No nation has bequeathed to us so many or such accurate memorials of its form, complexion, and physiognomy as the Egyptian. We have in its mummies portraits, and upon its tombs pictures of its people as they looked and lived, individually and socially. That the Egyptians were darker in hue than either the Greeks or even the neighbouring Asiatics, is shown by the terms in which Greek, Latin, and Hebrew writers mention them. Το their progenitor the Hebrews gave the name of Ham, or adust (Genes. x. 6): Herodotus, speaking of the Colchians, says that they were an Egyptian colony because they were black in complexion (ueλάyxpoes), and curly-haired (ovλóтpixes, ii. 104): Lucian, in his Navigium (vol. viii. p. 155, Bipont ed.), describes a young Egyptian mariner as like a negro: and Ammianus (xxii. 16. § 23) calls them subfusculi et atrati. But the Egyptians were not a negro race a supposition contradicted alike by osteology and by monumental paintings, where negroes often appear, but always either as tributaries or captives. It is probable, indeed, that the Nile-valley contained three races, with an admixture of a fourth. On the eastern frontier the Arabian type prevailed: on the western, the Libyan; while the fourth variety arose from intermarriages between the Egyptians Proper and the Nubians or Aethiopians of Meroë. The ruling caste, however, was an elder branch of the SyroArabian family, which in two separate divisions descended the Tigris and the Euphrates; and while the northern stream colonised the land of Canaan and the future empires of Babylon and Nineveh, the southern spread over Arabia Felix, and entered Egypt from the east. This supposition, and this alone, will account for the Caucasian type of the Coptic skull and facial outline, and corresponds with the Mosaic ethnology in the 10th chapter of Genesis, which derives the Egyptians from Ham. We may allow, too, for considerable admixture, even of the ruling castes, with the cognate races to the south and east; and hence, on the one hand, the fullness of lips, and, on the other, the elongated Nubian eye, need not compel us to define the inhabitants of the Nile-valley as an African rather than an Asiatic

race.

The Egyptians may be said to be intermediate between the Syro-Arabian and the Ethiopic type; and as at this day the Copt is at once recognised in Syria by his dark hue (un peau noirâtre, Volney, Voyage, vol. i. p. 114), the duskier complexionbrown, with a tinge of red- of the ancient Egyptians may be ascribed solely to their climate, and to those modifying causes which, in the course of generations, affect both the osteology and the physiology of long-settled races. Nor does their language contradict this statement, although the variations between the Coptic and Syro-Arabian idioms are more striking than those of form and colour. The Coptic, the language of the native Christian population of Egypt, is now universally acknowledged to be sub

III. Population.

Many causes combined to give the Greek and Roman writers an exaggerated conception of the population of Egypt, - -the great works of masonry, the infinitesimal cultivation of the soil, and the fact that, the kings and higher order of priests excepted, every Egyptian was either a husbandman or a manufacturer. To these causes, implying a vast amount of disposable labour, yet arguing also a complete command of it by the government, must be added the cheapness of food, and the small quantity of it consumed by the people generally. Health and longevity were common in a land where the climate was salubrious, diet simple, and indolence almost unknown. The Egyptian women were unusually fruitful; though we can hardly give credence to the statements of ancient writers, that five children at a birth were common (Aristot. Hist. Anim. vii. 5), and that even seven were not reckoned prodigious (Plin. H. N. vii. 3; Strab. xvi. 605). Still there is reason to think that the population fell short of the estimates transmitted by ancient writers.

