We have this advantage in dealing with the dates in Eusebius, that they have been transmitted to us through two independent channels- the Armenian translation of the Chronicle, and the comparative table of the Manethonian Dynasties in Syncellus. The close correspondence in the substance of the two documents affords however a striking proof that Syncellus has done Eusebius no injustice, in stigmatising him not only as superficial, but as having intentionally falsified the Lists, in order to force them into harmony with his own synchronistic system. The most conclusive evidence of the justice of this impeachment will be derived from the monuments and the Greek authorities to be examined in our third Book. For the 24th, 25th, and 26th Dynasties Eusebius has in each case 44 years. This number rests on no authentic basis except in the case of the 25th Dynasty, from which it has obviously been transferred by oversight to the others. In the 22nd he gives three Kings with 49 years, instead of nine (all of which be pointed out on the monuments) with 116 or 120 years. Here the reason is still more palpable. He found the names of but three Kings in Africanus, and overlooked the fact, that the others were enumerated although without names, according to the date of their succession, and were comprised in the sum total of the years of reigns. We are bound therefore to regard his labours with the greatest mistrust, and to pronounce it a most uncritical course to quote him, as is the custom of many, as a competent authority in spite of this delinquency, whenever it suits their purpose. Every page of the next two books corroborates the justice of this stigma. Regarding the whole number of Kings, and the sums total of their years of reign, the statements vary. The former fluctuate between 300, 350, and 500; while the sum of the whole period from Menes down to the ninth year prior to the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great ranges between 4900 and 5400 years." may VI. THE CHRONOLOGY FROM MENES TO ALEXANDER, ACCORDING TO MANETHO. THE above expression-sum total of the years of reign -was used advisedly. Does it however necessarily imply that all the Dynasties were consecutive? If the empire was divided, the Dynasties enthroned in different portions of its territory must have been entered in Lists of this nature in consecutive order. Here however, reverting to a remark made at the close of our commentary on the Turin Papyrus, we must further inquire -what right have we to assume that the sum of the reigns in one and the same Dynasty must necessarily coincide with the duration of that Dynasty? Suppose we had Lists of the Roman Emperors from Severus to Theodosius unaccompanied by historical illustrationsshould we not be justified in making the sum of their reigns tally with the real time which elapsed between the two Emperors? And yet this would involve a very serious error. But who (it might be rejoined) would in such a case ever think of adding up the sums? No one certainly, who had a purely chronological object in view. Cannot we however imagine a system in which the years of reign of each individual member of a family who may have reigned, during a longer or shorter period either in succession, or conjointly with each other may have been consecutively reckoned up-but where an historical key was also annexed, by which the true time the whole family reigned might be ascertained? Such a method indeed is the natural one, where the dynastic principle of arrangement, in the form of Lists, constitutes the basis of the system. Upon this principle it is by no means impossible that the collective number of years which a family reigned should be inserted from the first into the Lists of the Old Empire, by way of authenticating the individual years. It is however more probable that this mode of calculation was first made in the New Empire for the two others. The key to the real chronology was perhaps originally preserved in chronological and historical works, which in the lower ages of the New Empire were either lost or forgotten. It is however certain that in Manetho's Lists, joint reigns are nowhere indicated; yet the monuments prove them to have been frequent in the Old Empire (for example in the 12th Dynasty). It would certainly be somewhat surprising had Manetho given such a statement of the sums total of all the years of reign in the case of any family of the New Empire. As Lists of Kings of the two preceding periods were in existence at its commencement, it must also have possessed historical registers. Civilisation and literature were never again interrupted in Egypt from that time to the fall of the Roman Empire, and Manetho lived in the flourishing age of the Ptolemies. But what authority have we for supposing that the Lists of the New Empire in their present form and with their present sums, are the work of Manetho? May they not be a digest of extracts from the historical work, or, as the form of the Lists is clearly according to primitive Egyptian practice, may they not have been enlarged, by interpolating the names of Kings (friends or foes who reigned contemporarily) out of the same work, and their chronology have thus been corrupted? Some light will be thrown upon the question in our inquiry concerning the Christian schools of Manethonian criticism; its complete settlement however can only be obtained through a careful analysis of the monuments. As regards the rule of succession in the New Empire, it may here be assumed, as demonstrated, that no two Dynasties, from the 18th to the 30th, were contemporary. This fact is admitted by all Egyptologers, an admission very creditable to their love of truth, when we consider how perplexing they must have found the great extension of the period of the New Empire which resulted |