144 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



They even, says Plutarch *, " look upon children 

 as gifted with a kind of faculty of divination, and 

 they are ever anxious to observe the accidental 

 prattle they talk during play, especially if it be in 

 a sacred place, deducing from it presages of fu- 

 ture events." Omens were frequently drawn from 

 common accidents, as tokens of good and bad luck ; 

 and thus the circumstance of the engineer sighing, 

 while he superintended the transport of a mono- 

 lithic shrine from Elephantine to Sais, was suffi- 

 cient to stop its further progress, and to prevent its 

 introduction into the sacred place intended for its 

 reception t; and Amasis, though a man of strong 

 mind, and more free from prejudices than the 

 generality of his countrymen, was induced to give 

 way to this superstitious fancy. 



Sacrifices of meat offerings, libations, and incense, 

 were of the earliest date in their temples ; and 

 if the assertions of Proclus be true, that " the first 

 people who sacrificed did not ofi'er animals, but 

 herbs, flowers, and trees, with the sweet scent of in- 

 cense," and that "it was unlawful to slay victims," 

 they only apply to the infant state of mankind, and 

 not to that sera, when the Egyptians had already 

 modelled their religious habits and belief into the 

 form presented to us by the sculptures of their 

 monuments. And when he adds, that " no animal 

 should be offered in sacrifice to the gods, though 

 permitted both to good and evil demons," we are 

 not to conclude that the victims slain before the 



* Pint, de Is. et Osir. s. 14. f Herodot. ii. 175. 



