96 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIV. 



effort to flatter the Italians, who visited the country 

 as strangers, and studious to avoid every thing that 

 could excite disputes, or lead to war, a Roman 

 having killed a cat, and a crowd being collected 

 about his residence, neither the magistrates who 

 were sent by the King to appease their rage, nor 

 the general terror of the Roman name, were able 

 to save the offender from vengeance, although he 

 had done it unintentionally. And this we relate, 

 not from the testimony of others, but from what 

 we ourselves had an opportunity of seeing during 

 our journey in Egypt." " Never," says Cicero*, 

 " did any one hear of a crocodile t, an ibis, or a 

 cat having been killed by an Egyptian." *' Rather 

 would they submit to suffer death than destroy an 

 ibis, an asp, a cat, or a crocodile ; and if any one 

 accidentally injured one of those animals, he would 

 object to no kind of punishment." t 



I have stated the reasons assigned by Diodorus 

 for the worship of sacred animals, and have noticed 

 the ridicule with which the Greeks delighted to 

 treat this strange custom of the Egyptians. § We 

 are not, indeed, surprised that it should have 

 struck any people as absurd and inconsistent ; and 

 the Hebrew legislator felt the necessity of pre- 

 venting the Jews from falling into this, the most 

 gross practice of which idolatry was guilty. The 



* Cic. (le Nat. Deor.i. 29. 



-|- Cicero would have been more correct in substituting a haivk, or a 

 ctfnoccphalnx, for a crocodile, which last was not sacred throughout 

 Egypt. Vide ivfrd, p. 09. and 2;M-. 



f Cic. Tusc. Disput. v. 27. 



5 Infra, p. 101.; and supra, Vol. I. (2d Scries) p. 158. ct scq. 