That a census was periodically taken, is probable from the fact that Sesostris caused the land to be accurately surveyed, and Amasis, towards the end of the monarchy, compelled every male to report to a magistrate his means of livelihood. (Herod. ii. 109, 177.) Herodotus, however, gives no estimate of the population, nor has any record of a census been hitherto discovered on the native monuments. Diodorus (i. 31) says that it amounted, in the Pharaonic era, to seven millions, and that it was not less in his own day (B. C. 58). Germanicus (Tac. Ann. ii. 60; compare Strab. p. 816) was informed, in A. D. 16, by the priests of Thebes, that Egypt, in the reign of Rameses Sesostris, contained 700,000 men of the military age. If that age, as at Athens, extended from eighteen to sixty, and be allowed for adults between those periods of life, the entire population (5 x 700,000) will amount to 3,500,000. Allow 500,000 for error, and add for slaves and casual residents, and 6,000,000 will be the maximum of the census of Egypt. In the Macedonian and Roman eras, 300,000 must be included for the fixed or floating population of Alexandria (Joseph. B. J. ii. 16). According to Herodotus (ii. 177), there were, in the reign of Amasis, 20,000 inhabited towns, and Diodorus (l. c.) says that 18,000 towns were entered on the register. Many of these, however, were probably little more than walled villages, nor have we any means of knowing their average area or population. Yet it should be remembered that, even allowing for the less perfect system of embankment and irrigation in modern times, the extent of productive soil has not decreased. Two centuries ago the population of modern Egypt was loosely estimated at 4 millions. During the French occupation of the country in 1798-1801, it was computed at 2 millions. Sir Gardner Wilkinson (Modern Egypt and Thebes, vol. i. p. 256) reduces it to 1 million.

IV. The Nomes.

The Nile-valley was parcelled out into a number of cantons, varying in size and number. Each of

these cantons was called a nome (vóuos) by the Greeks, praefectura oppidorum by the Romans. Each had its civil governor, the Nomarch (vóμapxos), who collected the crown revenues, and presided in the local capital and chief court of justice. Each nome, too, had its separate priesthood, its temple, chief and inferior towns, its magistrates, registration and peculiar creed, ceremonies, and customs, and each was apparently independent of every other nome. At certain seasons delegates from the various cantons met in the palace of the Labyrinth for consultation on public affairs (Strab. p. 811). According to Diodorus (i. 54), the nomes date from Sesostris. But they did not originate with that monarch, but emanated probably from the distinctions of animal worship; and the extent of the local worship probably determined the boundary of the nome. Thus in the nome of Thebais, where the ramheaded deity was worshipped, the sheep was sacred, the goat was eaten and sacrificed: in that of Mendes, where the goat was worshipped, the sheep was a victim and an article of food. Again, in the nome of Ombos, divine honours were paid to the crocodile: in that of Tentyra, it was hunted and abominated; and between Ombos and Tentyra there existed an internecine feud. (Juv. Sat. xv.) The extent and number of the nomes cannot be ascertained. They probably varied with the political state of Egypt. Under a dynasty of conquerors, they would extend eastward and westward to the Red Sea and Libyan deserts: under the Hyksos, the Aethiopian conquest, and the times of anarchy subsequent to the Persian invasion, they would shrink within the Nile-valley. The kingdoms of Sais and Xois and the foundation of Alexandria probably multiplied the Deltaic cantons: and generally, commerce, or the residence of the military caste, would attract the nomes to Lower Egypt. According to Strabo (pp. 787, 811), the Labyrinth, or hall of the Nomarchs, contained 27 chambers, and thus, at one period, the nomes must have been 27 in number, 10 in the Thebaid, 10 in the Delta, and 7, as its name implies, in the Heptanomis. But the Heptanomis, at another period, contained 16 nomes, and the sum of these cantons is variously given. From the dodecarchy or government of 12 kings, and from Herodotus' assertion (ii. 148) that there were only 12 halls in the Labyrinth, we are disposed to infer, that at one time there were only 12 of these cantons, and that there were always 12 larger or preponderating nomes. According to the lists given by Pliny (v. 9. § 9) and Ptolemy, there must have been at least 45 nomes; but each of these writers gives several names not found in the other, and if we should add the variations of the one list to the other, the sum would be much greater.

