and as to these particular animals, they have indeed some reason for what they do, for they are the most domestic, and the most useful to life. The bull, as a plougher, draws furrows for the reception of the seed, and is again the most powerful of all animals to thresh the corn out when it is necessary to purify it of the chaff; the ram gives us the most beautiful garments for the coverings of our persons; for if our bodies were naked, they would easily be destroyed either through heat, or through intense cold, caused at one time by the blaze of the sun, and at another by the cooling of the air. But as it is they go beyond these animals, and select the most fierce, and untameable of all wild animals, honouring lions, and crocodiles, and of reptiles the poisonous asp, with temples, and sacred precincts, and sacrifices, and assemblies in their honour, and solemn processions, and things of that kind.


 


 For if they were to seek out in both elements, among all the things given to man for his use by God, searching through earth and water, they would never find any animal on the land more savage than the lion, or any aquatic animal more fierce than the crocodile, both which creatures they honour and worship; they have also deified many other animals, dogs, ichneumons, wolves, birds, ibises, and hawks, and even fish, taking sometimes the whole, and sometimes only a part; and what can be more ridiculous than this conduct? This was one of the things which especially excited the ridicule of the Romans. Juvenal says, Sat. xv. 1 — 
 Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens Aegyptus portenta colat? Crocodilon adorat Pars haec: illa pavet saturam serpentibus Ibim, Effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci, Dimidio magice resonant ubi Memnone chorda, Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis. Illic coeruleow, hic piscem fluminis, illic Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. Or, as it is translated by Gifford, 
 Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend, The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend? The snake devouring ibis, these enshrine Those think the crocodile alone divine; Others, where Thebes’ vast ruins strew the ground And shattered Memnon yields a magic sound, Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape, And bow before the image of an ape! Thousands regard the hound with holy fear, Not one Diana,