sarapas_simplified.mp4
[Hide] (931.7KB, 800x860, 00:12) 4.3 But why do I linger over these, when I can show you the origin of the arch-daemon himself, the one who, we are told, is pre-eminently worthy of veneration by all men, whom they have dared to say is made without hands, the Egyptians Sarapis? Some relate that he was sent by the people of Sinope as a thank-offering to Ptolemy Philadelphus king of Egypt, who had earned their gratitude at a time when they were worn out with hunger and had sent for corn from Egypt; and that this image was a statue of Pluto. On receiving the figure, the king set it up upon the promontory which they now call Rhacotis, where stands the honoured temple of Sarapis; and the spot is close to the burial-places. And they say that Ptolemy had his mistress Blistiche, who had died in Canobus, brought here and buried under the before mentioned shrine. Others say that Sarapis was an image from Pontus, and that it was conveyed to Alexandria with the honour of a solemn festival. Isidorus alone states that the statue was brought from the people of Seleucia near to Antioch, when they too had been suffering from dearth of corn and had been sustained by Ptolemy. But Athenodorus the son of Sandon, while intending to establish the antiquity of Sarapis, stumbled in some unaccountable way, for he has proved him to be a statue made by man. He says that Sesostris the Egyptian king, having subdued most of the nations of Greece, brought back on his return to Egypt a number of skilful craftsmen. He gave them personal orders, therefore, that a statue of Osiris his own ancestor should be elaborately wrought at great expense; and the statue was made by the artist Bryaxis, — not the famous Athenian, but another of the same name, — who has used a mixture of various materials in its construction. He had filings of gold, silver, bronze, iron, lead, and even tin; and not a single Egyptian stone was lacking, there being pieces of sapphire, hematite, emerald, and topaz also. Having reduced them all to powder and mixed the, he stained the mixture dark blue (on account of which the colour of the statue is nearly black), and, mingling the whole with the pigment left over from the funeral rites of Osiris and Apis, he moulded Sarapis; whose very name implies this connexion with the funeral rites, and the construction out of material for burial, Osirapis being a compound form Osiris and Apis.