Herodotus, The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley)

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IV. But as to human affairs, this was the account in which they all agreed: the Egyptians, they said, were the first men who reckoned by years and made the year consist of twelve divisions of the seasons. They discovered this from the stars (so they said). And their reckoning is, to my mind, a juster one than that of the Greeks; for the Greeks add an intercalary month every other year, so that the seasons agree; but the Egyptians, reckoning thirty days to each of the twelve months, add five days in every year over and above the total, and thus the completed circle of seasons is made to agree with the calendar. [2] Furthermore, the Egyptians (they said) first used the names of twelve gods¹ (which the Greeks afterwards borrowed from them); and it was they who first assigned to the several gods their altars and images and temples, and first carved figures on stone. Most of this they showed me in fact to be the case. The first human king of Egypt, they said, was Min. [3] In his time all of Egypt except the Thebaic² district was a marsh: all the country that we now see was then covered by water, north of lake Moeris,³ which is seven days' journey up the river from the sea.

¹ There is much obscurity about the “Twelve Gods.” This only appears to be clear, that eight (or nine) gods form the first order of the Egyptian hierarchy, and that there are twelve of the second rank. See Hdt. 2.43, and Rawlinson's essay (ch. 3 in his Appendix to Book II.).

² the southern part of Upper Egypt.

³ In the modern Fayyum, west of the Nile.

Further comments from W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus:
book 2 (general note)
book 2, chapter 4 (general note)
book 2, chapter 4, section 1 (general note)
book 2, chapter 4, section 2: duôdeka theôn
book 2, chapter 4, section 2: zôia
book 2, chapter 4, section 2: Mina
book 2, chapter 4, section 3: Thêbaïkou nomou

Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus:
*: dia tritou eteos embolimon epemballousi

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
menes [Menes]

Cross references from William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb:
685 [Infinitive in Indirect Discourse.]
807 [Simple Infinitive and Infinitive with tou, after Verbs of Hindrance, etc.]

This text is based on the following book(s):
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
OCLC: 1610641
ISBN: 0674991303, 0674991311, 0674991338, 0674991346

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