ILITHYIA
ILITHYIA (
Εἰλειθυίας πόλις,
Strab. xviii. p.817;
Εἰληθυίας,
Ptol. 4.5.73), a town of the Egyptian Heptanomis, 30 miles NE. of Apollinopolis Magna.
It was situated on the eastern bank of the Nile, in lat. 25° 3′ N.
According to Plutarch (
Isis et Osir. 100.73), Ilithyia contained a temple dedicated to Bubastis, to whom, as to the Taurian Artemis, human victims were, even at a comparatively recent period, sacrificed.
A bas-relief (Minutoi, p. 394, seq.) discovered in the temple of Bubastis at
ElKab, representing such a sacrifice, seems to confirm Plutarch's statement.
The practice of human sacrifice among the Aegyptians is, indeed, called in question by Herodotus (
2.45); yet that it once prevailed among them is rendered probable by Manetho‘s statement of a king named Amosis having abolished the custom,and substituted a waxen image for the human victim. (Porphyr.
de Abstinent. ii. p. 223; Euseb.
Praep. Evang. 4.16; comp. Ovid,
Ov. Fast. 5.621.)
The singularity in Plutarch's story is the recent date of the imputed sacrifices.
[
W.B.D]
