Histories

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.

In the Babylonian temple there is another shrine below, where there is a great golden image of Zeus, sitting at a great golden table, and the footstool and the chair are also gold; the gold of the whole was said by the Chaldeans to be eight hundred talents' weight.

Outside the temple is a golden altar. There is also another great altar, on which are sacrificed the full-grown of the flocks; only nurslings may be sacrificed on the golden altar, but on the greater altar the Chaldeans even offer a thousand talents' weight of frankincense yearly, when they keep the festival of this god; and in the days of Cyrus there was still in this sacred enclosure a statue of solid gold twenty feet high.

I myself have not seen it, but I relate what is told by the Chaldeans. Darius son of Hystaspes proposed to take this statue but dared not; Xerxes his son took it, and killed the priest who warned him not to move the statue. Such is the furniture of this temple, and there are many private offerings besides.