ars are found to have been set up, but in the land beyond this
they are no longer found. From this point he turned and began to go
back; and when he came to the river Phasis, what happened then I cannot
say for certain, whether the king Sesostris himself divided off a
certain portion of his army and left the men there as settlers in
the land, or whether some of his soldiers were wearied by his distant
marches and remained by the river Phasis. For the people of Colchis are
evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it
from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them
both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the
Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that
the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was
so I conjectured myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have
curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races
which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians,
and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision
from the first. The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine
confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and
the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the
Macronians, who are their neighbors, say that they have learnt it
lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise
circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the
Egyptians. Of the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I
am not able to say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a
most ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse
with the Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely
that those of the Phenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease
to follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not
circumcise their children. Now let me tell another thing about the
Colchians to show how they resemble the Egyptians:--they alone work flax
in the same fashion as the Egyptians, and the two nations are like one
another in their whole manner of living and also in their language: now
the linen of Colchis is called by the Hellenes Sardonic, whereas that
from Egypt is called Egyptian. The pillars which Sesostris king of Egypt
set up in the various countries are for the most part no longer to be
seen extant; but in