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ξυρῶνται. H. says (37. 2) the priests shaved their whole body every third day; of this there is no evidence on the monuments, but other authorities confirm it (e.g. Diod. iii. 3 (vaguely) and Plut. Mor. 352; de I. et O. 4), and it is probable, in view of the extreme cleanliness of the Egyptians. He is too absolute in saying that all Egyptians shaved (τέως ἐξυρημένοι); in fact he himself says (iii. 12. 3) that in few countries are bald men so rare as in Egypt. Probably some classes, e.g. the priests of the New Empire, completely shaved (Erman, E. pp. 218-19), and most had their hair very short. But soldiers wore their natural hair, and so did artists, if we may trust the curious self portrait of Hui (of the time of Amenophis III, eighteenth dynasty, Z. A. S. xlii. 130).

κεκάρθαι. So Achilles (Il. xxiii. 141) cuts off his hair on the death of Patroclus.

ἱκνέεται: sc. κῆδος, ‘whom the grief concerns.’

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