Res Gestae

Trained in this wisdom, Pythagoras, secretly honouring the gods, made whatever he said or believed recognised authority, and often showed his golden thigh at Olympia,[*](Wishing to represent himself as the equal of Apollo. Iamblichus, De Vita Pyth. xxviii. 135, Nauck, τὸν μηρὸν χρύσεον ἐπέδειξεν ʼαβάριδι τῷ ʽγπερβορέῳ, εἰκάσαντι αὑτὸν Ἀπόλλωνα εἰναι τὸν ἐν ʽγπερβορέοις, οὗπερ ἦν ἱερεὺς ὁ ῎αβαρις. This was one of the many absurd fictions of the Neo-Platonic writers.) and let himself be seen from time to time talking with an eagle.

From here Anaxagoras foretold a rain of stones, and by handling mud from a well predicted an earthquake. Solon, too, aided by the opinions of the Egyptian priests, passed laws in accordance with the measure of justice, and thus gave also to Roman law its greatest support.[*](Cf. Hdt. 1, 30, who says that Solon did not come to Egypt until after he had made his laws; see also Aristotle, Const. of Athens. The Romans are said to have made use of his code in compiling the XII Tables.) On this source, Plato

Now the men of Egypt are, as a rule, somewhat swarthy and dark of complexion, and rather gloomy-looking,[*](Or gloomier than magi are. ) slender and hardy, excitable in all their movements, quarrelsome, and most persistent duns. Any one of them would blush if he did not, in consequence of refusing tribute, show many stripes on his body; and as yet it has been possible to find no torture cruel enough to compel a hardened robber of that region against his will to reveal his own name.

Moreover, it is a well-known fact, as the ancient annals show, that all Egypt was formerly ruled by their ancestral kings; but after Antony and Cleopatra were vanquished in the sea-fight at Actium, the country fell into the power of Octavianus Augustus and received the name of a province.[*](It differed, however, from other provinces, in being ruled by a prefect of equestrian rank. See 16, 6, note.) We acquired the dryer part of Libya by the last will of King Apion; we received Cyrene, with the remaining cities of Libya-Pentapolis, through the generosity of Ptolemy.[*](This Ptolemy is identical with (Ptolemaeus) Apion just mentioned, following, as the similarity in language indicates, Rufius Festus, Brev. 13. Cyrenas. . . antiquioris Ptolomaei liberalitate suscepimus; Libyam supremo Apionis regis arbitrio sumus adsecuti. Ptolemaeus Apion, king of Cyrene, died in 96 B.C., but Cyrene first became a Roman province in 74 B.C.; cf. Eutropius, vi. 11, 2, qui rex eius (= Cyrenae) fuerat.) After this long digression, I shall return to the order of my narrative.