Busiris

Furthermore, the cultivation of practical wisdom may also reasonably be attributed to Busiris. For example, he saw to it that from the revenues of the sacrifices the priests should acquire affluence, but self-control through the purifications prescribed by the laws, and leisure by exemption from the hazards of fighting and from all work.

And the priests, because they enjoyed such conditions of life, discovered for the body the aid which the medical art affords[*](Cf. Hdt. 2.84 and Hdt. 3.129.), not that which uses dangerous drugs, but drugs of such a nature that they are as harmless as daily food, yet in their effects are so beneficial that all men agree the Egyptians are the healthiest and most long of life among men; and then for the soul they introduced philosophy's training, a pursuit which has the power, not only to establish laws, but also to investigate the nature of the universe.

The older men Busiris appointed to have charge of the most important matters, but the younger he persuaded to forgo all pleasures and devote themselves to the study of the stars, to arithmetic, and to geometry; the value of these sciences[*](For the views of Isocrates in regard to the sciences see Isoc. 12.26-27.) some praise for their utility in certain ways, while others attempt to demonstrate that they are conducive in the highest measure to the attainment of virtue.

The piety of the Egyptians and their worship of the gods are especially deserving of praise and admiration. For all persons who have so bedizened themselves as to create the impression that they possess greater wisdom, or some other excellence, than they can rightly claim, certainly do harm to their dupes; but those persons who have so championed the cause of religion that divine rewards and punishments are made to appear more certain than they prove to be, such men, I say, benefit in the greatest measure the lives of men.

For actually those who in the beginning inspired in us our fear of the gods, brought it about that we in our relations to one another are not altogether like wild beasts[*](In Isoc. 3.6, Isocrates affirms that the power of speech and of reason has enables us to escape the life of wild beasts. See also Isoc. 4.48 ff.) So great, moreover, is the piety and the solemnity with which the Egyptians deal with these matters that not only are the oaths taken in their sanctuaries more binding than is the case elsewhere, but each person believes that he will pay the penalty for his misdeeds immediately and that he will neither escape detection for the present nor will the punishment be deferred to his children's time.

And they have good reason for this belief; for Busiris established for them numerous and varied practices of piety and ordered them by law even to worship and to revere certain animals which among us are regarded with contempt, not because he misapprehended their power, but because he thought that the crowd ought to be habituated to obedience to all the commands of those in authority,

and at the same time he wished to test in visible matters how they felt in regard to the invisible. For he judged that those who belittled these instructions would perhaps look with contempt upon the more important commands also, but that those who gave strict obedience equally in everything would have given proof of their steadfast piety.

If one were not determined to make haste, one might cite many admirable instances of the piety of the Egyptians, that piety which I am neither the first nor the only one to have observed; on the contrary, many contemporaries and predecessors have remarked it, of whom Pythagoras of Samos is one[*](The celebrated philosopher; cf. Hdt. 4.95.) On a visit to Egypt he became a student of the religion of the people, and was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy, and more conspicuously than others he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial purity, since he believed that even if he should gain thereby no greater reward from the gods, among men, at any rate, his reputation would be greatly enhanced.

And this indeed happened to him. For so greatly did he surpass all others in reputation that all the younger men desired to be his pupils, and their elders were more pleased to see their sons staying in his company than attending to their private affairs. And these reports we cannot disbelieve; for even now persons who profess to be followers of his teaching are more admired when silent than are those who have the greatest renown for eloquence.

Perhaps, however, you would reply against all I have said, that I am praising the land, the laws, and the piety of the Egyptians, and also their philosophy, but that Busiris was their author, as I have assumed, I am able to offer no proof whatever. If any other person criticized me in that fashion, I should believe that his censure was that of a scholar; but you are not the one to reprove me.

For, when you wished to praise Busiris, you chose to say that he forced the Nile to break into branches and surround the land[*](Cf. Hdt. 2.16, where the same verb (PERIRRH/GNUMI) is used in connexion with the branches of the Nile in the Delta.), and that he sacrificed and ate strangers who came to his country; but you gave no proof that he did these things. And yet is it not ridiculous to demand that others follow a procedure which you yourself have not used in the slightest degree?

Nay, your account is far less credible than mine, since I attribute to him no impossible deed, but only laws and political organization, which are the accomplishments of honorable men, whereas you represent him as the author of two astounding acts which no human being would commit, one requiring the cruelty of wild beasts, the other the power of the gods.

Further, even if both of us, perchance, are wrong, I, at any rate, have used only such arguments as authors of eulogies must use; you, on the contrary, have employed those which are appropriate to revilers. Consequently, it is obvious that you have gone astray, not only from the truth, but also from the entire pattern which must be employed in eulogy.

Apart from these considerations, if your discourse should be put aside and mine carefully examined, no one would justly find fault with it. For if it were manifest that another had done the deeds which I assert were done by him, I acknowledge that I am exceedingly audacious in trying to change men's views about matters of which all the world has knowledge.

But as it is, since the question is open to the judgement of all and one must resort to conjecture, who, reasoning from what is probable, would be considered to have a better claim to the authorship of the institutions of Egypt rather than a son of Poseidon, a descendant of Zeus on his mother's side, the most powerful personage of his time and the most renowned among all other peoples? For surely it is not fitting that any who were in all these respects inferior should, in preference to Busiris, have the credit of being the authors of those great benefactions.

Furthermore, it could be easily proved on chronological grounds also that the statements of the detractors of Busiris are false. For the same writers who accuse Busiris of slaying strangers also assert that he died at the hands of Heracles;

but all chroniclers agree that Heracles was later by four generations than Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, and that Busiris lived more than two hundred years earlier than Perseus. And yet what can be more absurd than that one who was desirous of clearing Busiris of the calumny has failed to mention that evidence, so manifest and so conclusive?

But the fact is that you had no regard for the truth; on the contrary, you followed the calumnies of the poets, who declare that the offspring of the immortals have perpetrated as well as suffered things more atrocious than any perpetrated or suffered by the offspring of the most impious of mortals; aye, the poets have related about the gods themselves tales more outrageous than anyone would dare tell concerning their enemies. For not only have they imputed to them thefts and adulteries, and vassalage among men, but they have fabricated tales of the eating of children, the castrations of fathers, the fetterings of mothers, and many other crimes[*](e.g., Hermes steals Apollo's oxen (HH Herm.); the illicit love of Ares and Aphrodite (Hom. Od. 8); Apollo, servant of Admetus (Eur. Alc.); Cronus devours his children and mutilates his father Uranus; and Hephaestus fetters Hera.)

For these blasphemies the poets, it is true, did not pay the penalty they deserved, but assuredly they did not escape punishment altogether; some became vagabonds begging for their daily bread; others became blind; another spent all his life in exile from his fatherland and in warring with his kinsmen; and Orpheus, who made a point of rehearsing these tales, died by being torn asunder[*](For example, Homer was represented as a blind wanderer; Stesichorus was smitten with blindness for abuse of Helen in his verses; and Orpheus was torn to pieces by the women of Thrace. Perhaps Archilochus is the poet in exile.)

Therefore if we are wise we shall not imitate their tales, nor while passing laws for the punishment of libels against each other, shall we disregard loose-tongued vilification of the gods; on the contrary, we shall be on our guard and consider equally guilty of impiety those who recite and those who believe such lies[*](The poet Xenophanes, and later Plato, had strongly protested against the attribution of immoralities to the gods.)