een the foundation of their entire religion. He was more
especially worshipped at Heliopolis. Plato, Eudoxus, and probably
Pythagoras also, profited by the teaching of his priests. The
obelisks, serving also as memorial monuments on which the names and
deeds of great kings were recorded, were sacred to him, and Pliny
remarks of them that they represented the rays of the sun. He was
regarded as the god of light, the director of the entire visible
creation, over which he reigned, as Osiris over the world of
spirits.]

"On perceiving it, they fell down to worship. As they rose from
their knees, I took the sceptre, and holding it up on high with much
solemnity, exclaimed: 'In five days an artificer has transformed the
despised vessel into which ye spat and in which men washed your feet,
into this divine image. Such a vessel was I, but the Deity, which can
fashion better and more quickly than a goldsmith, has made me your king.
Bow down then before me and worship. He who henceforth refuses to obey,
or is unmindful of the reverence due to the king, is guilty of death!'

"They fell down before me, every one, and I saved my authority, but lost
my friends. As I now stood in need of some other prop, I fixed on the
Hellenes, knowing that in all military qualifications one Greek is worth
more than five Egyptians, and that with this assistance I should be able
to carry out those measures which I thought beneficial.

"I kept the Greek mercenaries always round me, I learnt their language,
and it was they who brought to me the noblest human being I ever met,
Pythagoras. I endeavored to introduce Greek art and manners among
ourselves, seeing what folly lay in a self-willed adherence to that
which has been handed down to us, when it is in itself bad and unworthy,
while the good seed lay on our Egyptian soil, only waiting to be sown.

"I portioned out the whole land to suit my purposes, appointed the best
police in the world, and accomplished much; but my highest aim, namely:
to infuse into this country, at once so gay and so gloomy, the spirit
and intellect of the Greeks, their sense of beauty in form, their love
of life and joy in it, this all was shivered on the same rock which
threatens me with overthrow and ruin whenever I attempt to accomplish
anything new. The priests are my opponents, my masters, they hang like a
dead weight upon me. Clinging with superstitious awe to all that is old
and traditionary, ab