PYRAMIDS OF SACCARA. 235 
or to molest it'. We are moreover told by 
Pliny, that the Egyptians invoked the Ibis 
against the approach of serpents ^ In the earhest 
ages of Egyptian history, the same regard was 
paid to the Ibis, and for the same cause. Josephus 
mentions this bird in the beginning of his 
Jewish Annals, as harmless to all creatures, 
except to serpents. He relates that Moses, leading 
an army into Ethiopia, made use of the Ibis 
to destroy a swarm of serpents that infested his 
passage \ Cicero alludes to this property in the 
Ibis^ ; and Pliny speaks of the reverence in 
which it was held. The punishment in ThessaJy 
for having occasioned the death of one of these 
birds was equal to that for homicide ^ Thus 
we have the most ample testimony as to the 
veneration in which these birds were univer- 
sally held. The peculiar circumstances which 
(5) Travels, ibid. 
(6) " Invocant et jEgyptii Ibes suas contra serpentium adventum." 
PUn. Hist. Nat. cap. 28. torn. I. p. 530, L. Bat. 1635. 
(7) Josephi Hist. Antiq. Jud. lib. ii. c. 10. Colon. I69I. It is how- 
ever maintained by Savign?/, from the anatomy of the Ibis, that this 
bird could not liave swaUowed serpents. 
(8^ " Ibes maximam vim serpentium con6ciunt," &c. Cic. de Nat. 
Dear. lib. i. p. 210. Ed. Lamb. 
(9) " Honos lis serpentium exitio tantus, ut in Tbessalia capilale 
uerit oceidisse, eademque legibus poena, qua3 in homicidam." Plin. 
Hist. Nat. lib. x. c. 23. torn. I. p. 527. L. Bat. 1635. 
