ntinent, until at last he passed over
to Europe from Asia and subdued the Scythians and also the Thracians.
These, I am of opinion, were the furthest 87 people to which the
Egyptian army came, for in their country the pillars are found to have
been set up, but in the land beyond this they are no longer found. From
this point he turned and began to go back; and when he came to the river
Phasis, what happened then I cannot say for certain, whether the king
Sesostris himself divided off a certain portion of his army and left the
men there as settlers in the land, or whether some of his soldiers were
wearied by his distant marches and remained by the river Phasis.

104. For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I
perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had
come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had
remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians;
but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion
of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not
only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself
amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also
still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of
all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The
Phenicians and the Syrians 88 who dwell in Palestine confess themselves
that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians 89 about
the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who
are their neighbours, say that they have learnt it lately from the
Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision,
and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians. Of
the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able to
say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a most ancient
custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse with the
Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely that those
of the Phenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease to follow the
example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not circumcise their
children.

105. Now let me tell another thing about the Colchians to show how they
resemble the Egyptians:--they alone work flax in the same fashion as the
Egyptians, 90 and the two nations are like one another in their whole
manner of living and also in their