[40] Next follows the Cynopolite Nome and Cynopolis, where they worship the dog Anubis, and pay certain honours to dogs; a subsistence is there provided for them, as sacred animals. On the other side of the river is the city Oxyrynchus,1 and a nome of the same name. They worship the oxyrynchus, and have a temple dedicated to this animal; but all the other Egyptians worship the oxyrynchus.2 For all the Egyptians worship in common certain animals; three among the land animals, the ox, the dog, and the cat; two among the winged tribe, the hawk and the ibis; and two of the aquatic animals, the fish lepidotus and the oxyrynchus. There are also other animals which each people, independently of others, worship; as the Saïtæ and Thebaïtæ, a sheep; the Latopolitæ, the latus, a fish inhabiting the Nile; the people of Lycopolis, a wolf; those of Hermopolis,3 the cynocephalus; those of Babylon,4 near Memphis, a cephus, which has the countenance of a satyr, and in other respects is between a dog and a bear; it is bred in Ethiopia. The inhabitants of Thebes worship an eagle; the Leontopolitæ, a lion; the Mendesians, a male and female goat; the Athribitæ, a shrewmouse; different people worshipping different animals. They do not, however, assign the same reasons for this difference of worship.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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