De Iside et Osiride

Many relate that the soul of Typhon himself was divided among these animals. The legend would seem to intimate that all irrational and brutish nature belongs to the portion of the evil deity, and in trying to soothe and appease him they lavish attention and care upon these animals. If there befall a great and severe drought that brings on in excess either fatal diseases or other unwonted and extraordinary calamities, the priests, under cover of darkness, in silence and stealth, lead away some of the animals that are held in honour; and at first they but threaten and terrify the animals,[*](Cf. Mitteis und Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, i. p. 125.) but if the drought still persists,

they consecrate and sacrifice them, as if, forsooth, this were a means of punishing the deity, or at least a mighty rite of purification in matters of the highest importance! The fact is that in the city of Eileithyia they used to burn men alive,[*](Cf. Diodorus, i. 88. 5.) as Manetho has recorded; they called them Typhonians, and by means of winnowing fans they dissipated and scattered their ashes. But this was performed publicly and at a special time in the dog-days. The consecrations of the animals held in honour, however, were secret, and took place at indeterminate times with reference to the circumstances; and thus they are unknown to the multitude, except when they hold the animals’ burials,[*](Cf. 359 d, supra; Diodorus, i. 21. 5; 83. 1 and 5; 84. 7.) and then they display some of the other sacred animals and, in the presence of all, cast them into the grave together, thinking thus to hurt and to curtail Typhon’s satisfaction. The Apis, together with a few other animals, seems to be sacred to Osiris[*](Cf. 362 c-d, supra.); but to Typhon they assign the largest number of animals. If this account is true, I think it indicates that the object of our inquiry concerns those which are commonly accepted and whose honours are universal: for example, the ibis, the hawk, the eynocephalus, and the Apis himself, as well as the Mendes, for thus they call the goat in Mendes.[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 46; Diodorus, i. 84. 4; Strabo, xvii. 1. 19.)