THE SCENE: Sit back and listen to Diodorus Siculus describe the legendary animals of Egypt, such as the “hippopotamus” and the “crocodile”.
THE TEXT: As for animals, the Nile breeds many of peculiar form, and two which surpass the others, the crocodile and what is called the “horse” [hippopotamus]. Of these animals the crocodile grows to be the largest from the smallest beginning, since this animal lays eggs about the size of those of a goose, but after the young is hatched it grows to be as long as sixteen cubits. It is as long-lived as man, and has no tongue. The body of the animal is wondrously protected by nature; for its skin is covered all over with scales and is remarkably hard, and there are many teeth in both jaws, two being tusks, much larger than the rest.
It devours the flesh not only of men but also of any land animal which approaches the river. The bites which it makes are huge and severe and it lacerates terribly with its claws, and whatever part of the flesh it tears it renders altogether difficult to heal. In early times the Egyptians used to catch these beasts with hooks baited with the flesh of pigs, but since then they have hunted them sometimes with heavy nets, as they catch some kinds of fish, and sometimes from their boats with iron spears which they strike repeatedly into the head. The multitude of them in the river and the adjacent marshes is beyond telling, since they are prolific and are seldom slain by the inhabitants; for it is the custom of most of the natives of Egypt to worship the crocodile as a god, while for foreigners there is no profit whatsoever in the hunting of them since their flesh is not edible.
The animal called the “horse” is not less than five cubits high, and is four-footed and cloven-hoofed like the ox; it has tusks larger than those of the wild board, but the trunk of its body, as a whole, is not unlike that of the elephant, and its sin is the toughest almost of any beast’s. But even it is caught by the united work of many men who strike it with iron spears; for whenever it appears they converge their boats upon it, and gathering about it wound it repeatedly with a kind of chisel fitted with iron barbs, and then, fastening the end of a rope of tow to one of them which has become imbedded in the animal, they let it go until it dies from loss of blood. Its meat is tough and hard to digest and none of its inwards parts is edible, neither the viscera nor the intestines.
– Bibliotheca Historica, Diodorus Siculus, 1st Century BC
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