follows:--Heracles (they say) had an earnest desire to see Zeus, and
Zeus did not desire to be seen of him; and at last when Heracles was
urgent in entreaty Zeus contrived this device, that is to say, he flayed
a ram and held in front of him the head of the ram which he had cut off,
and he put on over him the fleece and then showed himself to him. Hence
the Egyptians make the image of Zeus with the face of a ram; and the
Ammonians do so also after their example, being settlers both from
the Egyptians and from the Ethiopians, and using a language which is a
medley of both tongues: and in my opinion it is from this god that the
Egyptians call Zeus _Amun_. The Thebans then do not sacrifice rams but
hold them sacred for this reason; on one day however in the year, on the
feast of Zeus, they cut up in the same manner and flay one single ram
and cover with its skin the image of Zeus, and then they bring up to
it another image of Heracles. This done, all who are in the temple beat
themselves in lamentation for the ram, and then they bury it in a sacred
tomb.

About Heracles I heard the account given that he was of the number of
the twelve gods; but of the other Heracles whom the Hellenes know I was
not able to hear in any part of Egypt: and moreover to prove that the
Egyptians did not take the name of Heracles from the Hellenes, but
rather the Hellenes from the Egyptians,--that is to say those of the
Hellenes who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon,--of that,
I say, besides many other evidences there is chiefly this, namely that
the parents of this Heracles, Amphitryon and Alcmene, were both of Egypt
by descent, and also that the Egyptians say that they do not know
the names either of Poseidon or of the Dioscuroi, nor have these been
accepted by them as gods among the other gods; whereas if they had
received from the Hellenes the name of any divinity, they would
naturally have preserved the memory of these most of all, assuming that