During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, the bird called
the phœnix, after a long succession
THE PHŒNIX
APPEARS IN EGYPT |
of ages, appeared in
Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that country
and of
Greece with abundant matter for the
discussion of the marvellous phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on
which they agree with several things, questionable enough indeed, but not
too absurd to be noticed.
That it is a creature sacred to the sun,
differing from all other birds in its beak and in the tints of its plumage,
is held unanimously by those who have described its nature. As to the number
of years it lives, there are various accounts. The general tradition says
five hundred years. Some maintain that it is seen at intervals of fourteen
hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew into the city
called
Heliopolis successively in the reigns of
Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty,
with a multitude of companion birds marvelling at the novelty of the
appearance. But all antiquity is of course obscure. From Ptolemy to Tiberius
was a period of less than five hundred years. Consequently some have
supposed that this was a spurious phœnix, not from the regions of
Arabia, and with none of the instincts which ancient
tradition has attributed to the bird. For when the number of years is
completed and death is near, the phœnix, it is said, builds a nest in
the land of its birth and infuses into it a germ of life from which an
offspring arises, whose first care, when fledged, is to bury its father.
This is not rashly done, but taking up a load of myrrh and having tried its
strength by a long flight, as soon as it is equal to the burden and to the
journey, it carries its father's body, bears it to the altar of the Sun, and
leaves it to the flames. All this is full of doubt and legendary
exaggeration. Still, there is no question that the bird is occasionally seen
in
Egypt.