There was, under the Macedonian kings, a subdivision of the nomes into toparchies, which was probably an arrangement to meet the fiscal system of the Greeks. (Herod. ii. 164; Diod. i. 54; Strab. xvii; Cyrill. Alex. ad Isaiam, xix. 2; Epiphan Haeres. 24. § 7.)

2. The Andropolite; chief town Andropolis.. 3. The Sebennytic; capital Pachnamunis (Ptol.), worshipped Latona.

4. The Chemmite (Herod. ii. 165); capital Buto, Its deity was also called Buto, whom the Greeks identified with Leto. Ptolemy calls this canton Peevórns, and Pliny (v. 9) Ptenetha.

5. The Onuphite; chief town Onuphis. (Herod. ii. 166.)

6. The Phthemphuthite; capital Tava. (0eμpovel vouós, Ptol.; Phthempha, Plin. v. 9.)

7. The Saite; chief city Sais, worshipped Neith or Athene, and contained a tomb and a sanctuary of Osiris. (Herod. ii. 170; Strab. p. 802.) Under the dynasty of the Saitic Kings this was the principal of the Deltaic cantons.

8. The Busirite; capital Busiris, worshipped Isis, and at one epoch, according to Hellenic tradition at least, sacrificed the red-coloured men who came over the sea, i. e. the nomades of Syria and Arabia (Herod. i. 59, 33, 165; Strab. p. 802; Plut. de Is. et Os. p. 30.)

9. The Thmuite; chief town Thmuis (Herod. ii. 168), afterwards incorporated with the following:

10. The Mendesian; capital Mendes (Herod. ii. 42, 46; Diod. i. 84), worshipped the goat Mendes, or the horned Pan.

11. The Tanite; chief town Tanis. (Herod. ii. 166; Strab. p. 802.) In this nome tradition affirmed that the Hebrew legislator was born and educated.

12. The Bubastite; capital Bubastus, contained a noble temple of Bubastis or Artemis. (Herod. ii. 59, 67, 137.)

13. The Athribite; capital Athribis, where the shrewmouse and crocodile were held in reverence.

14. The Heliopolite, west of the Delta, and sacred to the sun, from whom its capital Heliopolis (On) derived its name. (Herod. ii. 9; Diod. v. 56; Joseph. Ant. ii. 3.)

15. The Heroopolite; chief town Heroopolis, a principal seat of the worship of Typhon, the evil or destroying genius.

-

Besides these the Delta contained other less important nomes, the Nitriote, where the Natron Lakes, Nitrariae (Plin. v. 9) were situated; the Letopolite (Strab. p. 807); the Prosopite; the Leontopolite; the Mentelite; the Pharbaethite; and the Sethraite.

B. NOMES OF THE HEPTANOMIS. The most important were :—

1. The Memphite, whose chief city Memphis was the capital of Egypt, and the residence of the Pharaohs, who succeeded Psammetichus B. c. 616. The Memphite Nome rose into importance on the decline of the kingdom of Thebais, and was itself in turn eclipsed by the Hellenic kingdom of Alexandria. [MEMPHIS.]

2. The Aphroditopolite; chief town Aphroditopolis, was dedicated to Athor or Aphrodite.

3. The Arsinoite, the Fayoom, celebrated for its worship of the crocodile, from which its capital Crocodilopolis, afterwards Arsinoe, derived its name. [ARSINOE.] The Labyrinth and the Lake of Moeris were in this canton.

4. The Heracleote, in which the ichneumon was worshipped. Its principal town was Heracleopolis

5. The Hermopolite, the border nome between Middle and Upper Egypt. This was at a very early period a flourishing canton. Its chief city Hermopolis stood near the frontiers of the Hepta

nemis, a little to the north of the castle and toll-house ('EpμоTоλiтán quλaký, Strab. p. 813), where the portage was levied on all craft coming from the Upper Country.

