, Plancina, Piso’s wife, was suspected of poisoning him. Cf. Pliny, viii. 185. he turned away from Caesar Germanicus when he offered him food, and thus prophesied what soon after came to pass.

Accordingly, since the occasion seems to demand it, let us touch briefly on matters Egyptian, of which I discoursed at length in connection with the history of the emperors Hadrian and Severus,In lost books. telling for the most part what I myself had seen.

The Egyptian nation is the most ancient of all, except that in antiquity it vies with the Scythians.Cf. Justinus, ii. 1, 5. It is bounded on the southThe account of Ammianus is very confused and inexact. by the Greater Syrtes, the promontories Phycus and Borion, by the GaramantesA nomadic people of Libya. and various other nations. Where it looks directly east it extends to Elephantine and Meroë, cities of the Aethiopians, to the CatadupiAt the cataracts of the Nile. and the Red Sea, and to the Scenitic Arabs, whom we now call the Sercacens.Cf. xiv. 4, 1 ff. On the north it forms part of the boundless tract from which Asia and the provinces of Syria take their beginning. On the west its boundary is the Issiac Sea, which some have called the Parthenian.See xiv. 8, 10, note, and Index I., vol. i.