ceremonies. Hence it was generally believed that their sacrifices were peculiarly acceptable in heaven, and that they were under the immediate protection of the deity.[1] In reward for their piety, Diodorus assures us, they had remained as free as the Arabs of the peninsula, and had escaped invasion even from the arms of Hercules and Bacchus.[2] We are further informed that their worship was directed in the first place to an immortal being, whom they looked upon as the creator of the universe; and secondly, to a deity of inferior power, and partaking of mortal nature;[3] perhaps these coincided with the demiurgic and created gods of the Egyptian and Platonic philosophers. Their theologies embraced also as inferior deities the sun and the moon, and others which were analogous to, perhaps the prototypes of, Jupiter, Hercules, Pan, and Isis.[4] In his attempt to reach Ethiopia from Egypt, Cambyses experienced the strength and bravery of its inhabitants, the reports
- ↑ Diod. Sic. lib. iii. c. 2. p. 175—Διο και την παρ’ αυτοις ευσεβειαν, he observes, διαβεβοησθαι παρα πασιν ανθρωποις, και δοκειν τας παρ’ Αιθιοψι θυσιας μαλιστ’ ειναι τῳ δαιμονιῳ κεκαρισμενας. This idea appears to have been very old among the Greeks, for Homer says—
Ζευς γαρ επ’ Ωκεανον μετ’ αμυμονας Αἰθιοπηας
Χθιζος εβη μετα δαιτα· θεοι δ’ ἁμα παντες ἑποντο.
Il. A. 423.
Homer doubtlessly heard of their fame from the Egyptians.
- ↑ Diod. Sic. p. 175.
- ↑ Θεον δε νομιζουσι, τον μεν αθανατον, τουτον δ’ ειναι τον αιτιον των παντων· τον δε θνητον, ανωνυμον τινα, και ου σαφη. κ.τ.λ.. Strabo, lib. xvii. c. 2. p. 473.
- ↑ Diodorus, p. 179. Strabo, ib.
