A calf conceived by a flash of light
Herodotus tells the story of Apis in the third book of his Histories, in his account of Cambyses the son of Cyrus. Cambyses came to Memphis after he had lost a large part of his army, and at that time Apis appeared to the Egyptians. The Greeks, Herodotus adds, call this god by a name of their own. The Egyptians put on their finest clothes and held festivals. Cambyses thought that they were glad because he had fared badly, and he called the officers who governed Memphis. They told him that a god had appeared to them. This god appeared only after long intervals, they said, and whenever he appeared, all the Egyptians rejoiced and kept a festival. Cambyses said that they lied, and he had them put to death. Then he called the priests. They gave him the same answer, and he told them that if a tame god had come to the Egyptians, he would know of it. He ordered them to bring Apis to him, and while the priests go to fetch the calf, Herodotus stops to say what Apis is.
ὁ δὲ Ἆπις οὗτος ὁ Ἔπαφος γίνεται μόσχος ἐκ βοός, ἥτις οὐκέτι οἵη τε γίνεται ἐς γαστέρα ἄλλον βάλλεσθαι γόνον. Αἰγύπτιοι δὲ λέγουσι σέλας ἐπὶ τὴν βοῦν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ κατίσχειν, καί μιν ἐκ τούτου τίκτειν τὸν Ἆπιν
“Now this Apis-Epaphos is a calf born of a cow who after this is not permitted to conceive any other offspring; and the Egyptians say that a flash of light comes down from heaven upon this cow, and of this she produces Apis” — Herodotus, Histories 3.28.2, tr. G. C. Macaulay
In this account the calf has a mother and no bull for a father. The cow bears Apis, and after this birth she conceives no other offspring. What makes her conceive is a flash of light, σέλας in the Greek, which comes down on her from heaven. Herodotus does not give this as his own claim. He reports it as what the Egyptians say. Budge repeats the account from Herodotus, and in his version the flash from heaven is lightning.
Budge also says that it is not known how Apis came to hold so high a place among the animal gods of Egypt. He reports two accounts of the beginning of the cult. According to Aelian, Apis was already held in the greatest honour in the time of the first historical king of Egypt. Manetho says instead that Apis was appointed to be a god under Kaiekhos, a king of the Second Dynasty.
The signs of the god
Herodotus then lists the marks by which this calf is known.
ἔχει δὲ ὁ μόσχος οὗτος ὁ Ἆπις καλεόμενος σημήια τοιάδε ἐὼν μέλας, ἐπὶ μὲν τῷ μετώπῳ λευκόν τι τρίγωνον, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ νώτου αἰετὸν εἰκασμένον, ἐν δὲ τῇ οὐρῇ τὰς τρίχας διπλᾶς, ὑπὸ δὲ τῇ γλώσσῃ κάνθαρον
“This calf which is called Apis is black and has the following signs, namely a white square upon the forehead, and on the back the likeness of an eagle, and in the tail the hairs are double, and on the tongue there is a mark like a beetle” — Herodotus, Histories 3.28.3, tr. G. C. Macaulay
The calf is black, and he carries four signs: a white mark on the forehead, the likeness of an eagle on the back, double hairs in the tail, and a mark like a beetle at the tongue. The Greek text quoted here reads τρίγωνον, a triangle, for the white mark and puts the beetle under the tongue, while Macaulay, who follows the manuscripts, translates a square and puts the beetle on the tongue.
Herodotus had already come near these signs in his second book. There he says that the Egyptians hold all the male cattle to belong to this same god, and that a priest tests each one before it may be sacrificed. If the priest sees one single black hair on the beast, he counts it unclean. He draws out its tongue, to see whether it is clean of the appointed signs, and Herodotus says that he will tell of those signs in another part of his history. The priest also looks at the hairs of the tail, to see that they grow in the natural way. A beast that passes the test is marked with a band of papyrus round its horns and sealed, and the penalty for the sacrifice of an unsealed beast is death. Read together, the two books appear to describe one set of marks from two sides. A black coat, a sign at the tongue and double hairs in the tail show that a calf is the god, and a black hair, a sign at the tongue or tail hairs that do not grow naturally make an ox unfit for sacrifice.
Later writers give Apis other marks. Budge reports that Pliny describes a conspicuous white spot on the right side of the bull, in the form of a crescent, and that Aelian says the priests knew Apis by twenty-nine distinct marks.
The dagger of Cambyses
Herodotus goes back to the story when the priests return with the calf.
Ὡς δὲ ἤγαγον τὸν Ἆπιν οἱ ἱρέες, ὁ Καμβύσης, οἷα ἐὼν ὑπομαργότερος, σπασάμενος τὸ ἐγχειρίδιον, θέλων τύψαι τὴν γαστέρα τοῦ Ἄπιος παίει τὸν μηρόν
“When the priests had brought Apis, Cambyses being somewhat affected with madness drew his dagger, and aiming at the belly of Apis, struck his thigh” — Herodotus, Histories 3.29.1, tr. G. C. Macaulay
The blow misses the place it was aimed at. Cambyses wants the belly and strikes the thigh. Then he laughs at the priests. He asks them whether gods are born like this, with blood and flesh, and able to feel the stroke of iron, and he says that such a god is worthy of the Egyptians. He orders the priests to be scourged without mercy and any Egyptian found keeping the festival to be put to death. So the festival comes to an end, and the god is left with his wound.
