READING DESCRPTIONS

1. "... For the common people those were hard years. The Nile flooded less and the
barley withered in the fields. The ground cracked and turned to dust and in the countryside
menand womenslaughteredtheiroxenandthen their girl babies because there was nothing
for anyof themto eat.The citiesbecame crowdedwiththosewho fled the land, but the price
of food had risen until ordinary working people could hardly afford to buy it- once I saw
pressed dates being sold for equal weights of silver- and those without employment could
afford nothing, not the poorest broken millet.
Sometimesriotsbroke out,andthese were trulydreadful.Theybegin withsometrivial
disturbance when,forinstance,apeddler,selling vegetables beneath a canvas awning, at last
is made impatient by the heat and worry and weariness, and perhaps by a pity he cannot
afford to indulge, and too roughly turns away a beggar, of which were are always too many.
The beggar objects and onlookers take sides. Some say the beggar is a thief, but most the
peddler,whoisresented for being rich enough to have something to sell. Soon a mob forms.
The peddler's stall is torn down and looted. Perhaps the peddler is even killed- surely he is
killed. All at once people who for as long as they can recall have known nothing but misery
now know power and the thirst for revenge and blind rage. The mob is like a mad animal- it
plundersanddestroys.Tobe outside istoinvite death. No one's life is safe. There is blood on
the cobblestones and the white sand in the streets drinks it up.
Then, suddenly, things have gone too far. The rich, behind the stone walls of their
houses,feel threatened-someone might presume to plunder not a vegetable peddler's stall,
but them. The soldiers are called out. There is a massacre as innocent and guilty alike fall
before the swords and the chariot wheels. Screams rend the air into tatters. By sundown the
riverisfilledwithbloatedcorpsesandthe crocodiles gorge themselves. For days the vultures
walk along the muddy banks, too heavy with carrion even to fly.
Thus was Egypt in the time I lived there, and each year it grew worse..."
NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”

2. "...We stayed there for six months. I have difficulty in describing Athens, for by
comparison with the other great cities I have seen it is hardly more than a tawdry little
waterfrontsettlement,andyetitmade a considerable impressiononme.For one thing, it was
a Greek city, and that separated it at once from the rest of the world.
I was struckimmediately by the fact that there were no grand palaces or temples, for
the Greeks seem to think that buildings are only for sleeping in - they live in their
marketplaces, for they are the most sociable of races.
A Greek is always talking, either debating the significance of some piece of news or
complaining to anyone who will listen about prices or the general unworthiness of human
nature. It is for this reason, I think, that the Greek tongue is so powerful and supple an
instrument, for it is in constant use.
There are alsono kings,the Athenians having expelled them at least a hundred years
before.The government and most of the wealth are controlled by an aristocracy, but this is a
very fluid body into which a man may rise if he has gathered enough silver to himself. In the
councilsof war, a commonsoldiermayargue strategywitha general,and if he carries opinion
withhimcan succeedto the command.AnAthenian,like everyotherGreek,regardshimself as
being at least as good as any man alive, so they do not tolerate much insolence from their
leaders. Yet, although the kings are gone, one can still see the remains of their citadel. Like
many Greek cities, Athens is built around a huge outcropping of rock, the site of an arcopolis
surrounded with fortresslike walls.
The Atheniansuse theirsasa temple districtandforritual enactments of the stories of
theirgodsduringthe Festival of Dionysos,whichisa rather frenzied affair. They worship their
gods as they do everything else, in public, and they seem to have no priestly caste. Piety is a
duty of the citizen and therefore incumbent on all..."
NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”

