342 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XV. 



tale : and Herodotus justly blames the Greeks * 

 for supposing that " a people, to whom it was for- 

 bidden to sacrifice any animal, except pigs, geese, 

 oxen, and calves, and this only provided they were 

 clean, should ever think of immolating a human 

 being. t" 



Some have felt disposed to believe that in the 

 earliest times (to which indeed Manetho and Dio- 

 dorus confine those sacrifices), and long before 

 they had arrived at that state of civilisation in 

 which they are represented by the Bible history 

 and the monuments, the Egyptians may have been 

 guilty of these cruel practices and have sacrificed 

 their captives at the altars of the Gods. The 

 abolition of the custom was said to have taken 

 place in the reign of Amosis t ; and M. de Pauw, 

 who is disposed to believe the statement, en- 

 deavours to excuse them by observing §, that 

 •' the famous act for burning heretics alive was 

 only abrogated in England under the reign of 

 Charles II.," as though it were analogous to a hu- 

 man sacrifice. Many even suppose the record of 

 this ancient custom may be traced in the groups 

 represented II on the fa9ades of Egyptian temples; 



* It was a Greek custom in early times. Twelve Trojan captives 

 were killed at the funeral of Patroclus, xi. 33. Mcnchuis was seized 

 by the Egy[)tians for sacrificing young children, with the (ireek notion 

 of appeasing the wind's. (Ilerodot. ii. 119.) 



Conf. " Sanguine placastis vcntos, et virginc cocsa." 



Virg. ^n. ii. IIG. 



-)- Ilerodot. ii. 4.5. 



j Certainly not the Amosis of the eighteenth dynasty. 



5 Sm- les i'^gyptiens et Ics (!hinois, vol. ii. p. 113. 



II The men put to death in the ceremonies represented in the tombs 



