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the charge that it had not been mentioned by Greek historians. In this work he refers to Manetho by name, and gives, professedly verbatim, long extracts from him.* In comparing these with what we have of that author, we find very little resemblance between them. Of the narrative portion cited by Josephus there is absolutely nothing. His list of kings, twenty-five in all, begins with the XVth dynasty of Africanus, and ends with the early part of the XXth a period to which Manetho assigns ninety-eight kings. In Eusebius it begins with the XVIIth dynasty, and includes a period of but nineteen kings. The whole duration of these reigns in Josephus is 492 years, in Africanus 1216, in Eusebius 451. Nothing more, surely, is needed to show how utterly unworthy of confidence are the lists of Manetho. There is no reason to believe that Josephus did not give, literally, his extracts, as he professed to do, or that his works, which have been otherwise so well preserved, have been corrupted. He evidently had what he regarded as the original work before him. We see not how to avoid the conclusion, that Africanus and Eusebius, or Syncellus, who reported them, used some abridgment or epitome made by some other person, either a bungling transcriber, a willful falsifier, or an impos* See Appendix, H.

tor, who put forth his own work under the stolen name of Manetho.

(d.) The lists before us are not sustained by the evidence furnished by the monuments. We have no space to exhibit this fact in detail, and must be content with some general statements. The first is, that but a small portion of the names given by Manetho can be identified. Of the 554 in Africanus, or 367 in Eusebius, occurring in the first seventeen dynasties, Bunsen, with his utmost ingenuity, does not pretend to have identified more than 110, Lepsius about as many, Poole only 76, etc. No trace whatever is found of dynasties VII., VIII., IX., X., XIII., XIV., XV. Euseb., XVI., XVII. Afric. A period of Egyptian history, midway in its splendid career of art and arms, as long as the interval from Alfred the Great to Victoria, has left not a single fact or monument, nor even a grave, to attest its existence. Even Bunsen admits that it is "improbable and unexampled that a foreign people (the socalled "Shepherds ") should maintain themselves in Egypt for nine, or even five centuries, and have lived so like barbarians that not a single monument of theirs can be pointed out." "But this," adds Canon Trevor," is far from stating the entire marvel. Not only is no Hyksos monument remaining,

* Ancient Egypt, p. 262.

but none belonging to the native princes, their tributaries. Not one pyramid, obelisk, temple, palace, or tomb, nor the fragment of one, can be found for the whole period. Not that Egyptian art had as yet no existence, for the works of the IVth and XIIth dynasties attest its progress up to the time in question. Not that it was then suddenly and permanently quenched under the inroad of the barbarians, for Bunsen himself observes that, at the end of this period, which is longer, perhaps, than the duration of the historical life of most modern people, the old Egyptian empire comes forth again in renovated youth, and in fact, as the monuments prove, with its national peculiarities, its religion, its language, its writing, its art, in precisely the same condition as if no interruption had occurred, or, at most, nothing beyond the temporary inroad of some Bedouin robbers!'" Nay, more; the tablet of Abydos clearly shows that such a period never existed. The escutcheon or cartouche, bearing the name and titles of Amosis, the first sovereign of the XVIIIth dynasty, stands there immediately after that of Ammenemes, the last of the XIIth. Not a single monument remains which can positively be assigned a date earlier than Sesonchosis, or Sheshonk, of the XXIId · dynasty — the Shishak of the Scriptures, who was contemporary with Rehoboam, about B. C. 972.

Doubtless the pyramids and many other structures are much older, but they bear no independent data of their own by which their real age can be determined, much less that carry us back within 500

years of the flood.

But, while these lists of Manetho are thus, by numerous proofs, shown to be utterly unreliable, as establishing a positive chronology of Egypt, we do not think it necessary, on the other hand, to discard. them altogether. The truth seems to be that, originally, they were a collection of names of sovereigns, handed down by tradition, with such exaggerations and additions as would naturally be made in the progress of time, who were believed to have reigned somewhere and at some time in that country. That portion which is earlier than the XVIIIth dynasty may be related to true history, much as the names transmitted from the semi-fabulous periods of England, the Briton, Welsh, and Saxon chieftains, who for a thousand years before the Norman conquest exercised a sway more or less extensive in that island, are related to the authentic records of later times. But what historian would gravely undertake, by grouping these names into "dynasties," and counting up their number, and the alleged years of their reign, to arrive at the foundation of monarchy in England, or the exact date at which its first inhabitants came thither!

There is another consideration of much importance in this connection. Even if we concede that the persons embraced in the lists really existed and reigned in Egypt, it does not follow that their reigns were all consecutive. The contrary supposition. seems every way probable. "Egypt," says Osborn (Mon. Hist. vol. i. p. 183), " on its first settlement, was divided into nomes or provinces. The boundaries of these nomes, and the customs and usages of each of them, were component parts of the common law of Egypt at all periods of its history. What, therefore, is more probable, we had almost said more certain, than that, in the first place, the founder of each new city would be accounted the king of it, and of the nome or district that surrounded it? This was the case on the settlement of all other countries in the ancient world,* and that Egypt would not depart from this universal rule is the highest of all conceivable probabilities." It has been claimed, however, that Manetho has made due allowance for this state of things, and excluded from his list all merely contemporary reigns. Says M. Mariette, "It would certainly be contrary to established facts to pretend that, from the days of Menes to the Greek conquest, Egypt always formed one united kingdom, and it is possible that unexpected

* Gen. chaps. 10, 14, 36, etc.

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