Herodotus - The Histories.pdf

174 V Herodotus
sions the persons from whom he had stolen would
bring him, if he denied the charge, before the
nearest oracle; sometimes the oracle would pronounce
him guilty of the theft, at other times it
would acquit him. When afterwards he came to
be king, he neglected the temples of such gods as
had declared that he was not a thief, and neither
contributed to their adornment nor frequented
them for sacrifice, since he regarded them as
utterly worthless and their oracles as wholly false:
but the gods who had detected his guilt he considered
to be true gods whose oracles did not
deceive, and these he honoured exceedingly.
First of all, therefore, he built the gateway of the
temple of Minerva at Sais, which is an astonishing
work, far surpassing all other buildings of the
same kind both in extent and height, and built
with stones of rare size and excellency. In the next
place, he presented to the temple a number of
large colossal statues and several prodigious
andro-sphinxes, besides certain stones for the
repairs, of a most extraordinary size. Some of
these he got from the quarries over against