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Osiris was regularly identified with the bull Apis of Memphis and the bull Mnevis of Heliopolis. But it is hard to say whether these bulls were embodiments of him as the corn-spirit, as the red oxen appear to have been, or whether they were not in origin entirely distinct deities who came to be fused with Osiris at a later time.
He broke into their temples, desecrated their altars, and subjected every thing which they held most sacred to insult and ignominy. Among their objects of religious veneration was the sacred bull called Apis.
Memphis had its Apis, and the Serapeum was indemnified by certain endowments which had formerly been granted to the temple at Memphis. At last, in June, the Emperor could set out. He wished to traverse the province on foot and on horseback, and Sabina was to follow by boat as soon as the inundation should begin.
On the death of the god Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, the chief of the animals which were kept and fed at the cost of the several cities, and who had died of old age soon after Ptolemy came to Egypt, he spent the sum of fifty talents, or $42,500, on its funeral; and the priests, who had not forgotten that Cambyses, their former conqueror, had wounded the Apis of his day with his own sword, must have been highly pleased with this mark of his care for them.
So considerable a number of the workers are compelled to remain on one spot, occupied solely with the maintenance of the heat required by those who are moulding the wax and rearing the brood, that the Apis Dorsata, hanging thus from the branches, will construct but a single comb; whereas if she have the least shelter she will erect four or five, or more, and will proportionately increase the prosperity and the population of the colony.
He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the chief sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque image of Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the inviolable temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering that their images should be burnt.
There was a shorter way to Memphis, but she chose this one, because the mounds of sand on each side of the road bordered by Sphinxes which every day had to be cleared of the desert-drift concealed her from the sight of her companions in the temple; besides the best and safest way into the city was by a road leading from a crescent, decorated with busts of the philosophers, that lay near the principal entrance to the new Apis tombs.
They had not seen a setting of the sun, such as they now regard with their queer eyes, too long and too wide oepn, they had not seen such a thing for some five thousand years. . . . The habitation of the Apis, the lords of the necropolis, is little more than two hundred yards away. We are told that the place is now lighted up and that we may betake ourselves thither.
That hard winter passed under the ferule of the "Bull of Apis" and the "Great Ape," finally came to an end and spring returned; it was always a troublous time for us, the scholars, for the first mild days gave us a great longing to be out, and we could scarcely hide our restlessness.
But he always found time to hunt in the desert, to manage the affairs of state, and to visit the most interesting monuments of past times, and at Memphis especially, the city of the dead, with the Pyramids, the great Sphinx, the Serapeum and the tombs of the Apis. Before quitting the city he and his companions consulted the oracle of the sacred bull.
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