Source
herodotus-ii
Herodotus, An Account of Egypt (Histories II), trans. G. C. Macaulay. Public domain, archived as herodotus-book2-account-of-egypt-macaulay.txt. Corrected 2026-07-30 — this line previously named the Rawlinson translation and said the text was not archived; the archived edition is Macaulay's, and it is now quoted throughout. Herodotus is a foreign visitor writing roughly two millennia after the cult began: he is a first-rate witness to Late Period practice he saw, and not a witness to what the goddess meant in the Old Kingdom.
11 attestations across 6 entries rest on this source — 1% of every attestation in the corpus.
What rests on it
If this source were withdrawn, these are the claims that would need re-sourcing. That is the point of listing them.
| Entry | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
| Amun ●full | *Histories* II | Greek identification with Zeus; the Siwa oracle |
| Bastet ●full | *Account of Egypt*, the Egyptian solemn assemblies | Bubastis ranked **first** among them, "with the greatest zeal and devotion," ahead of Busiris, Sais and Heliopolis |
| Bastet ●full | *ibid.*, the voyage to Bubastis | mixed boats; **rattles, flutes, singing, clapping**; landing at every town to **jeer, dance and lift garments**; **seventy myriads** attending; more wine drunk than in the rest of the year |
| Bastet ●full | *ibid.*, the temple at Bubastis | **surrounded by water** on all sides but the entrance; two Nile channels **a hundred feet broad**, tree-shaded; gateway **ten fathoms**, figures **six cubits**; precinct **a furlong every way**; **the city banked up so the temple is looked down into** |
| Bastet ●full | *ibid.*, the sacred animals | killing a cat deliberately punished by **death**; **cats leaping into fires** while Egyptians guard them and let the house burn; **eyebrows shaved** for a dead cat, whole body and head for a dog |
| Bastet ●full | *ibid.* | **dead cats embalmed and carried to Bubastis** for burial — dogs buried in their own cities |
| Bastet ●full | *ibid.* | "**Bubastis in the Hellenic tongue is Artemis**"; "**Artemis is Bubastis**"; Artemis as daughter of Demeter, a genealogy **Aeschylus took from Egypt** |
| Hathor ●full | *Histories* II | Greek identification with Aphrodite |
| Isis ●full | *Histories* II | Greek identification with Demeter |
| Osiris ●full | *Histories* II | Greek identification with Dionysus |
| Ptah ●full | *Histories* II | the Apis bull; identification with Hephaestus |