Histories

it was not dragged within (so they say) because while it was being drawn the chief builder complained aloud of the great expense of time and his loathing of the work, and Amasis taking this to heart would not let it be drawn further. Some also say that a man, one of those who heaved up the shrine, was crushed by it, and therefore it was not dragged within.

Furthermore, Amasis dedicated, besides monuments of marvellous size in all the other temples of note, the huge image that lies supine before Hephaestus' temple at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, AfricaMemphis; this image is seventy-five feet in length; there stand on the same base, on either side of the great image, two huge statues hewn from the same block, each of them twenty feet high.

There is at Saïs another stone figure of like size, supine as is the figure at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, AfricaMemphis. It was Amasis, too, who built the great and most marvellous temple of Isis at Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, AfricaMemphis.

It is said that in the reign of AmasisEgypt attained to its greatest prosperity, in respect of what the river did for the land and the land for its people: and that the number of inhabited cities in the country was twenty thousand.

It was Amasis also who made the law that every Egyptian declare his means of livelihood to the ruler of his district annually, and that omitting to do so or to prove that one had a legitimate livelihood be punishable with death. Solon the Athenian got this law from Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt and established it among his people; may they always have it, for it is a perfect law.