ngs of them I may record, I
shall record only because I am compelled by the course of the story.

4. But as to those matters which concern men, the priests agreed with
one another in saying that the Egyptians were the first of all men on
earth to find out the course of the year, having divided the seasons
into twelve parts to make up the whole; and this they said they found
out from the stars: and they reckon to this extent more wisely than
the Hellenes, as it seems to me, inasmuch as the Hellenes throw in an
intercalated month every other year, to make the seasons right, whereas
the Egyptians, reckoning the twelve months at thirty days each, bring
in also every year five days beyond the number, and thus the circle of
their seasons is completed and comes round to the same point whence
it set out. They said moreover that the Egyptians were the first who
brought into use appellations for the twelve gods and the Hellenes took
up the use from them; and that they were the first who assigned altars
and images and temples to the gods, and who engraved figures on stones;
and with regard to the greater number of these things they showed me by
actual facts that they had happened so. They said also that the first
man 6 who became king of Egypt was Min; 7 and that in his time all Egypt
except the district of Thebes 8 was a swamp, and none of the regions
were then above water which now lie below the lake of Moiris, to which
lake it is a voyage of seven days up the river from the sea:

5, and I thought that they said well about the land; for it is manifest
in truth even to a person who has not heard it beforehand but has only
seen, at least if he have understanding, that the Egypt to which the
Hellenes come in ships is a land which has been won by the Egyptians as
an addition, and that it is a gift of the river: moreover the regions
which lie above this lake also for a distance of three days' sail, about
which they did not go on to say anything of this kind, are nevertheless
another instance of the same thing: for the nature of the land of Egypt
is as follows:--First when you are still approaching it in a ship and are
distant a day's run from the land, if you let down a sounding-line you
will bring up mud and will find yourself in eleven fathoms. This then so
far shows that there is a silting forward of the land.

6. Then secondly, as to Egypt itself, the extent of it along the sea is
sixty schoines, according to our definition of E