By Water & Blood

§50: For which reason they assign him the ass, the most brutal and sottish of all the tame

50. For which reason they assign him the ass, the most brutal and sottish of all the tame beasts, and the crocodile and river-horse, the most savage and fierce of all the wild beasts. Of the ass we have spoken already. They show us at Hermopolis the statue of Typhon, which is a river-horse with a hawk on his back fighting with a serpent; where they set out Typhon by the river-horse, and by the hawk that power and principle which Typhon possesses himself of by violence, and thereupon ceases not to disturb others and to be disturbed himself by his malice. For which reason also, when they are to offer sacrifice upon the seventh day of the month Tybi, at the festival which they call the Arrival of Isis out of Phoenicia, they print the river-horse bound upon their sacred cakes. Besides this, there is a constant custom at the town of Apollo, for every one to eat some part of a crocodile; and having upon a certain set day hunted down as many of them as they are able, they kill them, and throw down their carcasses before the temple. And they tell us that Typhon made his escape from Horus in the form of a crocodile; for they make all bad and noxious things—whether animals, plants or passions—to be the works, the members, and the motions of Typhon.