Source books · Greek and Roman mysteries

Histories

Ἱστορίαι

Herodotus of Halicarnassus · c. 430 BCE

How this book fits

Traditions
Greek and Roman mysteries Egyptian religion and magic
Role in the tradition
Primary source Written from inside the tradition: scripture, revelation, a grimoire, a manifesto or a practical treatise.
Public attention
Unmeasured No Wikidata entry could be matched to this book with confidence, so no attention label was assigned.

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In this study

Nine books of enquiry into the Persian wars and the peoples around them. Book II is given almost entirely to Egypt, and is the oldest sustained account of Egyptian religion by someone outside it that survives.

Its equations between Egyptian and Greek gods are the earliest attested link between the two pantheons, and the channel through which most of what later Europe believed about Egyptian religion arrived.

Cited for 8 sourced claims here, among them correspondences of Amun, Apollo, Artemis, Bastet, Demeter, Dionysos, Horus and Isis.