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“These Egyptian stories are for the benefit of whoever believes such tales: my rule in this history is that I record what is said by all as I have heard it.” (2.123)
HERODOTUS, HISTORIES, BOOK 2.123; A. D. GODLEY TRANSLATION
Summary
After Proteus, the next king of Egypt was Rhampsinitus. Rhampsinitus had built a treasury for his riches, but was plagued by thieves (see “The Clever Thief” for the full story). It was also told of him that he had traveled to the underworld, while still alive, played dice with Demeter (Isis), and was gifted a golden hand towel. A festival is celebrated in Egypt to commemorate the occasion.
After Rampsinitus, the next king was Kheops. He brought misery to Egypt by closing all the temples and forcing the Egyptians to work on building projects—the most famous being Great Pyramid which took twenty years and a lot of manpower to build. Kheops reigned fifty years and was succeeded by his brother Khephren. Khephren continued what his brother did and reigned fifty-six years. These two kings are remembered hatefully by the people of Egypt.
After Khephren, Mycerinus the son of Kheops became king and he reversed everything his father and uncle had done. He reopened the temples and became one of the most just kings in all of Egyptian history. Anyone who wasn’t satisfied the judgment Mycerinus brought on them would be compensated from Mycerinus’ own treasury. Unfortunately, while Mycerinus was very just, he suffered the death of his only daughter. He set up a memorial for her in one of the chambers of his palace where incense and lamps are burned constantly and is brought out once a year during a festival for Isis. Mycerinus was also condemned by an oracle to die in seven years because Egypt was supposed to suffer misery for 150 years and Mycerinus cut that short. Mycerinus responded by living a life of pleasure, always partying and keeping lamps burning all night, in order to live twelve years worth of life in six and make the oracle false.
The next king was Asukhis who’s only real notable accomplishment is expanding the outer court of the temple of Hephaestus. After him, the blind Anysis became king, but it was during this time the Ethiopians invaded Egypt and their king took over. Anysis fled to the marshes where he built an island out of dirt and ashes. He was delivered food, and the ashes, in secret by some Egyptians. It took the Egyptians 700 years after Anysis’ time to finally find the island he had built it was so secretive. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian king ended up ruling Egypt for fifty years. In the fiftieth year, he had a dream where a voice compelled him to gather up the Egyptian priests and cut them in half. Fearing that it was the gods who were trying to get him to commit a blasphemy so he could be punished, he went back to Ethiopia and Amysis took over as king once again.
After Amysis was Sethos, a priest of Hephaestus. He despised and scorned the warrior class in Egypt, going so far as to take away their lands. Right after this, though, Sennacherib and the Assyrians launched a campaign against Egypt and the Egyptian warriors refused to help Sethos. Sethos spent the night lamenting in the temple of Hephaestus and fell asleep. He had a dream where he believed the god’s voice told him “I shall send you champions.” The next day, he gathered everyone willing to following him—mostly merchants and craftsmen—and went to meet the Assyrians. While the two sides were camped, mice overran Sennacherib’s army and chewed away their quivers, bow strings, and shield straps. This led to a great deal of the Assyrian army being killed or fleeing when the fighting started the next day.
Herodotus then talks about who he believes are the newest of the Greek gods—Dionysus, Heracles, and Pan—and where knowledge of them came from.
The Clever Thief
I wanted to retell this story in its own section because it’s a truly interesting one (yes, even more interesting than Herodotus’ description of the hippopotamus!). I first read Herodotus’ Histories in full around 2018-2019, and this was one of the stories that I always remembered whenever I thought about the Histories. If you want to read the story for yourself, it’s in Book 2.121.
King Rhampsinitus had a stone chamber built next to his palace to keep all of his treasures. The builder, though, fastened one of the stones as such so that it could be easily taken out and replaced without anyone noticing. The opening it created was large enough for one or two people to fit through it.
Years later, the builder was on his death bed. He called his two sons to him and revealed what he had done. He told them after he died they should go to the stone chamber and claim Rhampsinitus’ treasure for themselves. When the builder died, his sons did just that. They found the faulty stone their father had placed and easily entered and exited the chamber with some of Rhampsinitus’ treasure.
