ver why they
represent him in this form I prefer not to say. The Mendesians then
reverence all goats and the males more than the females (and the
goatherds too have greater honour than other herdsmen), but of the goats
one especially is reverenced, and when he dies there is great mourning
in all the Mendesian district: and both the goat and Pan are called in
the Egyptian tongue Mendes. Moreover in my lifetime there happened in
that district this marvel, that is to say a he-goat had intercourse with
a woman publicly, and this was so done that all men might have evidence
of it.

47. The pig is accounted by the Egyptians an abominable animal; and
first, if any of them in passing by touch a pig, he goes into the river
and dips himself forthwith in the water together with his garments; and
then too swineherds, though they be native Egyptians, unlike all others
do not enter any of the temples in Egypt, nor is anyone willing to give
his daughter in marriage to one of them or to take a wife from among
them; but the swineherds both give in marriage to one another and take
from one another. Now to the other gods the Egyptians do not think it
right to sacrifice swine; but to the Moon and to Dionysos alone at the
same time and on the same full-moon they sacrifice swine, and then eat
their flesh: and as to the reason why, when they abominate swine at all
their other feasts, they sacrifice them at this, there is a story told
by the Egyptians; and this story I know, but it is not a seemly one for
me to tell. Now the sacrifice of the swine to the Moon is performed as
follows:--when the priest has slain the victim, he puts together the end
of the tail and the spleen and the caul, and covers them up with the
whole of the fat of the animal which is about the paunch, and then he
offers them with fire; and the rest of the flesh they eat on that day of
full moon upon which they have held the sacrifice, but on any day after
this they will not taste of it: the poor however among them by reason of
the scantiness of their means shape pigs of dough and having baked them
they offer these as a sacrifice.

48. Then for Dionysos on the eve of the festival each one kills a pig by
cutting its throat before his own doors, and after that he gives the pig
to the swineherd who sold it to him, to carry away again; and the rest
of the feast of Dionysos is celebrated by the Egyptians in the same
way as by the Hellenes in almost all things except choral dance