LXXIII. 1. Again, as many say that the soul of

Typhon himself was parted among these animals, the myths would oeem enigmatically to hint that every irrational and brutal nature is bom from a part of the
> Lit, "sharp-snout."
* And such things occur "even to tlus day** in India the British Rij.
THE MYSTERIES OF ISIS AND OSIRIS 355
£yil Daimon, and that to appease and soothe him thej pay cult and service to them.
2. But if he fall upon them mighty and dire, bringing on them excessive droughts, or pestilent diseases, or other unlooked-for strange mischances, then the priests lead away at dark in silence quietly some of the venerated [beasts], and threaten and try to scare away the first [one] of them ; if, however, it stops, they consecrate and sacrifice it, as though, I suppose, this were some kind of chastisement of the Daimon, or some specially great means of purification in the greater [emergencies].
3. For in the Goddess-of -child-bed-town ^ they used to bum living men to ashes, as Manethoe has told us, calling them Typhoneian; and the ashes they win- nowed away and scattered.'
4. This, however, was done publicly, and at one special time, in the Dog-days ; whereas the consecrat- ings of the venerated beasts, which are never spoken of and take place at irregular times, according to the emergencies, are unknown to the multitude, except when they have burials, and [the priests] bringing out some of the others, cast them in [to the grave with them] in the presence of aU, — in the belief that they annoy Tjrphon in return and curtail what gives him pleasura For only the Apis and a few other [animals] seem to be sacred to Osiris; while they assign the majority to him [Typhon].
5. And if he [Osiris] is really Season {Logos), I think that the object of our enquiry is found in the case of these [animals] that are admitted to have common honours with him, — as, for instance, the ibis, and hawk, and dog-headed ape; [while] Apis himself [is his
« Over the fields ?
356 THRICB-OREATBST Httltima
soul . . .],^ for thuB, yoa know, Hbej call the goat at Mendea.