male or male, is this:--the Mendesians count Pan to
be one of the eight gods (now these eight gods they say came into being
before the twelve gods), and the painters and image-makers represent in
painting and in sculpture the figure of Pan, just as the Hellenes do,
with goat's face and legs, not supposing him to be really like this but
to resemble the other gods; the cause however 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.

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 may 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 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