3. "...Their writing is impossible, yet a man may learn to speak the Egyptian tongue
quickly enough. Within a month I had some few hundred words, although I hardly needed
them. I rarelymetanyone whocouldnotstumble through a little Greek, and this, so Prodikos
ledme to understand, would be the case everywhere except the dustiest village-"Here they
are used to doing business with us, but even in the great cities upriver, Greek is quite the
fashion. Poor simple souls, it makes them feel part of the world."
Yet menmaydwell togetherinsomethingsmallerthanaworldand not know it for the
same place.Eventhislittle town, builtuponanislandin one of the lesserchannelsof the River
Nile, the Egyptians knew by a different name, calling it Piemro, and there they lived as
separate an existence as if they had raised their houses beyond the dome of heaven.
At first I imagined I must have come among a race of women, for the men are slight
and smooth-limbedandshave theirfacesandeventheirheads,preferring to wear wigs rather
than their own hair. A beard, prized by all other races as the symbol of manly authority, is
regardedwithdisgust, asbothuncleaninitself and a disfigurement to the beauty of the face.
As a mark of rank sometimesahighofficial will wear a false beard, a few strands of hair glued
to the chin, or perhaps only a lacquered wooden box to represent one, but even this very
unwillingly, And all, men and women alike, paint around their eyes-this not only from vanity
but as a sovereign protection against infections, which are common among them; yet it
surprised me, since in the lands between the rivers it is a thing practiced only by harlots.
Although the weather in Naukratis was not as warm as it would have been even in
Nineveh, the Egyptiansof the upper classes covered themselves with few garments, for both
sexesare mightilyproudof theirdaintybodies.The menusually wear only a short skirt of thin
pleatedlinen, andthe womenfrequentlygoaboutwiththeirbreastsuncovered,paintingtheir
nipples a vivid red. They decorate their arms with gold and sometimes silver braceIets -the
silver, which is more highly prized, is brought in by the Greeks from Thrace and Macedonia -
and their wigs, which they trim with gold, are often dyed bright blue.
Only the priests, it seemed, covered themselves from shoulder to foot, which was
perhapswell done since manyof themwere astonishinglyfat. The priestsof all nations, I have
observed,tendtocorpulence,butnowhere more so than in Egypt. They are also arrogant and
greatly hated for this and also for their greed, which is insatiable, the gods in Egypt being
richereventhanPharaoh.The priestsdonot wearwigs,but theirshavenheadsglistenwithoil.
Yet the priests, though hated, are powerful, and this because no people are more in
awe of their gods than the Egyptians. The gods own Egypt, Pharaoh being but one among
them,andno mastereverheldhisslave in suchbondage thantheydo the people of that land.
No farmer opens his irrigation sluices without first offering sacrifice to obtain the water god
Sobk's approval. The harlot prays to Mut, consort of Amun, before she visits her first
customer, and the warrior promises to sprinkle the altar of Hathor with blood -unless his
grandfatherwasa Libyan,inwhichcase he ismore likelytofavor Neit. In the land of my birth,
and even among the Greeks, the gods are imagined as having the shapes of men, but the
Egyptiansrepresenttheirswiththe headsof jackals,hawksandcrocodiles, making them seem
fearful andrevoltingcreatures,which,farfrom being an insult, is taken as the special mark of
theirholiness. Yet for all this, the Egyptians seem to live on the best of terms with their gods
and take a childishdelightinhonoringthem.Everymonthhasalmostas manyfestivalsasdays,
whenshrinesare carried through the streets of every city and village and their way is strewn

4. withflowers.The godsdwellamongmen, making a paradise of the Land of Egypt, and for this
reason the Egyptians regard themselves as blessed above all other peoples, both in this life
and the next.Andthe reasonforthisfoolishconfidence isnotdifficulttodiscover, forthe chief
of theirgodsisthe great riveritself, which has nourished the Egyptians and framed the terms
of their lives since the foundations of the world.
The Nile isnothinglike the Tigris,to whose rushing waters I had listened all my life. A
man whogrowsup by the Tigrisunderstandsthe tenuousnessof hisholdon existence, for the
floods may come suddenly and sweep him and all he cares for into oblivion-or they may not
come at all,thathe diesof want.These are the facts whichgovernhis tenure on the earth and
shape his understanding of what it means to be alive. Thus in the east the river-dwelling
people trust neither to the future nor to the mercy of their gods.
But the Nile is a sluggish, predictable, good-hearted river, and as a consequence the
Egyptians are more cheerful and weaker than the men of Ashur. They believe that all is for
their good because their river is kind to them, and thus they commit the folly of believing in
the benevolence andwisdomof theirgodsandevenof their king. Their language has no word
for "fate," as does the Akkadian of the east, and they do not understand its blind and
capriciouspower.Theyare like childrenina worldtheybelieve filled with their own toys. It is
possible to pity them, but not very much, for the gods seem to smile on their folly and have
blessed them with an empty history.
Egypt is a land famous for its magicians, many of whom practice their art for the
entertainmentof anywhomightstopin the streettowatch them.Once I saw an oldNumidian
whocould cause what looked like an ordinary river reed to turn into a serpent and then back
into a reed again; I tried to buy the reed from him that I might discover how the trick was
done, but he would not sell it, explaining that such reeds were only to be found in the place
where he hadbeenborn,whichwasmany months' journeytothe south, by a great lake which
is the Nile's mother. Thus might a man spend many hours filling his eyes with wonders and
delightinghissenses.Duringthe daythere wasthe bazaar and at night there were the brothels
where every taste could be satisfied, for the harlots of that city, both in the Greek and the
Egyptian quarters, are noted for their beauty no less than for their skill.
The country people of the Deltaare usuallywilling enough to sell their daughters into
slaveryfora few pieces of silver, enough to pay their taxes to Pharaoh that year and perhaps
leave themwithalittle withwhichtocelebrate the Feast of Osiris, but the Greek brothels are
forced to import their women. In every city in Egypt, yet nowhere more than in Naukratis,
there is a brisk traffic in girls between the ages of perhaps eight or nine and fifteen years of
age -aharlot hasa shortcareer,and a good one, like an acrobat or a musician, must begin her
trainingearlyif hermaster is to have his profit out of her. Thus it was that Selana entered my
life,while she wasyetachild,before love anda woman's beauty had awakened within her..."
NicholasGuild, “The Blood Star”