The histories of Herodotus;

124-127] BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS 131
ten years were expended, and in forming the subterranean
apartments on the hill, on which the pyramids stand, which
he had made as a burial vault for himself, in an island, formed
by draining a canal from the Nile. Twenty years were spent
in erecting the pyramid itself: of this, which is square, each
face is eight plethra, and the height is the same; it is composed
of polished stones, and jointed with the greatest exactness
; none of the stones are less than thirty feet. This pyramid
was built thus : in the form of steps, which some call
crossse, others bomides. When they had first built it in this
manner, they raised the remaining stones by machines made
of short pieces of wood : having lifted them from the ground
to the first range of steps, when the stone arrived there, it
was put on another machine that stood ready on the first
range ; and from this it was drawn to the second range on another
machine ; for the machines were equal in number to the
ranges of steps ; or they removed the machine, which was
only one, and portable, to each range in succession, whenever
they wished to raise the stone higher ; for I should relate
it in both ways, as it is related. The highest parts of it, therefore,
were first finished, and afterward they completed the
parts next following; but last of all they finished the parts
on the ground, and that were lowest. On the pyramid is
shown an inscription, in Egyptian characters, how much was
expended in radishes, onions, and garlics for the workmen;
which the interpreter, as I well remember, reading the in-
scription, told me amounted to one thousand six hundred talents
of silver. And if this be really the case, how much more
was probably expended in iron tools, in bread, and in clothes
for the labourers, since they occupied in building the works
the time which I mentioned, and no short time besides, as I
think, in cutting and drawing the stones, and in forming the
subterranean excavations ! It is related that Cheops reached
such a degree of infamy that, being in want of money, he
prostituted his own daughter in a brothel, and ordered her
to extort, they did not say how much ; but she exacted a certain
sum of money, privately, as much as her father ordered
her; and she contrived to leave a monument of herself, and
asked every one that came in to her to give her a stone toward
the edifice she designed : of these stones they said the
pyramid was built that stands in the middle of the three, before
the great pyramid, each side of which is a plethron and
a half in length. The Egyptians say that this Cheops reigned
fifty years ; and when he died, his brother Chephren succeeded
to the kingdom ; and he followed the same practices as