6. The Cynopolite, the seat of the worship of the hound and dog-headed deity Anubis. Its capital was Cynopolis, which must however be distinguished from the Deltaic city and other towns of the same name. (Strab. p. 812; Ptol.; Plut. Is. et Osir. c. 72.) The Greater Oasis (Ammonium) and the Lesser were reckoned among the Heptanomite Cantons: but both were considered as one nome only. [OASES.] C. NOMES OF UPPER EGYPT. The most important were: —

1. The Lycopolite, dedicated to the worship of the wolf. Its chief town was Lycopolis.

2. The Antaeopolite, probably worshipped Typhon (Diod. i. 21); its capital was Antacopolis (Plut. de Solert. Anim. 23.)

3. The Aphroditopolite [Comp. Nome (2), Heptanomis.] In cases where a southern and a northern canton possessed similar objects of worship, the latter was probably an offset or colony of the former, as the Thebaid was the original cradle of Egyptian civilisation, which advanced northward.

4. The Panopolite or, as it was afterwards called, the Chemmite, offered hero-worship to an apotheosized man, whom the Greeks compared to the Minyan hero Perseus. (Herod. ii. 91.) This canton, whose chief town was Panopolis or Chemmis (Diod. i. 18), was principally inhabited by linen-weavers and stone

masons.

5. The Thinite, probably one of the most ancient, as it was originally the leading nome of the Thebaid, and the nome or kingdom of Menes of This, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy. The Thinite nome worshipped Osiris, contained a Memnonium, and, in Roman times at least (Amm. Marc. xix. 12; Spartian. Hadrian. 14), an oracle of Besa. Its capital was Abydus, or, as it was called earlier, This. [ABYDUS.]

6. The Tentyrite worshipped Athor (Aphrodite), Isis, and Typhon. Its inhabitants hunted the crocodile, and were accordingly at feud with the Ombite nome. (Juv. xv.) Its chief town was Tentyra.

7. The Coptite, whose inhabitants were principally occupied in the caravan trade between Berenice, Myos Hormos, and the interior of Arabia and Libya. Its capital was Coptos. [COPTOS.]

8. The Hermonthite, worshipped Osiris and his son Orus: its chief town was Hermonthis.

9. The Apollonite, like the Tentyrite nome, destroyed the crocodile (Strab. p. 817; Plin. v. 9; Aelian, H. An. x. 21; Plut. Is. et Os. 50), and reverenced the sun. Its capital was Apollinopolis Magna. This nome is sometimes annexed to the preceding.

10. The Ombite (Ombites praefectura, Plin. H. N. v. 9), worshipped the crocodile as the emblem of Sebak (comp. supra (6) and (9), and the Arsinoite (3), Heptanomite nomes). Ombos was its capital The quarries of sandstone, so much employed in Egyptian architecture, were principally seated in this

canton.

V. Animal Worship.

Animal worship is so intimately connected with the division of the country into nomes, and, in some degree, with the institution of castes, that we must briefly allude to it, although the subject is much

too extensive for more than allusion. The worship of animals was either general or particular, common to the whole nation, or several to the nome. Thus throughout Egypt, the ox, the dog, and the cat, the ibis and the hawk, and the fishes lepidotus and oxyrrynchus, were objects of veneration. The sheep was worshipped only in the Saitic and Thebaid nomes: the goat at Mendes; the wolf at Lycopolis; the cepus (a kind of ape) at Babylon, near Memphis; the lion at Leontopolis, the eagle at Thebes, the shrewmouse at Athribis, and others elsewhere, as will be particularly noticed when we speak of their respective temples. As we have already seen, the object of reverence in one nome was accounted common and unclean, if not, indeed, the object of persecution in another. Animal worship has been in all ages the opprobrium of Egypt (comp. Clem. Alex. iii. 2, p. 253, Potter; Diod. i. 84). The Hebrew prophets denounced, the anthropomorphic religionists of Hellas derided it. To the extent to which the Egyptians carried it, especially in the decline of the nation, it certainly approached to the fetish superstitions of the neighbouring Libya. But we must bear in mind, that our vergers to the Coptic temples are Greeks who, being ignorant of the language, misunderstood much that they heard, and being preoccupied by their own ritual or philosophy, misinterpreted much that they saw. One good effect may be ascribed to this form of superstition. In no country was humanity to the brute creation so systematically practised. The origin of animal worship has been variously, but never satisfactorily, accounted for. If they were worshipped as the auxiliaries of the husbandman in producing food or destroying vermin, how can we account for the omission of swine and asses, or for the adoption of lions and wolves among the objects of veneration?

