298 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



But Sefoftris, as I have faid, was not the firft who went with 

 an army from Egypt to India. He only followed the way, which 

 Ofiris had led to that country : For Ofiris's expedition was not on- 

 ly recorded in the books of the Priefts of Egypt, but the memory 

 of it was preferved by tradition in India ; and a tradition not a- 

 mong the vulgar, fays Diodorus, but among the moft learned of the 

 Indians. According to this tradition, Dionyfius, that is Ofiris, in the 

 mofl antient times, came from the Weft with a great ai'my into In- 

 dia, introduced civility and arts, and particularly agriculture, and 

 taught them alfo religion. Before he came, the Indians lived in 

 villages ; but Dionyfius built for them great and magnificent towns. 

 He reigned in India 52 years ; after which the Indian traditions 

 made him die in India*. 



In the account Diodorus gives of this tradition, he relates a me- 

 morable ftory preferved by it ; and which, I think, very much con- 

 firms the truth of the tradition. The army of Dionyfius was afflidl- 

 ed by a peftilential difeafe, the effed: of the extraordinary heat of 

 the feafon. The remedy which the wifdom of the leader of this 

 army, fays Diodorus, devifed for this difeafe, was to carry it up to 

 a hill called M/ja;?, fignifying in Greek, and, as it appears, likewife, 

 in the Indian language, a Thigh ; where, by the cool air, and the 

 ufe of pure w^ater immediately from the fprings, the army was re- 

 covered. From hence, he fays, the Greeks formed the fable of 

 Dionyfius, being inclofed and nouriihed in the thigh of Jupiter ; 

 atld thus a true fad may be faid to be attefted by a fable. Here, 

 therefore, we have the truth of this expedition of Ofiris from Egypt 

 to a country fo diftant as India, and in the moft antient times, at- 

 tefted not only by a written record in the one country, but by a 

 eonftant tradition preferved among the moft learned in the other 



country. 



* Diod. lib. 2. cap. 38. 



