wise man and the prophet, was afraid that the gods would be angry
at him and at the king, if there should appear to have been
violence offered them; who also added this further, [out of his
sagacity about futurities,] that certain people would come to the
assistance of these polluted wretches, and would conquer Egypt,
and keep it in their possession thirteen years; that, however, he
durst not tell the king of these things, but that he left a
writing behind him about all those matters, and then slew
himself, which made the king disconsolate." After which he writes
thus verbatim: "After those that were sent to work in the
quarries had continued in that miserable state for a long while,
the king was desired that he would set apart the city Avaris,
which was then left desolate of the shepherds, for their
habitation and protection; which desire he granted them. Now this
city, according to the ancient theology, was Typho's city. But
when these men were gotten into it, and found the place fit for a
revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of
Hellopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths
that they would be obedient to him in all things. He then, in the
first place, made this law for them, That they should neither
worship the Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from any one of
those sacred animals which they have in the highest esteem, but
kill and destroy them all; that they should join themselves to
nobody but to those that were of this confederacy. When he had
made such laws as these, and many more such as were mainly
opposite to the customs of the Egyptians, (23) he gave order that
they should use the multitude of the hands they had in building
walls about their City, and make themselves ready for a war with
king Amenophis, while he did himself take into his friendship the
other priests, and those that were polluted with them, and sent