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The Egyptians certainly attached great importance to the cries of children; but H.'s story sounds like a Greek invention, a protest against the Egyptian claim to priority, which he elsewhere accepts. The Egyptians could have claimed βεκός as evidence for their own antiquity, for it resembles one of their words for ‘oil’.

Ἡφαίστου: i.e. Ptah; cf. iii. 37. 2 n. One of the sacred names for Memphis was Het-Ka-Ptah, i.e. ‘temple of the Ka (i.e. the “double”) of Ptah’, from which name some have derived Αἴγυπτος. ‘Memphis’ (= Mennefert, the good place) was only the profane name of the city.

For the temple's importance as a source of H.'s information cf. App. X, § 10, and Introd. § 24.

μάταια: this is perhaps a hit at Hecataeus; for H.'s critical attitude to his countrymen cf. c. 45 nn. Bury (A. G. H. p. 51) thinks H. would have written Ἴωνες, had he meant to criticize Hecataeus, and that he really is here borrowing a point from that writer. But there is no evidence for the borrowing, and it is not likely in itself. It has been argued that this second version is the original form of the story, which H., as a philo-Egyptian, has softened down; on the other hand, the more brutal story may well be only an attempt to rationalize the older legend.

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