was reported to
the king, he was at first amazed at the ready invention and daring of
the fellow, and then afterwards he sent round to all the cities and made
proclamation granting a free pardon to the thief, and also promising a
great reward if he would come into his presence. The thief accordingly
trusting to the proclamation came to the king, and Rhampsinitos greatly
marvelled at him, and gave him this daughter of his to wife, counting
him to be the most knowing of all men; for as the Egyptians were
distinguished from all other men, so was he from the other Egyptians.

After these things they said this king went down alive to that place
which by the Hellenes is called Hades, and there played at dice with
Demeter, and in some throws he overcame her and in others he was
overcome by her; and he came back again having as a gift from her a
handkerchief of gold: and they told me that because of the going down of
Rhampsinitos the Egyptians after he came back celebrated a feast, which
I know of my own knowledge also that they still observe even to my time;
but whether it is for this cause that they keep the feast or for
some other, I am not able to say. However, the priests weave a robe
completely on the very day of the feast, and forthwith they bind up the
eyes of one of them with a fillet, and having led him with the robe to
the way by which one goes to the temple of Demeter, they depart back
again themselves. This priest, they say, with his eyes bound up is led
by two wolves to the temple of Demeter, which is distant from the city
twenty furlongs, and then afterwards the wolves lead him back again from
the temple to the same spot. Now as to the tales told by the Egyptians,
any man may accept them to whom such things appear credible; as for me,
it is to be understood throughout the whole of the history that I write
by hearsay that which is reported by the people in each place. The
Egyptians say that Demeter and Dionysos are rulers of the world below;
and the Egyptians are also the first who reported the doctrine that the
soul of man is immortal, and that when the body dies, the soul enters
into another creature which chances then to be coming to the birth, and
when it has gone the round of all the creatures of land and sea and of
the air, it enters again into a human body as it comes to the birth;
and that it makes this round in a period of three thousand years. This
doctrine certain Hellenes adopted, some earlier and some