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By these words H. means: ‘the sun rose four times away from his previous quarter’ (as he explains, ἔνθα τε νῦν ... καταδῦναι), i. e. had changed his place of rising four times, rising in the east for two periods and in the west for two. For belief in this phenomenon cf. Plato, Pol. 269A, who connects it with the story of Thyestes. H.'s own views about the sun (cc. 24-5) are quite as impossible. But H.'s Egyptian informant must have meant something different, i. e. that from Menes to Sethos there were four ‘Sothis periods’ (complete or incomplete) of 1,460 years each (cf. 4 nn.). Only at the beginning of a period did the time of the calendar correspond to the real time; hence the sun might be said to ‘rise four times (only) from his proper place’.

ὑπὸ ταῦτα, ‘during this period’ (cf. ix. 60. 3 for ὑπό). H. refutes by implication his countrymen's beliefs in a Golden Age, in a Deluge, &c.

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