soldiers would do anything for me, my superior officers could have found much fault, but in the mad Amasis, as they called me, all was overlooked, and among my equals, (the other under-officers) there could be no fun or merry-making unless I took a share in it.  My predecessor king Hophra sent us against Cyrene.  Seized with thirst in the desert, we refused to go on; and a suspicion that the king intended to sacrifice us to the Greek mercenaries drove the army to open mutiny.  In my usual joking manner I called out to my friends:  ’You can never get on without a king, take me for your ruler; a merrier you will never find!’ The soldiers caught the words.  ’Amasis will be our king,’ ran through the ranks from man to man, and, in a few hours more, they came to me with shouts, and acclamations of ’The good, jovial Amasis for our King!’ One of my boon companions set a field-marshal’s helmet on my head:  I made the joke earnest, and we defeated Hophra at Momempliis.  The people joined in the conspiracy, I ascended the throne, and men pronounced me fortunate.  Up to that time I had been every Egyptian’s friend, and now I was the enemy of the best men in the nation.

“The priests swore allegiance to me, and accepted me as a member of their caste, but only in the hope of guiding me at their will.  My former superiors in command either envied me, or wished to remain on the same terms of intercourse as formerly.  But this would have been inconsistent with my new position, and have undermined my authority.  One day, therefore, when the officers of the host were at one of my banquets and attempting, as usual, to maintain their old convivial footing, I showed them the golden basin in which their feet had been washed before sitting down to meat; five days later, as they were again drinking at one of my revels, I caused a golden image of the great god Ra be placed upon the richly-ornamented banqueting-table.

[Ra, with the masculine article Phra, must be regarded as the central point of the sun-worship of the Egyptians, which we consider to have been the foundation of their entire religion.  He was more especially worshipped at Heliopolis.  Plato, Eudoxus, and probably Pythagoras also, profited by the teaching of his priests.  The obelisks, serving also as memorial monuments on which the names and deeds of great kings were recorded, were sacred to him, and Pliny remarks of them that they represented the rays of the sun.  He was regarded as the god of light, the director of the entire visible creation, over which he reigned, as Osiris over the world of spirits.]

“On perceiving it, they fell down to worship.  As they rose from their knees, I took the sceptre, and holding it up on high with much solemnity, exclaimed:  ’In five days an artificer has transformed the despised vessel into which ye spat and in which men washed your feet, into this divine image.  Such a vessel was I, but the Deity, which can fashion better and more quickly than a goldsmith, has made me your king.  Bow down then before me and worship.  He who henceforth refuses to obey, or is unmindful of the reverence due to the king, is guilty of death!’