Kitap 17
1.40
On the other side of the river is the city Oxyrynchus,Bekneseh. and a nome of the same name. They worship the oxyrynchus, and have a temple dedicated to this animal; but all the other Egyptians worship the oxyrynchus.This fish, a species of sturgeon, received its name from the shape of the head (sharp-pointed), and was said to have been produced from the blood of the wounded Osiris. Aelian. Hist. Animal. x. 46. For all the Egyptians worship in common certain animals; three among the land animals, the ox, the dog, and the cat; two among the winged tribe, the hawk and the ibis; and two of the aquatic animals, the fish lepidotus and the oxyrynchus. There are also other animals which each people, independently of others, worship; as the Saïtae and Thebaïtae, a sheep; the Latopolitae, the latus, a fish inhabiting the Nile; the people of Lycopolis, a wolf; those of Hermopolis,Eshmoon. the cynocephalus; those of Babylon,Babout. near Memphis, a cephus, which has the countenance of a satyr, and in other respects is between a dog and a bear; it is bred in Ethiopia. The inhabitants of Thebes worship an eagle; the Leontopolitae, a lion; the Mendesians, a male and female goat; the Athribitae, a shrewmouse; different people worshipping different animals. They do not, however, assign the same reasons for this difference of worship.
1.41
Then follows the Hermopolite Castle, a place where is collected the toll on merchandise brought down from the Thebaïs. At this place begins the reckoning by schoeni of sixty stadia each, which is continued to Syene and Elephantina. Next is the Thebaïc Keep, and a canal leading to Tanis. Then follow Lycopolis, Aphroditopolis, and Panopolis, an old settlement belonging to masons and weavers of linen.