The Greeks, as was their wont,

found many idle solutions of an enigma which probably veiled a feeling originally earnest and pious. They imagined that animals were worshipped because their effigies were the standards in war, like the Roman Dii Castrorum. This is evidently a substitution of cause for effect. The representations of animals on martial ensigns were the standards of the various nomes (Diod. i. 85). Lucian (Astrolog. v. p. 215, seq. Bipont) suggested that the bull, the lion, the fish, the ram, and the goat, &c. were correlates to the zodiacal emblems; but this surmise leaves the crocodile, the cat, and the ibis, &c. of the temples unexplained. It is much more probable that, among a contemplative and serious race, as the Egyptians certainly were, animal-worship arose out of the detection of certain analogies between instinct and reason, and that to the initiated the reverence paid to beasts was a primitive expression of pantheism, or the recognition of the Creator in every type of his work. The Egyptians are not the only people who have converted type into substance, or adopted in a literal sense the metaphorical symbols of faith.

The land in Egypt upon which the institution of castes rested belonged in fee only to the king, the priests, and the soldiers. We know from Genesis (xlvii. 26) that all other proprietors of the soil had surrendered their rights to the crown, and received their lands again subject to an annual rent of of the produce. The priests we know (Genes. l. c.), the soldiers we infer (Diod. i. 74), retained their absolute ownership; and in so productive a country as Egypt the husbandman was too important a person to be deprived at once of all his political rights. He was in fact an integral although an inferior section of the war-caste. The privileged orders however were the king, the priest, the soldier:-

1. The King was at first elective, and always a member of the priesthood. He afterwards became hereditary, and was taken indifferently from the sacerdotal and military orders. If however he were by birth a soldier, he was adopted on his accession by the priests. Even the Ptolemies were not allowed to reign without such previous adoption. His initiation into the sacred mysteries was represented on monuments by the tau, the emblem of life and the key of secrecy, impressed upon his lips (Plut. de Is. et Osir. p. 354, B.; Plat. Rep. ii. p. 290).

The king, when not engaged in war, was occupied in jurisdiction and the service of religion. The royal life was one long ceremony. His rising and his lying down; his meals, his recreations, and the order of his employments, were rigidly prescribed to him. Some liberty in law-making indeed was allowed him, since we read of the laws of Sesostris, Amasis, and other Egyptian rulers: and, with vigorous occupants of the throne, it is probable that the soldier occasionally transgressed the priestly ordinances. As but few, however, of the Egyptian monarchs seem to have grossly abused their power, we may conclude that the hierarchy at least tempered royal despotism. In paintings the king is always represented as many degrees taller and more robust than his subject warriors. A thousand fly before him, and he holds strings of prisoners by the hair. The Egyptian king wears also the emblems and sometimes even the features of the gods; and it is frequently difficult to distinguish on the monuments Sesortasen, Amunopht, &c. from Osiris. It is remarkable that females were not excluded from a throne so sacerdotal. A queen, Nitocris, occurs in the sixth dynasty; another, Scemiophris, in the twelfth, and other examples are found in the sculptures. On the decease of a sovereign a kind of posthumous judgment was exercised on his character and government. His embalmed body was placed in the sepulchre, and all men were permitted to bring accusations against him. Virtuous princes received a species of deification: condemned princes were debarred from sepulture.

