seashore are safer than those
who dwell upon high and dry places, who in their turn are safer when
the danger is from water. Now the Nile is our saviour from fire, and as
there is little rain in Egypt, we are not harmed by water; whereas in
other countries, when a deluge comes, the inhabitants are swept by the
rivers into the sea. The memorials which your own and other nations
have once had of the famous actions of mankind perish in the waters at
certain periods; and the rude survivors in the mountains begin again,
knowing nothing of the world before the flood. But in Egypt the
traditions of our own and other lands are by us registered for ever in
our temples. The genealogies which you have recited to us out of your
own annals, Solon, are a mere children's story. For in the first place,
you remember one deluge only, and there were many of them, and you know
nothing of that fairest and noblest race of which you are a seed or
remnant. The memory of them was lost, because there was no written
voice among you. For in the times before the great flood Athens was the
greatest and best of cities and did the noblest deeds and had the best
constitution of any under the face of heaven.' Solon marvelled, and
desired to be informed of the particulars. 'You are welcome to hear
them,' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of the
city, and above all for the sake of the goddess who is the common
foundress of both our cities. Nine thousand years have elapsed since she
founded yours, and eight thousand since she founded ours, as our annals
record. Many laws exist among us which are the counterpart of yours as
they were in the olden time. I will briefly describe them to you,
and you shall read the account of them at your leisure in the sacred
registers. In the first place, there was a caste of priests among the
ancient Athenians, and another of artisans; also castes of shepherds,
hunters, and husbandmen, and lastly of warriors, who, like the warriors
of Egypt, were separated from the rest, and carried shields and spears,
a custom which the goddess first taught you, and then the Asiatics, and
we among Asiatics first received from her. Observe again, what care the
law took in the pursuit of wisdom, searching out the deep things of the
world, and applying them to the use of man. The spot of earth which the
goddess chose had the best of climates, and produced the wisest men; in
no other was she herself, the philosopher and warri