The History of Monsters 95

against the injuries of dust and air, it was rolled up; and for this reason, it was called a *volumen* (a roll). The reader would likewise carefully draw this parchment sheet from its case and unroll it. A similar scroll from the ancients, inscribed with Greek letters, is preserved in the Museum of the Most Illustrious Senate of Bologna; we provide here an illustration of it shown from both sides, though today we use paper books in its place.

In ancient times, it was also customary to perform sacred rites to the gods with the head covered, so that gods and men would be treated with vastly different levels of honor. For in showing honor to a person, the head was uncovered so that everything about the one honoring would be open to the one being honored.

Likewise, according to Varro, among the ancients, joining right hand to right hand was a sign of greeting—a rite that has survived even to our own times. Indeed, according to Cornelius Tacitus, it was the custom of certain barbarian kings to clasp right hands whenever they entered into a fellowship; they would bind and wound their thumbs, then take turns licking the blood that flowed from them.

Furthermore, in the past, a raised hand—especially during military speeches—indicated consensus and approval. However, this rite was first observed among the Hebrews, as we read in Leviticus that Aaron, lifting his hand, blessed the people.

Hands stretched toward heaven signified adoration, as did the back of the hand offered to be kissed. For this reason, Pliny wrote that there was a certain sanctity in the right hand because its back was sought for kisses. It was also an institution in the religion of the ancients that castrated priests were devoted to the perpetual service of the Mother of the Gods. This was to show that those who had violated the name of their parents should be punished with a penalty that prevented them from ever becoming parents themselves, thus searing the mark of an ungrateful spirit toward their parents onto their very brows. Lucretius expressed this in the following way:

"They assign Galli to her because those who have violated the name of the Mother, and have been found ungrateful to their fathers, intend to signify that they should be thought unworthy to bring living offspring into the regions of light."

The ancients also believed it was an inexpiable crime to violate the tombs of the dead. Therefore, they established a law that the place where human corpses were buried was sacred. Consequently, they used to say of anyone for whom everything went poorly that he had "pissed on his father's ashes."

We must now turn to the more specific customs of various nations, though we shall mention only the most prominent ones.

First, the ancient Ethiopians worshipped the rising sun and pursued the setting sun with dire curses; they would cast the deceased into flowing water. More recently, however, the Ethiopians revere their King, the Prester, as a priest.

The Egyptians, while sacrificing, would pray loudly in the hearing of the people for the continued health of the present King. They worshipped various animals and treated diseases solely through vomiting and fasting. They neglected the construction of houses but built tombs with sumptuous magnificence, as if to show these were the eternal dwellings of the dead. Furthermore, at banquets furnished with a massive display of food, an image of death was carried around by someone and displayed with these words:

"Gaze upon this, whatever it may be, and indulge your spirit as much as you please: for you shall one day become just like it."

But the most beautiful custom of all is when the Egyptians, using a Niloscope, measure and predict the flooding of the Nile.

On an island called Michias, they have a trench eighteen fathoms deep. At the bottom of this is an underground aqueduct corresponding to the vertical level of the Nile’s water. Additionally, a column marked with eighteen distinct fathom-intervals is erected in this same pit. Thus, those charged with this duty observe whether the Nile water, diverted into the pit through the aqueduct, reaches the first or second mark on the column. From this, they foretell what the Nile's flood will be like, and they immediately spread the news throughout the entire region via boys sent out like heralds. Through long experience, they have observed that when the water reaches the fifteenth fathom on the column, it will be a most fertile year due to the Nile's inundation. At twelve fathoms, the harvest will be mediocre; and at eight, there will be a shortage of grain. However, if the water exceeds the fifteenth fathom and reaches the eighteenth, they then fear that all of Egypt will be washed away by a flood, which usually lasts for eighty days. To make this clearer, an illustration of the Niloscope is displayed.