2. The Priests however were, in ordinary times, the real governing body of Egypt. Their lands were

with servile homage; they were the sole depositaries of learning and science: and they alone were acquainted with all the formularies which in Egypt regulated nearly every action of life. Their various and incessant occupations appear even in the titles of the subdivisions of the priest-caste. "Each deity," says Herodotus (ii. 37), "had several priests [priestesse] and a high priest." The chiefs or pontiffs were the judges of the land, the councillors of the sovereign, the legislators and the guardians of the great mysteries. The minor priests were prophets, inferior judges and magistrates, hierophants, hiero-grammats or sacred scribes, basilico-grammats or royal scribes, dressers and keepers of the royal and sacerdotal wardrobes, physicians, heralds, keepers of the sacred animals, architects, draughtsmen, beadles, vergers, sprinklers of water, fan bearers, &c. (Wilkinson, M. and C. vol. i. 238). So numerous a staff was not in the peculiar polity of Egypt altogether superfluous, neither does it seem to have been peculiarly burdensome to the nation, since it derived its support from regular taxes and from its proprietary lands. Nowhere in the ancient world was the number of temples so great as in Egypt: nowhere were there so many religious festivals; nowhere was ordinary life so intimately blended with religion. The priest therefore was mixed up in affairs of the market, the law court, the shop, the house, in addition to his proper vocation in the temple. His life was the reverse of ascetic: in the climate of Egypt frequent ablutions, linen garments, papyrus sandals, were luxuries, only polygamy was forbidden him. But he was enjoined to marry, and the son succeeded the father in the sacred office (Herod. ii. 143). Herodotus (comp. ii. 35, 55) contradicts himself in saying that females could not fulfil sacerdotal duties, women might be incapable of the highest offices, but both sculptures and documents prove, that they were employed in many of the minor duties connected with the temples.

3. The Soldiers. The whole military force of Egypt amounted to 410,000 men (Herod. ii. 165—166; Diod. i. 54). It was divided into two corps, the Calasirians and the Hermotybians. The former were the more numerous, and in the most flourishing era of Egypt, the 18th and 19th dynasties, were estimated at 250,000 men. Each of these divisions furnished a thousand men annually to perform the duty of royal body guards. During the term of their attendance they received from the king daily rations of bread, beef, and wine. When summoned to the field or to garrison duty, each soldier provided himself with the necessary arms and baggage. The prin cipal garrisons of Egypt were on its southern and eastern borders, at Syene and Elephantine, at Hieracompolis and Eilethyas, which towns, on opposite. sides of the river, commanded the Nile-valley above Thebes, and at Marea and Pelusium. The western frontier was, until Egypt stretched to the Cyrenaica, guarded sufficiently by the Libyan desert. In time of peace the troops who were not in garrisons or at court were settled in various nomes principally east of the Nile, and in the Delta; since it was in that quarter Egypt was most exposed to invasion from the pastoral Arabs or the yet more formidable nomade tribes of Assyria and Palestine. According to Herodotus (ii. 168), each soldier was allowed 12 arourae of land, or about six acres free from all charge or tribute, from which allotment he defrayed the cost of his arms and equipment. To the Egyptian soldier

VII. Civil History.

The History of Egypt is properly arranged under five eras.

1. Egypt under its native rulers-the Pharaonic Era. Its commencement is unknown: it closes with the conquest of the land by Cambyses in B. C. 525.

2. The Persian Era, from B. c. 525, to the Macedonian invasion, B. c. 332.

3. The Macedonian or Hellenic Era. This period is computed either from the foundation of Alexandria, in B. c. 332, or from B. c. 323, when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, converted the satrapy of Egypt into an hereditary kingdom. This period extends to the death of Cleopatra, in B. c. 30.

4. The Roman Era, from the surrender of Alexandria to Augustus, in B. C. 30, to the capture of that city by the Khalif Omar in A. D. 640.

