De Iside et Osiride

When Isis recovered Osiris and was watching Horus grow up[*](Cf. 357 c-f, supra.) as he was being made strong by the exhalations and mists and clouds, Typhon was vanquished but not annihilated[*](Cf. 358 d, supra.); for the goddess who holds sway over the Earth would not permit the complete annihilation of the nature opposed to moisture, but relaxed and moderated it, being desirous that its tempering potency should persist, because it w as not possible for a complete world to exist, if the fiery element left it and disappeared. Even if this story were not current among them, one would hardly

be justified in rejecting that other account, to the effect that Typhon, many ages ago, held sway over Osiris’s domain; for Egypt used to be all a sea,[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 5; Diodorus, iii. 3, and i. 39. 11.) and, for that reason, even to-day it is found to have shells in its mines and mountains.[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 12.) Moreover, all the springs and wells, of which there are many, have a saline and brackish water, as if some stale dregs of the ancient sea had collected there.

But, in time, Horas overpowered Typhon; that is to say, there carne on a timely abundance of rain, and the Nile forced out the sea and revealed the fertile land, which it filled out with its alluvial deposits. This has support in the testimony of our own observation; for we see, even to-day, as the river brings down new silt and advances the land, that the deep waters gradually recede and, as the bottom gains in height by reason of the alluvial deposits, the water of the sea runs off from these. We also note that Pharos, which Homer[*](Od. iv. 356. Cf. also Strabo, xii. 2. 4 (p. 536), and xvii. 1. 6 (p. 791).) knew as distant a day’s sail from Egypt, is now a part of it; not that the island has extended its area by rising, or has come nearer to the land, but the sea that separated them was obliged to retire before the river, as the river reshaped the land and made it to increase.

The fact is that all this is somewhat like the doctrines promulgated by the Stoics[*](Cf. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1093 (p. 319).) about the gods; for they say that the creative and fostering spirit is Dionysus, the truculent and destructive is Heracles, the receptive is Ammon, that which pervades the Earth and its products is Demeter and the Daughter,

and that which pervades the Sea is Poseidon.[*](Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 15 (40), ii. 28 (71); and Diogenes Laertius, vii. 147.)