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Many things like these are narrated and
pointed out, and if there be some wrho think that
in these are commemorated the dire and momentous
acts and experiences of kings and despots who, by
reason of their pre-eminent virtue or might, laid claim
to the glory of being styled gods, and later had to
submit to the vagaries of fortune,1 then these persons
employ the easiest means of escape from the narrative,
and not ineptly do they transfer the disrepute from
the gods to men; and in this they have the support of
the common traditions. The Egyptians, in fact, have
a tradition that Hermes had thin arms and big elbows,
that Typhon was red in complexion, Horus white, and
Osiris dark,2 as if they had been in their nature but
mortal men. Moreover, they give to Osiris the title
of general, and the title of pilot to Canopus, from
whom they say that the star derives its name ; also
that the vessel which the Greeks call Argo, in form
like the ship of Osiris, has been set among the constellations in his honour, and its course lies not far
from that of Orion and the Dog-star ; of these the
Egyptians believe that one is sacred to Horus and
the other to Isis.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 5.
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