Now for the Egyptians, perhaps they are the only nation that
have had this extraordinary privilege, to have never served
any of those monarchs who subdued Asia and Europe, and
this on account, as they pretend, that the gods fled into their
country, and saved themselves by being changed into the
shapes of wild beasts! Whereas these Egyptians (15) are the
very people that appear to have never, in all the past ages,
had one day of freedom, no, not so much as from their own
lords. For I will not reproach them with relating the manner
how the Persians used them, and this not once only, but
many times, when they laid their cities waste, demolished
their temples, and cut the throats of those animals whom
they esteemed to be gods; for it is not reasonable to imitate
the clownish ignorance of Apion, who hath no regard to the
misfortunes of the Athenians, or of the Lacedemonians, the
latter of whom were styled by all men the most courageous,
and the former the most religious of the Grecians. I say
nothing of such kings as have been famous for piety,
particularly of one of them, whose name was Cresus, nor
what calamities he met with in his life; I say nothing of the
citadel of Athens, of the temple at Ephesus, of that at
Delphi, nor of ten thousand others which have been burnt
down, while nobody cast reproaches on those that were the
sufferers, but on those that were the actors therein. But now
we have met with Apion, an accuser of our nation, though
one that still forgets the miseries of his own people, the
Egptians; but it is that Sesostris who was once so celebrated a
king of Egypt that hath blinded him. Now we will not brag of
our kings, David and Solomon, though they conquered many
nations; accordingly we will let them alone. However, Apion