All the Egyptians sacrifice the pure male kine and calves, but they are not allowed to sacrifice the females, for they are sacred to Isis; the image of Isis is made in the form of a woman with the horns of a cow, as the Greeks represent Io; and all Egyptians alike pay a far greater reverence to cows than to any other cattle. No Egyptian man or woman will kiss a Greek on the mouth; or use the knife, spit, or cauldron of a Greek, or taste of the flesh of a pure ox that has been divided by a Greek knife. They bury the kine that die in the following manner: The females they throw into the river, and the males they inter in the suburbs, with one horn, or both, appearing above the ground, for a mark. When it is putrified, and the appointed time arrives, a raft comes to each city from the island called Prosopitis, in the Delta, which is nine schœni in circumference. Now in this island Prosopitis there are several cities; but that from which the rafts come to take away the bones of the oxen, is called Atarbechis; in it a temple of Venus has been erected. From this city then many persons go about to other towns; and having dug up the bones, carry them away, and bury them in one place; and they bury all other cattle that die in the same way that they do the oxen; for they do not kill any of them. All those who have a temple erected to Theban Jupiter, or belong to the Theban district, abstain from sheep, and sacrifice goats only. For the Egyptians do not all worship the same gods in the same manner, except Isis and Osiris, who, they say, is Bacchus. On the other hand, those who frequent the temple of Mendes, and belong to the Mendesian district, abstain from goats, and sacrifice sheep. The Thebans say that this custom was established among them in the following way: that Hercules was very desirous of seeing Jupiter, but Jupiter was unwilling to be seen by him; at last, however, as Hercules persisted, Jupiter flayed a ram, cut off the head, and held it before himself, and then having put on the fleece, showed himself to Hercules. From this circumstance the Egyptians make the image of Jupiter with a ram's face; and the Ammonians, who are a colony of Egyptians and Ethiopians, and who speak a language between both, have adopted the same practice; and, as I conjecture, the Ammonians thus derived their name, for the Egyptians call Jupiter, Ammon. The Thebans then do not sacrifice rams, being for this reason accounted sacred by them; on one day in the year, however, at the festival of Jupiter, they kill and flay one ram, put it on this image of Jupiter, and bring an image of Hercules to it; then all who are in the temple beat themselves in mourning for the ram, and bury him in a sacred vault.