5. The Mahommedan Era, from A. D. 640 to the present time.

The last of these periods belongs to modern history, and does not come within the scope of this work. The first of them must be very briefly treated, partly because it involves questions which it would demand a volume to discuss, and partly because Egypt came into the field of classical history through its relations with the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. For complete information the student of the Pharaonic era must consult the larger works of Denon, Young, Champollion, Rosellini, Heeren, Wilkinson, Bunsen and Lepsius; or the very lucid abstract of this period in Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, which, indeed, contains all that the general reader can require.

1. Pharaonic Era. Authorities. The original records of Egypt were kept with no ordinary care, and were very various in kind, sculpture, symbol, writing, all contributing to their contents. Herodotus (ii. 72-82), Theophrastus (ap. Porphyr. de Abstinent. i. 5), Cicero (de Repub. iii. 8) concur in describing the Egyptians as the most learned and accurate of mankind in whatsoever concerned their native annals. The priests, Diodorus (i. 44) assures us, had transmitted in unbroken succession written descriptions of all their kings-their physical powers and disposition, and their personal exploits. The antiquity of writing in Egypt is no longer a subject of dispute. Lepsius (Book of the Dead, Leipzig, 1842, Pref. p. 17) found on monuments as early as the 12th dynasty, the hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus; and on the 4th that of the stylus and inkstand. The Egyptians themselves also

chronicle and mythical and heroical narratives couched in poetry and song. To this mass of written documents are to be added the sculptured monuments themselves, the tombs, obelisks, and temple walls, whose paintings and inscriptions have been partially decyphered by modern scholars, and are found generally to correspond with the written lists of kings compiled, in the first instance, by the native historian Manetho. Egyptian history, however, in the modern acceptation of the word, began after the establishment of the Greek sovereignty of Egypt. The natives, with the natural pride of a once ruling but now subject race, were eager to impart to their Hellenic masters more correct notions of their history and religion than could be obtained either from the relations of Greek travellers, such as Thales and Solon, or from the narratives of Hecataeus, Democritus, and Herodotus. Of Manetho, of Sextus Julius Africanus, from whose chronicon, in five books, Eusebius derived a considerable portion of his own chronicon, of Georgius the Syncellus, of Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian mathematician, who treated largely of Egyptian chronology, accounts have been given in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, and to its columns we must refer for the bibliography of Egyptian history. Lastly, we must point out the extreme value of the Hebrew scriptures and of Josephus among the records of the Nile-valley. The remote antiquity of Egyptian annals is not essentially an objection to their credibility. The Syncellus assigns 3555 years as the duration of Manetho's thirty dynasties. These being Egyptian years, are equivalent to 3553 Julian years, and, added to 339 B. C., when the thirtieth dynasty expired, give 3892 B. C. as the commencement of the reign of Menes, the founder of the monarchy. But although Bunsen and other distinguished Egyptologers are disposed to assign an historical personality to Menes, his very name, as the name of an individual man, seems suspicious. It too nearly resembles the Menu of the Indians, the Minyas and Minos of the Greeks, the Menerfa of the Etruscans, and the Mannus of the Germans in all which languages the name is connected with a rootMan- signifying "to think and speak" (see Quarterly Review, vol. 78, p. 149)—to be accepted implicitly as a personal designation.

The Pharaonic era of Egyptian history may be divided into three portions-the Old, the Middle, and the New monarchy. The first extends from the foundation of the kingdom in B. C. 3892 to the invasion of the Hyksos. The second from the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos and the establishment of an independent kingdom in the Thebaid, to the expulsion of the Hyksos. The third from the re-establishment of the native monarchy by Amosis to the final conquest by Cambyses in B. C. 525. (Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 110.)

(1.) The Old Monarchy. The chronology of this and the succeeding division of the Egyptian monarchy is beset with, at present, insurmountable difficulties; since, in the first place, there are no synchronisms in the annals of other countries to guide the inquirer, and in the next, we know not whether the dynasties in Manetho should be taken as a series, or whether he enumerates contemporaneous families of kings, some of whom reigned, at the same time, at Memphis, and others at Sais,