eave a
memorial of themselves; and having so resolved they caused to be made
a labyrinth, situated a little above the lake of Moiris and nearly
opposite to that which is called the City of Crocodiles. This I saw
myself, and I found it greater than words can say. For if one should
put together and reckon up all the buildings and all the great works
produced by Hellenes, they would prove to be inferior in labour and
expense to this labyrinth, though it is true that both the temple at
Ephesos and that at Samos are works worthy of note. The pyramids also
were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to many
works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth surpasses
even the pyramids. It has twelve courts covered in, with gates facing
one another, six upon the North side and six upon the South, joining on
one to another, and the same wall surrounds them all outside; and there
are in it two kinds of chambers, the one kind below the ground and the
other above upon these, three thousand in number, of each kind fifteen
hundred. The upper set of chambers we ourselves saw, going through them,
and we tell of them having looked upon them with our own eyes; but the
chambers under ground we heard about only; for the Egyptians who had
charge of them were not willing on any account to show them, saying that
here were the sepulchres of the kings who had first built this labyrinth
and of the sacred crocodiles. Accordingly we speak of the chambers below
by what we received from hearsay, while those above we saw ourselves and
found them to be works of more than human greatness. For the passages
through the chambers, and the goings this way and that way through
the courts, which were admirably adorned, afforded endless matter for
marvel, as we went through from a court to the chambers beyond it, and
from the chambers to colonnades, and from the colonnades to other rooms,
and then from the chambers again to other courts. Over the whole of
these is a roof made of stone like the walls; and the walls are covered
with figures carved upon them, each court being surrounded with pillars
of white stone fitted together most perfectly; and at the end of the
labyrinth, by the corner of it, there is a pyramid of forty fathoms,
upon which large figures are carved, and to this there is a way made
under ground.

Such is this labyrinth: but a cause for marvel even greater than this is
afforded by the lake, which is called the l