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The natives give the subjoined account of this festival. They say
that the mother of the god Mars once dwelt in the temple. Brought up
at a distance from his parent, when he grew to man's estate he
conceived a wish to visit her. Accordingly he came, but the
attendants, who had never seen him before, refused him entrance, and
succeeded in keeping him out. So he went to another city and collected
a body of men, with whose aid he handled the attendants very roughly,
and forced his way in to his mother. Hence they say arose the custom
of a fight with sticks in honour of Mars at this festival.
The Egyptians first made it a point of religion to have no converse
with women in the sacred places, and not to enter them without
washing, after such converse. Almost all other nations, except the
Greeks and the Egyptians, act differently, regarding man as in this
matter under no other law than the brutes. Many animals, they say,
and various kinds of birds, may be seen to couple in the temples and
the sacred precincts, which would certainly not happen if the gods were
displeased at it. Such are the arguments by which they defend their
practice, but I nevertheless can by no means approve of it. In these
points the Egyptians are specially careful, as they are indeed in
everything which concerns their sacred edifices.
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