When he had therefore proceeded thus on his journey, he came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him and, joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians. As soon, therefore, as Moses was come to the land which was the breeder of these serpents, he let loose the ibes, and by their means repelled the serpentine kind, and used them for his assistants before the army came upon that ground. But Moses prevented the enemies, and took and led his army before those enemies were apprized of his attacking them for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe, and without hurt for he made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibes, and carried them along with them which animal is the greatest enemy to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when they come near them and as they fly they are caught and devoured by them, as if it were done by the harts but the ibes are tame creatures, and only enemies to the serpentine kind: but about these ibes I say no more at present, since the Greeks themselves are not unacquainted with this sort of bird. So Moses, at the persuasion both of Thermuthis and the king himself, cheerfully undertook the business: and the sacred scribes of both nations were glad those of the Egyptians, that they should at once overcome their enemies by his valor, and that by the same piece of management Moses would be slain but those of the Hebrews, that they should escape from the Egyptians, because Moses was to be their general. She withal reproached the priest, who, when they had before admonished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed now to own their want of his help.Ģ. Upon which, when she had made him swear he would do him no harm, she delivered him to the king, and supposed his assistance would be of great advantage to them. The Egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies and when God had given them this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew, and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, that he might be the general of their army. And the occasion he laid hold of was this: - The Ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the Egyptians, made an inroad into their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who, in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts they had received from them but being overcome in battle, some of them were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means saved themselves whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit, and thinking that it would be a mark of cowardice if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence and when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the prosecution of the war: and as the nearest parts had not courage enough at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis, and the sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them. Moses, therefore, when he was born, and brought up in the foregoing manner, and came to the age of maturity, made his virtue manifest to the Egyptians and showed that he was born for the bringing them down, and raising the Israelites.
The Antiquities of the Jews - Flavius Josephus1.
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