of Ethiopian marble* of divers colours, but it is not so high as the larger pyramid, near which it stands, by forty feet. This Chephren reigned fifty-six years; the pyramid he built stands on the same hill with that erected by his brother: the hill itself is near one hundred feet high †.

CXXVIII. Thus for the space of one hundred and six years the Egyptians were exposed to every species of oppression and calamity, not having in all this period, permission to worship in their temples. They have so extreme an aversion for the memory of these two monarchs, that they are not very willing to mention their names 26. They call their pyramids by the name

Larcher thinks this was the stone which Pliny calls pyropacilos, that is, granite, and might, the learned Frenchman is of opinion, be brought from Syene, which being on the borders of Ethiopia, might, in less accurate language, be termed Æthiopia itself.

+ Herodote accuse 100 pieds environ pour l'elevation du rocher. M. Norden, c. 3. Mais aucun de ces auteurs n'indique le point duquel il est parti pour apprecier cette hauteur. Le defaut d'evaluer a l'oeil des dimensions dont la verification etait difficile, parait avoir ete de tous les tems: c'est, a mon avis un des motifs des contradictions que l'on rencontre dans differens ouvrages. Jai cru que le niveau des eaux indiquant le point le plus bas, il fallait niveler depuis le canal jusqu'au bas de l'arrete N. E. du Cheops. Grobert.

226 Mention their names.]-Part of the punishment annexed in France to high-treason, and other enormous offences, was the irrevocable extinction of the family name of the convicted persons.

E 2

This

of the shepherd Philitis 227, who at that time fed his cattle in those places.

This is probably the reason, observes M. Larcher, why historians are so much divided in opinion concerning the names of the princes who erected the pyramids.

This seems a proper place to do an act of justice to our countryman Shaw.

In his remarks on this passage of Herodotus, Shaw says, IIerodotus indeed, who has preserved these reports, doth not give much credit to them, which his French translator has thus ignorantly rendered:-"Il faut avouer cependant que Herodote qui nous a transmis tous ces beaux contes ne merite pas d'etre cru a cet regard." Shaw says no such thing; he is, however, evidently mistaken, when he says that of the two great pyramids, Cheops erected the first, and the daughter of Cheops the second. According to Herodotus, Cheops constructed the first, Chephren the second, and Mycerinus the third. That which the daughter of Cheops built was opposite to the first and largest, and in the middle between the two others.

227 Philitis.]-Some of the pyramids in Egypt were styled the pyramids of the shepherd Philitis, and were said to have been built by people whom the Egyptians held in abomination; from whence we may form a judgment of the persons by whom these edifices were erected. Many hills and places of reputed sanctity were denominated from shepherds. Caucasus, in the vicinity of Colchis, had its name conferred by Jupiter, in memory of Caucasus, a shepherd. Mount Citharon, in Boeotia, was called Asterius, but received the former name from one Citharon, a shepherd, supposed to have been there slain.-Bryant.

The shepherds alluded to were probably the Israelites. See some acute remarks on the superstitions and ignorance of the ancient Egyptians in the time of 1Ierodotus, in Gifford's excellent translation of Juvenal, pp. 471, 2, 3.

Qui de iis scripserunt, says Pliny, speaking of the pyramids, sunt Herodotus, Euhemerus, Duris Samius, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander Polyhistor, Buto

nides,

CXXIX. Mycerinus, the son of Cheops, succeeded Chephren: as he evidently disapproved of his father's conduct, he commanded the temples to be opened, and the people, who had been reduced to the extremest affliction, were again permitted to offer sacrifice, at the shrines of their gods. He excelled all that went before him, in his administration of justice. The Egyptians revere his memory beyond that of all his predecessors, not only for the equity of his decisions 223, but because, if complaint was ever made of his conduct as a judge, he condescended to remove and redress the injury 229. Whilst Mycerinus thus distinguished himself by his exemplary conduct to his subjects, he lost his daughter and only child, the first misfortune he experienced. Her death excessively afflicted him; and wishing to honour her funeral with more than ordinary splendour, he enclosed her body

in

nides, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demeteles, Apion. Inter eos omnes non constat a quibus factæ sint, justissimo casu obliteratis tantæ vanitatis auctoribus.

228

Equity of his decisions.]—It appears, as well from this paragraph as the remainder of the chapter, that the kings administered justice to their subjects in person. It is not, therefore, very easy to see what could induce M. Pauw to assert that the sovereigns of Egypt had not the power of deciding in any civil cause.-Larcher.

229 Redress the injury.]-Diodorus Siculus relates the same fact; and says, that he expended large sums of money in making compensation to such as he thought injured by judicial decisions.-T.

in an heifer 230 made of wood, and richly ornamented with gold 231.

230 In an heifer.]-The Patrica were not only rites of Mithres, but also of Osiris, who was in reality the same deity. We have a curious inscription to this purpose, and a representation which was first exhibited by the learned John Price, in his observations upon Apuleius. It is copied from an original which he saw at Venice, and there is an engraving from it in the edition of Herodotus by Gronovius, as well as in that by Wesseling, but about the purport of it they are strangely mistaken. They suppose it to relate to a daughter of Mycerinus, the son of Cheops. She died, it seems, and her father was so affected with her death, that he made a bull of wood, which he gilt, and in it interred his daughter. Herodotus says that he saw the bull of Mycerinus, and that it alluded to this history. But notwithstanding the authority of this great author, we may be assured, that it was an emblematical representation, and an image of the sacred bull, Apis and Mnevis.-Bryant.

Larcher is very severe on Mr. Bryant for his mistake about the print above mentioned. But after all there is nothing but the cow, the cloth over her, and the incense burning before her, that has the smallest reference to the story of the daughter of Mycerinus; nor is it easy to see how the inscription can be applied to it. If it represents an Ægyptian ceremony, it is more natural to assign it to that of the month 'Athyr, mentioned by Plutarch. How Larcher found out that this print represents a cow, and not a bull, does not appear.

Besides all this, Herodotus does not say that he saw either bull or heifer. He says, indeed, that it remained to his time, but that he relates only what he was told.

23 Gold.]-The prophet Isaiah threatening the people of Israel for their blind confidence in Egypt, says, "Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornaments of thy molten images of gold." Winkelmann, speaking of the antiquity of art in Egypt, says, "Les figures taillées originairement en bois, et les statues jettées en fonte, ont toutes leur denomination particuliere dans la langue Hebraïque par la suite des tems les premieres furent dorées ou revêtues de lames d'or."-T.

CXXX. This heifer was not buried; it remained even to my time, in the palace of Sais, placed in a superb hall. Every day, costly aromatics were burnt before it, and every night it was splendidly illuminated; in an adjoining apartment are deposited statues of the different concubines of Mycerinus, as the priests of Sais informed me. These are to the number of twenty; they are colossal figures, made of wood, and in a naked state, but what women they are intended to represent, I presume not to say: I merely relate what I was told.

CXXXI. Of this heifer, and these colossal figures, there are some who speak thus: Mycerinus, they say, conceived an unnatural passion for his daughter, and offered violence to her person. She having, in the anguish of her mind, strangled herself, her father buried her in the manner we have described. The mother cut off the hands of those female attendants, who assisted the king in his designs upon his daughter, and therefore these figures are marked by the same imperfections, as distinguished the persons they represent, when alive. The whole of this story 23, and that in particular which relates to the

132 The whole of this story.] In the old version of Herodotus before quoted, this passage is rendered thus: 5 But this is as true as the man in the moone, for that a man with