herodotus

iver, for the side towards the East is barred by the Nile itself.Then secondly he established in the city the temple of Hephaistos agreat work and most worthy of mention. 100. After this man the priestsenumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings, threehundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of meneighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and therest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman whoreigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris.Of her they said that desiring to take vengeance for her brother, whomthe Egyptians had slain when he was their king and then, after havingslain him, had given his kingdom to her,--desiring, I say, to takevengeance for him, she destroyed by craft many of the Egyptians. Forshe caused to be constructed a very large chamber under ground, andmaking as though she would handsel it but in her mind devising otherthings, she invited those of the Egyptians whom she knew to have hadmost part in the murder, and gave a great banquet. Then while theywere feasting, she let in the river upon them by a secret conduit oflarge size. Of her they told no more than this, except that, when thishad been accomplished, she threw herself into a room full of embers,in order that she might escape vengeance. 101. As for the other kings,they could tell me of no great works which had been produced by them,and they said that they had no renown[85] except only the last ofthem, Moris: he (they said) produced as a memorial of himself thegateway of the temple of Hephaistos which is turned towards the NorthWind, and dug a lake, about which I shall set forth afterwards howmany furlongs of circuit it has, and in it built pyramids of the sizewhich I shall mention at the same time when I speak of the lakeitself. He, they said, produced these works, but of the rest noneproduced any.102. Therefore passing these by I shall make mention of the king whocame after these, whose name was Sesostris. He (the priests said)first of all set out with ships of war from the Arabian gulf andsubdued those who dwelt by the shores of the Erythraian Sea, until ashe sailed he came to a sea which could no further be navigated byreason of shoals: then secondly, after he had returned to Egypt,according to the report of the priests he took a great army[86] andmarched over the continent, subduing every nation which stood in hisway: and those of them whom he found valiant and fighting desperatelyfor their freedom, in their lands he set up pillars which told byinscriptions his own name and the name of his country, and how he hadsubdued them by his power; but as to those of whose cities he obtainedpossession without fighting or with ease, on their pillars heinscribed words after the same tenor as he did for the nations whichhad shown themselves courageous, and in addition he drew upon them thehidden parts of a woman, desiring to signify by this that the people