Note 586 — Chapter XX · EGYPTIANS.

Diodorus (i, 70-73) gives an elaborate description of the monastic strictness with which the daily duties of the Egyptian king were measured out by the priests: compare Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 353, who refers to Hekatæus (probably Hekatæus of Abdêra) and Eudoxus. The priests represented that Psammetichus was the first Egyptian king who broke through the priestly canon limiting the royal allowance of wine: compare Strabo, xvii, p, 790.

The Ethiopian kings at Meroê are said to have been kept in the like pupillage by the priestly order, until a king named Ergamenês, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt, emancipated himself and put the chief priests to death (Diodor. iii, 6).