The next day Rhampsinitus went to his chamber and was surprised to discover some of his treasure missing. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out how the thieves got in and out of his chamber without a trace. After his chamber was looted a few more times. Rhampsinitus decided to set traps in order to capture the thieves.
When the two thieves next went in the stone chamber, one of them got caught in the trap. He told his brother to cut off his head so he wouldn’t be recognize and their family punished. The brother did just that and left without taking anything.
Rhampsinitus went to his treasure chamber the next day only to discover a headless corpse. He decided to hang the corpse outside the stone chamber for all to see and ordered his guards to bring to him anyone who was seen mourning the corpse. When the thieves’ mother found out her son’s body was hanging outside the stone chamber, unburied and unmourned, she threatened her son to get the body back or she’ll go straight to the king and tell him everything.
The thief harnessed a few donkeys with skins full of wine and set out toward where his brother’s body was being guarded. As he approached, he loosened one of the harnesses and some of the wine skins fell to the ground and began spilling wine everywhere. He pretended to be confounded when the skins fell, and then irate when the guards rushed over with cups and began filling them with the wine that was spilling out. The thief then pretended to be mollified when the guards tried to calm him down and soon they were joking and having a good time. The thief offered the guards more and more wine until they got drunk and fell asleep, then he got his brother’s corpse and went back home.
Rhampsinitus was very angry when he found out the body was taken and the thief got away. He came up with a new plan: he would put his own daughter, the princess, in a brothel. Any man who wanted could sleep with her as long as they first confessed to her the cleverest and most impious act they’ve every committed.1 If a man came and talked about stealing from the king and getting the body down, she was to seize him and not let go. When the thief heard about what the king and princess were doing, he decided to take it as a challenge. He cut off the arm of a fresh corpse and hid it in his cloak. Then, he went to see the princess. When the princess asked him what was the cleverest and most impious act he had committed, he told her the most impious was cutting off his brother’s head after he was caught in the king’s trap, and the cleverest was when he made the guards drunk and got his brother’s body. The princess immediately tried to grab him, but in the darkness she grabbed the severed arm instead and the thief escaped.
When Rhampsinitus heard about this, he was absolutely astonished. Admitting defeat, he sent a proclamation throughout the land that the thief would be granted immunity and a great reward if he would present himself to the king. The thief trusted the kings word and presented himself to him. Rhampsinitus gave the thief his daughter as a wife and declared the thief was the cleverest man in all of Egypt.
Wasn’t that a pretty entertaining story? I think it would make a great adaptation—whether a short story or a novel length tale.
Reincarnation
“The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air, it enters once more into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand years. There are Greeks who have used this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not record them.”
Herodotus, Histories, Book 2.123; A. D. Godley translation
I wanted to include this because it was interesting. I don’t know if it’s actually true that the Egyptians were the first people to believe in the concept of reincarnation as my knowledge of other cultures who do believe in it are very limited.
The Herodotus Machine
“The pyramid was made like stairs, which some call steps and others, tiers. When this, its first form, was completed, the workmen used short wooden logs as levers to raise the rest of the stones; they heaved up the blocks from the ground onto the first tier of steps; when the stone had been raised, it was set on another lever that stood on the first tier, and the lever again used to lift it from this tier to the next. It may be that there was a new lever on each tier of steps, or perhaps there was only one lever, quite portable, which they carried up to each tier in turn; I leave this uncertain, as both possibilities were mentioned.”
Herodotus, Histories, Book 2.125; A. D. Godley translation
While looking up something about Herodotus, it came to my attention that this passage is famous because he describes a contraption the Egyptians used to build the Great Pyramid. Apparently, Leonardo da Vinci tried to make a sketch of the machine based on Herodotus’ description.
So much for aliens building the pyramids.
Unless the conspiracy to cover up the existence of aliens is over 2500 years old.
The X-Files: Ancient Greece edition. Herodotus is a part of a secret society trying to cover up the existence of aliens by watering down all the ancient stories in order to keep people from reaching the conclusion that the ancient gods were actually aliens. Dun dun dun!
That's all for the Histories, Book 2.121-46.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: The Treasure Chamber of Rhampsinites by Evelyn Paul. 1915. An Illustration from Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt by Lewis Spence. The full text can be found here.
1Herodotus does not believe this part of the story to be true.