Book 1. Of the Hieroglyphics.

followed this solution, or death of Osiris, and what happened concerning his death, Diodorus thus weaves together: "But," he says, "from the ancient secrets of the Priests who had been in the time of Osiris, it was later discovered that Osiris, justly reigning in Egypt, was killed by his brother Typhon, an impious and nefarious man, whom he cut into twenty-six parts and gave a part to each of those who had been participants with him in such a crime, as if they were accomplices in that deed, and at the same time so that he would have them as faithful defenders and guardians of the kingdom." Isis, having avenged the death of the same brother and husband with the help of her son (his name was Horus), and having killed those who had been accomplices in the slaughter, took the kingdom of Egypt. The battle was joined near a river in the part of Arabia which they call the village of Antaeus: which name the place obtained from the death of Antaeus, killed by Hercules in the time of Osiris. When Isis had found all the dispersed parts of Osiris, except the genitals, desiring that the husband's sepulcher remain uncertain, but that it be held in honor by the Egyptians and by individual men, she composed each of those parts into the form of a man similar to her husband from aromatics and wax. Having subsequently convoked the priests of Egypt, she gave to each the image of Osiris, asserting to them that his body was entrusted to them alone, and adjuring them that they should never reveal to anyone that the burial of Osiris was with them, and that, kept in secret, they should worship him as a God, just as they had observed Osiris while he lived, and with similar ceremony after his passing. But to make the Priests more prompt to these things for her by a greater benefit, she granted them a third part of the fields for the worship and sacred rites of the Gods: These, mindful of the merits of Osiris, and attracted by the benefit of Isis, performed her commands, for which reason even now every priest testifies that Osiris is buried with him. They also hold in honor the creatures originally dedicated to him; and when they die, in their funeral they renew the mourning for Osiris: But the sacred bulls, named the one Apis, the other Memphis, they sacrifice to Osiris, whom all the Egyptians also worship as gods. But Isis is said to have sworn, her husband being dead, that she would marry no one else: She reigned subsequently with a just empire,