Collected Works of Xenophon

have vanished. And the first monuments created, those by the beasts, happened to be destroyed. For the first generations, there was no history nor account of useful things found for life, since writing was not yet known. Because it was with all, those called wise escaped the truth of writing, since not even the monuments of the dead and the burial of bodies remained, with antiquity being unknown, nor was a single image of those who appeared handed down in poetry. Therefore, many of the ancients faced winters after them. But so that the work of fortune and history might not be lost, and from the teachings of Catolus by experience, being seized by manifest safety, only the hand remains, and those of the possessions that were guarded waited. As it must be, with fire and the other useful things being known, little by little the arts were invented, and the other things able to benefit the common life, just as we have heard from the poets. Perhaps, then, nothing of these vanished, since the appropriation of each is to learn; but they live by opinion, which happened to exist among the ancients. And some indeed find laws. And concerning the first generation of men and the most ancient life, we shall be satisfied with what has been said, aiming at symmetry. Regarding the deeds handed down by memory, we leave nothing untouched. In those brought forth, all the history of the inhabited world will be handed down. For the first kings, we did not set the impulses of speaking, nor did we wish to write every historical detail for those who promised to read. For it is impossible...

to store up some of the things that happened before the events. But for the first gods and heroes in Egypt, and for the writers, the beginnings of history are known, so that it might appear that nothing of the common and beneficial matters passed by our history. The Egyptian record of men, however, is not just theirs, but also many of the blessed kings of these. And they say that history is composed from the individual deeds that occurred, in which the useful things, which are a petition to do according to the law, are deemed worthy of record from the useful things. We, first, judging our own insignificance, shall choose to honor the truth, especially to the times, and as many as we have for you, we shall define. The things said by each concerning antiquity and the ancient deeds, having taken the records, we shall set forth. After the symmetry, we shall speak first of their laws, from which they say their own is older than the destruction by the sun. They say it, but before the history of the Greeks, of those among them, the whole history having started from the Greeks among them who were at a loss, not to dispute any other archaeology. To know among you, especially, since the things of the Egyptians are also recorded. For they mythologize that the gods existed in it, and that the air itself and the most ancient observations are ruled by them. In addition to these, noteworthy and populous men are discovered, having been made for the origins, because of the things done in Egypt. The Egyptians, therefore, say that according to the beginning of the generation of all things, men were first born in Egypt, because of...