Geography

​Having said much about Ammon, we wish to say only this, that in ancient times both divination in general and the oracles were held in greater honor, but now a great neglect prevails, since the Romans are satisfied with the oracles of the Sibyl and the Tyrrhenian prognostications by means of entrails, flight of birds, and signs from heaven. For this reason, the oracle at Ammon has also been almost entirely abandoned, though formerly it was held in honor. This is shown most clearly by those who wrote the history of Alexander’s deeds; for although they add much that shows the character of flattery, yet they also reveal some things that are worthy of belief. Callisthenes, at any rate, says that Alexander was most eager to go up to the oracle because he heard that Perseus and Heracles had gone up there before him; and that, having started from Paraitonion, although south winds fell upon him, he forced his way; and that, when he was lost in the dust, he was saved by the occurrence of rains and by two ravens that guided them on their way, these things being already said in a flattering manner; and the subsequent accounts are of the same kind: for indeed he says that the priest permitted the king alone to enter the temple in his usual dress, while the others changed their clothes, and that all except Alexander heard the oracle from without, but he from within. He says that the revelations were not given, as at Delphi and Branchidae, by means of words, but mostly by nods and symbols, as in Homer: “The son of Cronos spoke, and nodded with his dark brows,” the prophet acting the part of Zeus; however, the man explicitly told the king that he was the son of Zeus. To these things Callisthenes adds in a tragic style that, although the oracle of Apollo at Branchidae had ceased ever since the temple had been plundered by the Branchidae, who sided with the Persians in the time of Xerxes, and although the spring had also failed, yet at that time the spring burst forth again, and the ambassadors of the Milesians brought many oracles to Memphis concerning Alexander’s descent from Zeus, the victory that was to come near Arbela, the death of Darius, and the revolutions in Lacedaemon; and concerning his noble birth he says that the Erythraean Athenaïs also made proclamation, for she was like the ancient Erythraean Sibyl. Such, then, are the accounts of the historians.

​In Abydos they worship Osiris; and in the temple of Osiris it is not permitted for any singer, flute-player, or harp-player to begin a performance to the god, as is the custom for the other gods. After Abydos comes Diospolis Parva, then the city of Tentyra; here, unlike the other Egyptians, the crocodile is held in no honor, but is considered the most hateful of all beasts. For while the others, although they know the wickedness of the animal and how destructive it is to the human race, nevertheless worship it and refrain from harming it, these people trace them in every way and destroy them. Some say that just as the Psylli near Cyrenaica have a certain natural antipathy to reptiles, so the Tentyrites have it to crocodiles, so that they suffer no harm from them, but even dive and cross the river without fear, when no one else dares to do so. And when crocodiles were brought to Rome for exhibition, the Tentyrites accompanied them; a reservoir having been made, and a sort of platform over one of its sides, so that the beasts when they came out of the water might have a place to bask in the sun, these were the men who, entering into the water at the same time, would now drag them out with a net to the basking-place so that they might be seen by the spectators, and now drag them down again into the reservoir. They worship Aphrodite; and behind the temple of Aphrodite is a temple of Isis; then comes the place called Typhonia, and the canal leading to Coptos, a city common to both Egyptians and Arabs.