se themselves for the sake of
cleanliness, preferring to be clean rather than comely. The priests
shave themselves all over their body every other day, so that no lice or
any other foul thing may come to be upon them when they minister to
the gods; and the priests wear garments of linen only and sandals of
papyrus, and any other garment they may not take nor other sandals;
these wash themselves in cold water twice in the day and twice again
in the night; and other religious services they perform (one may almost
say) of infinite number. 41 They enjoy also good things not a few, for
they do not consume or spend anything of their own substance, but there
is sacred bread baked for them and they have each great quantity of
flesh of oxen and geese coming in to them each day, and also wine of
grapes is given to them; but it is not permitted to them to taste of
fish: beans moreover the Egyptians do not at all sow in their land, and
those which grow they neither eat raw nor boil for food; nay the priests
do not endure even to look upon them, thinking this to be an unclean
kind of pulse: and there is not one priest only for each of the gods but
many, and of them one is chief-priest, and whenever a priest dies his
son is appointed to his place.

38. The males of the ox kind they consider to belong to Epaphos, and
on account of him they test them in the following manner:--If the priest
sees one single black hair upon the beast he counts it not clean for
sacrifice; and one of the priests who is appointed for the purpose makes
investigation of these matters, both when the beast is standing upright
and when it is lying on its back, drawing out its tongue moreover, to
see if it is clean in respect of the appointed signs, which I shall tell
of in another part of the history: 42 he looks also at the hairs of the
tail to see if it has them growing in the natural manner: and if it
be clean in respect of all these things, he marks it with a piece of
papyrus, rolling this round the horns, and then when he has plastered
sealing-earth over it he sets upon it the seal of his signet-ring, and
after that they take the animal away. But for one who sacrifices a beast
not sealed the penalty appointed is death.

39. In this way then the beast is tested; and their appointed manner of
sacrifice is as follows:--they lead the sealed beast to the altar where
they happen to be sacrificing and then kindle a fire: after that, having
poured libations of wine