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69.
Some of the Egyptians consider crocodiles sacred; others do not, but treat them as enemies. Those who live near Thebes
and lake Moeris consider them very sacred.
[2]
Every household raises one crocodile, trained to be tame; they put ornaments of glass and gold on its ears and bracelets on its forefeet, provide special food and offerings for it, and give the creatures the best of treatment while they live; after death, the crocodiles are embalmed and buried in sacred coffins.
[3]
But around Elephantine they are not held sacred, and are even eaten. The Egyptians do not call them crocodiles, but khampsae. The Ionians named them crocodiles, from their resemblance to the lizards which they have in their walls1.
1 κροκόδειλος is Ionic for a lizard; the commoner word is σαύρα or σαῦρος. χάμψα is the Egyptian “em-suh,” a name which survives in the Arabic “timsah,” i.e. em-suh with the feminine article prefixed.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (15 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 1.318
- Cross-references to this page
(1):
- Smith's Bio, Cnuphis
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(13):
- LSJ, ἄρτημα
- LSJ, ἀμφιδέα
- LSJ, ἀπό-τακτος
- LSJ, αἱμα^σιά
- LSJ, δι^δάσκω
- LSJ, κροκό-δι_λος
- LSJ, λι?́θ-ι^νος
- LSJ, λίθος
- LSJ, περιέπω
- LSJ, πρόσθιος
- LSJ, χάμψα
- LSJ, χειρο-ήθης
- LSJ, χυ^τός
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