Histories

These Egyptian stories are for the benefit of whoever believes such tales: my rule in this history is that I record what is said by all as I have heard it. The Egyptians say that Demeter and Dionysus are the rulers of the lower world.[*](Isis and Osiris.)

The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air, it enters once more into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand years.

There are Greeks who have used this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not record them.

They said that Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt until the time of King Rhampsinitus was altogether well-governed and prospered greatly, but that Kheops, who was the next king, brought the people to utter misery. For first he closed all the temples, so that no one could sacrifice there; and next, he compelled all the Egyptians to work for him.

To some, he assigned the task of dragging stones from the quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), AfricaNile; and after the stones were ferried across the river in boats, he organized others to receive and drag them to the mountains called Libyan.