Histories

Thus they showed that all those whose statues stood there had been good men, but quite unlike gods.

Before these men, they said, the rulers of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt were gods, but none had been contemporary with the human priests. Of these gods one or another had in succession been supreme; the last of them to rule the country was Osiris' son Horus, whom the Greeks call Apollo; he deposed Typhon,[*](Typhon is the Egyptian Set, the god of destruction.) and was the last divine king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt. Osiris is, in the Greek language, Dionysus.

Among the Greeks, Heracles, Dionysus, and Pan are held to be the youngest of the gods. But in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt, Pan[*](The Egyptian Khem.) is the most ancient of these and is one of the eight gods who are said to be the earliest of all; Heracles belongs to the second dynasty (that of the so-called twelve gods); and Dionysus to the third, which came after the twelve.

How many years there were between Heracles and the reign of Amasis, I have already shown; Pan is said to be earlier still; the years between Dionysus and Amasis are the fewest, and they are reckoned by the Egyptians at fifteen thousand.