And they have good reason for this belief; for Busiris established for them numerous and
 varied practices of piety and ordered them by law even to worship and to revere certain
 animals which among us are regarded with contempt, not because he misapprehended their
 power, but because he thought that the crowd ought to be habituated to obedience to all
 the commands of those in authority, and at the same time he wished to test in visible matters how they felt in regard to the
 invisible. For he judged that those who belittled these instructions would perhaps look
 with contempt upon the more important commands also, but that those who gave strict
 obedience equally in everything would have given proof of their steadfast piety. If one were not determined to make haste, one might cite many admirable instances of the
 piety of the Egyptians, that piety which I am neither the first nor the only one to have
 observed; on the contrary, many contemporaries and predecessors have remarked it, of whom
 Pythagoras of Samos is one The celebrated philosopher; cf. Hdt. 4.95 . 
 On a visit to Egypt he became a student of the
 religion of the people, and was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy, and more
 conspicuously than others he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial
 purity, since he believed that even if he should gain thereby no greater reward from the
 gods, among men, at any rate, his reputation would be greatly enhanced. And this indeed happened to him. For so greatly did he surpass all others in reputation
 that all the younger men desired to be his pupils, and their elders were more pleased to
 see their sons staying in his company than attending to their private affairs. And these
 reports we cannot disbelieve; for even now persons who profess to be followers of his
 teaching are more admired when silent than are those who have the greatest renown for
 eloquence. Perhaps, however, you would reply against all I have said, that I am praising the land,
 the laws, and the piety of the Egyptians, and also their philosophy, but that Busiris was
 their author, as I have assumed, I am able to offer no proof whatever. If any other person
 criticized me in that fashion, I should believe that his censure was that of a scholar;
 but you are not the one to reprove me.