Stories of the East from Herodotus, Illustrated Edition (Yesterday's Classics) by Church Alfred J

Author:Church, Alfred J. [Church, Alfred J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781599153865
Publisher: Yesterday's Classics
Published: 2010-11-08T17:34:56.596000+00:00

CHAPTER XI

Of Certain Other Kings of Egypt

AFTER Rhampsinitus there reigned a certain Cheops; and this king did very wickedly, forbidding the people to do sacrifice to the Gods, and making them labour on certain works which he had set in hand. For it was this Cheops that built the greatest of the pyramids. First he made a causeway, five furlongs long and ten fathoms wide, and in height where it is highest eight fathoms. This causeway was for the carrying of the stones. And these stones were cut from quarries in the Arabian hills, and being drawn to the river were carried across by men appointed for that purpose. And afterwards yet other companies of men drew them to the hills that are on the Libyan side. The number of those that worked was one hundred thousand men, and when they had laboured for three months there came another hundred thousand in their room. The causeway was ten years in building and the pyramid twenty. And when it was finished there was written an inscription on it, saying how much had been spent on radishes, and onions, and garlic for them that built it, and the sum was sixteen hundred talents of silver. How much then must have been the cost of the tools of iron that were used in the work, and of the food and clothing of the men! This Cheops reigned fifty years, and after him, Cephrenes, his brother, reigned fifty years and six months, and behaved himself in the same wicked way, oppressing the people and forbidding to worship the Gods. This Cephrenes also built a pyramid for himself, but it was not equal to the pyramid of his brother.

And when Cephrenes was dead, there reigned the son of King Cheops, Mycerinus by name. This man walked not in the ways of his father, but opened the temples, and eased the people, who were now sorely afflicted by their burdens, that they might go about their own business and do sacrifice to the Gods. Also he gave more righteous judgment in all matters than any of the kings of Egypt before him. And not only did he judge righteously, but if any man, his cause having been tried, was nevertheless not satisfied, he would give him of his own substance, even to the full of his desire. Nevertheless to this Mycerinus, though he dealt gently with his people and was just in all his ways, there happened great calamities. For first of all his daughter died, being his only child. For her, wishing to bury her as none other had ever been buried, he contrived a tomb after this fashion. He made the image of a heifer, of wood and hollow, and gilded it over. In this he buried his daughter, and this was not put into the earth but kept in the temple. And one day in every year they carry it out into the light of day, for they say that the daughter of

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