herodotus

a shepherd to bring up at the place where his flocks were, with amanner of bringing up such as I shall say, charging him namely that noman should utter any word in their presence, and that they should beplaced by themselves in a room where none might come, and at theproper time he should bring to them she-goats, and when he hadsatisfied them with milk he should do for them whatever else wasneeded. These things Psammetichos did and gave him this charge wishingto hear what word the children would let break forth first, after theyhad ceased from wailings without sense. And accordingly so it came topass; for after a space of two years had gone by, during which theshepherd went on acting so, at length, when he opened the door andentered, both the children fell before him in entreaty and uttered theword /bekos/, stretching forth their hands. At first when he heardthis the shepherd kept silence; but since this word was oftenrepeated, as he visited them constantly and attended to them, at lasthe declared the matter to his master, and at his command he broughtthe children before his face. Then Psammetichos having himself alsoheard it, began to inquire about what nation of men named anything/bekos/, and inquiring he found that the Phrygians had this name forbread. In this manner and guided by an indication such as this, theEgyptians were brought to allow that the Phrygians were a more ancientpeople than themselves. 3. That so it came to pass I heard from thepriests of that Hephaistos who dwells at Memphis;[2] but the Hellenesrelate, besides many other idle tales, that Psammetichos cut out thetongues of certain women, and then caused the children to live withthese women.With regard then to the rearing of the children they related so muchas I have said: and I heard also other things at Memphis when I hadspeech with the priests of Hephaistos. Moreover I visited both Thebesand Heliopolis[3] for this very cause, namely because I wished to knowwhether the priests at these places would agree in their accounts withthose at Memphis; for the men of Heliopolis are said to be the mostlearned in records of the Egyptians. Those of their narrations which Iheard with regard to the gods I am not earnest to relate in full, butI shall name them only,[4] because I consider that all men are equallyignorant of these matters:[5] and whatever things of them I mayrecord, I shall record only because I am compelled by the course ofthe story. 4. But as to those matters which concern men, the priestsagreed with one another in saying that the Egyptians were the first ofall men on earth to find out the course of the year, having dividedthe seasons into twelve parts to make up the whole; and this they saidthey found out from the stars: and they reckon to this extent morewisely than the Hellenes, as it seems to me, inasmuch as the Hellenesthrow in an intercalated month every other year, to make the seasonsright, whereas the Egyptians, reckoning the twelve months at thirty