ὁ δὲ Ἆπις πεπληγμένος τὸν μηρὸν ἔφθινε ἐν τῷ ἱρῷ κατακείμενος. καὶ τὸν μὲν τελευτήσαντα ἐκ τοῦ τρώματος ἔθαψαν οἱ ἱρέες λάθρῃ Καμβύσεω
“Apis wounded by the stroke in his thigh lay dying in the temple. Him, when he had brought his life to an end by reason of the wound, the priests buried without the knowledge of Cambyses” — Herodotus, Histories 3.29.3, tr. G. C. Macaulay
The priests bury the god in secret, λάθρῃ Καμβύσεω in the Greek, without the knowledge of the king who killed him. Herodotus then reports what the Egyptians say: after this evil deed Cambyses became absolutely mad, though he had not been in his right senses even before. This atlas records Apis as slain by Cambyses on the strength of this chapter.
Herodotus brings the wound back at the end of the king’s life. As Cambyses leapt onto his horse, the cap of his sword-sheath fell off, and the bare sword struck his thigh. He was wounded, Herodotus says, in the same part where he had once struck Apis, the god of the Egyptians. The bone became diseased and the thigh mortified, and the wound killed him. He had reigned seven years and five months. The story that began with a dagger in the thigh of the god ends with a sword in the thigh of the king.
The second life of Ptah
Herodotus places the home of the god at Memphis. In his second book he tells how Psammetichos, once he had power over all Egypt, built the gateway on the south side of the temple of Ptah at Memphis, a god whom Herodotus calls by a Greek name. Opposite that gateway Psammetichos built a court for Apis, and Apis was kept there whenever he appeared. Pillars ran all round the court, figures covered it, and in place of columns, statues twelve cubits high held up its roof. The chapter ends with the name that the Greeks give to Apis.
Budge gathers what later classical writers say about the cult at Memphis. When a new Apis had been found, he was brought to that city. Two chambers were set apart for him there, and the people came to learn omens from them: it was a good or a bad sign according to the chamber that Apis entered. He gave answers to those who consulted him by taking food from their hands. Strabo, as Budge cites him, describes a courtyard in front of the sanctuary of Apis, with a second sanctuary for the mother of the god, and in that courtyard Apis was let loose so that his worshippers could see him.
Budge thinks that the cult of Apis is very ancient. In one place or another, he says, the bull was always worshipped in Egypt as the figure of strength, of virility and of might in battle. He sets the bull beside Osiris: Osiris, as a water god, poured the Nile over the land, and Apis gave the Egyptians the strength with which they ploughed it. Budge then says what became of Apis when the Egyptians began to build systems of theology.
when theological systems began to be made in Egypt this ancient god was incorporated in them, and at Memphis we find that he was regarded as the “second life of Ptah” — E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. 2, p. 350
The old god of strength was not set aside when the theologians came. He was given a place in their systems, and at Memphis that place was beside the god of the temple. Herodotus put the court of Apis opposite the gateway of the temple of Ptah. Budge’s phrase goes further and makes the bull a second life of Ptah himself. This atlas records the link as an identification with Ptah at Memphis.
Joined to Osiris after death
The Egyptians, Budge says, connected Apis with Osiris both in his life and in his death, and their beliefs about the two gods were very closely associated. He describes what was thought to happen when the bull died.
The soul of Apis was thought to go to heaven after the death of the body in which it had been incarnate, and to join itself to Osiris, when it formed with him the dual god Asar-Hapi — E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. 2, p. 349
Budge gives the dual god a second name, Osiris-Apis. This is why this atlas records Apis as identified with Osiris after death. The link shows in the images too. From scenes on coffins and stelae, Budge says, Apis had the attributes of Osiris, the great god of the Underworld, above all after the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and he is often shown with a mummy on his back. Budge describes the double god, Asar-Hapi or Hapi-Asar, as a bull with the solar disk and a uraeus between its horns. Egyptian bronze figures show Apis as a very powerful beast with massive limbs and body. A triangular piece of silver is set in the forehead and a disk and a uraeus between the horns, figures of vultures with outstretched wings are cut in outline above the legs, and a rectangular cloth with a diamond pattern is cut on the back. The bronzes, Budge notes, naturally show no trace of the beetle at the tongue or of the double hairs in the tail.
Herodotus says only that the priests buried the god in secret. Of the tombs of the Apis bulls under the Early and Middle Empires, Budge says, nothing is known. But the discovery of the Serapeum at Sakkara showed that as far back as the Eighteenth Dynasty the bodies of the bulls were mummified with great care, and that each one was buried in a tomb cut in the rock, with a small chapel above it.
Budge also cites writers who give the god a fixed span of life. Plutarch and Ammianus Marcellinus agree that Apis was allowed to live only a certain number of years, probably twenty-five in Budge’s view. Budge adds that it seems the bull was killed if he did not die before the end of that time, and buried in a sacred well whose place only a few people knew. Pliny says that he was drowned in the fountain of the priests. Then there was mourning, and the priests went with shaven heads until they found a successor. In the account of Diodorus that Budge quotes, the priests looked for another calf as like the dead one as they could find, and the reason Diodorus gives for the cult is that the soul of Osiris had passed into an ox and passed from one ox to the next. Budge says the same in his own words: when a new Apis appeared, it was regarded as a new manifestation of Osiris on earth. So the death of the bull did not end the god. The soul of the old Apis went up to join Osiris, and in the new calf Osiris came back to the earth.