herodotus

generations of men are equal to ten thousand years, for a hundredyears is three generations of men; and in the one-and-fortygenerations which remain, those I mean which were added to the threehundred, there are one thousand three hundred and forty years. Thus inthe period of eleven thousand three hundred and forty years they saidthat there had arisen no god in human form; nor even before that timeor afterwards among the remaining kings who arose in Egypt, did theyreport that anything of that kind had come to pass. In this time theysaid that the sun had moved four times from his accustomed place ofrising, and where he now sets he had thence twice had his rising, andin the place from whence he now rises he had twice had hissetting;[127] and in the meantime nothing in Egypt had been changedfrom its usual state, neither that which comes from the earth nor thatwhich comes to them from the river nor that which concerns diseases ordeaths. 143. And formerly when Hecataios the historian was in Thebes,and had traced his descent and connected his family with a god in thesixteenth generation before, the priests of Zeus did for him much thesame as they did for me (though I had not traced my descent). They ledme into the sanctuary of the temple, which is of great size, and theycounted up the number, showing colossal wooden statues in number thesame as they said; for each chief-priest there sets up in his lifetimean image of himself: accordingly the priests, counting and showing methese, declared to me that each one of them was a son succeeding hisown father, and they went up through the series of images from theimage of the one who had died last, until they had declared this ofthe whole number. And when Hecataios had traced his descent andconnected his family with a god in the sixteenth generation, theytraced a descent in opposition to this, besides their numbering, notaccepting it from him that a man had been born from a god; and theytraced their counter-descent thus, saying that each one of the statueshad been /piromis/ son of /piromis/, until they had declared this ofthe whole three hundred and forty-five statues, each one beingsurnamed /piromis/; and neither with a god nor a hero did they connecttheir descent. Now /piromis/ means in the tongue of Hellas "honourableand good man." 144. From their declaration then it followed, that theyof whom the images were had been of form like this, and far removedfrom being gods: but in the time before these men they said that godswere the rulers in Egypt, not mingling[128] with men, and that ofthese always one had power at a time; and the last of them who wasking over Egypt was Oros the son of Osiris, whom the Hellenes callApollo: he was king over Egypt last, having deposed Typhon. Now Osirisin the tongue of Hellas is Dionysos.145. Among the Hellenes Heracles and Dionysos and Pan are accountedthe latest-born of the gods; but with the Egyptians Pan is a veryancient god, and he is one of those which are called the eight gods,