Histories

Now the Table of the Sun is said to be something of this kind:[*](This story may be an indication of offerings made to the dead, or of a region of great fertility. In Homer the gods are fabled to feast with the Ethiopians.) there is a meadow outside the city, filled with the boiled flesh of all four-footed things; here during the night the men of authority among the townsmen are careful to set out the meat, and all day whoever wishes comes and feasts on it. These meats, say the people of the country, are ever produced by the earth of itself. Such is the story of the Sun's Table.

When Cambyses determined to send the spies, he sent for those Fish-eaters from the city of Elephantine who understood the Ethiopian language.