55. Amenses, who is also Ammenemes.

(Occurs in the List of the 21st Dyn.) 26 years.

56. Ochyras (?)

57. Amendes (compare 55)

58. Thuōris (repeated from 49).

is Polybus, the husband of Alkandra, who in the Odyssey receives Menelaus and Helen." (Copied, like the previous gloss, from the Lists at xix. 8.) 59. Athotis, also Phusanus: "under him occurred a great earthquake in Egypt, such as never was before "

50

28

These three stop-gaps are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th King of the first Dynasty in Manetho! The piece of learned commentary is borrowed from the first King of the 2nd Dynasty; lastly, Phusanus is in all probability a corruption of Phusennes (i. e. Pusennes), the second name of the 21st Dynasty.

25 Kings from Sesak to Amosis (No. 62-86). 62. Susakim 164 (form adopted in the

Alexandrian translation of the Bible
for the Sesak of the Hebrew text,
Scheschonk of the Monuments, xxii.
1.) "Subdued the Libyans, Ethio-
pians and Troglodytes, before his
expedition to Jerusalem."

(Taken

from the notice in the Chronicle) 63. Psuenus (Phusenes, xxi. 7.)

64. Ammenōphis (xxi. 4.)

65. Nephecheres (xxi. 3.)

66. Saites (a misunderstanding of Boc

choris, the only King of the 24th);

he is called in the Lists "the Saite

67. Psinaches (xxi. 6.)

34 years.

6

15

9

164 p. 177.

68. Petubastes (xxiii. 1.) 69. Osōrthōn (xxiii. 2.)

70. Psammus (xxiii. 3.)

71. Koncharis (a repetition of No. 25.) 72. Osorthōn 165 (xxii. 7.)

73. Takalophis (xxii. 6.)

44

74. Bocchoris (compare 66.) "made laws
for Egypt. Under him a lamb is said
to have spoken." (From Manetho)
75. Sabakon the Ethiopian. (xxv. 1.) 12
"Burnt Bocchoris, his prisoner, alive."
(From Manetho.)

76. Sebechōn (xxv. 2.)

77. Tarakes 166 (xxv. 3.)

78. Amaes (Scaliger, Armaes; Euseb.,

20

12

20

83. Nechao II. Pharaoh (added from Scripture) (xxvi. 5.)

84. Psamuthes II. (xxvi. 6.) "who is also Psammetichus." The latter is really the correct name.

13

8

14

9

VIII. SYNCELLUS COMPARED WITH EUSEBIUS AND THE LATER BYZANTINES. MALALAS. CEDRENUS. THE CHRONICLE OF EASTER.

THE more closely we subject the above List to the test of real history, or even of the historical data at the disposal of Syncellus, and the more we reflect on that chronologer's criticism of Eusebius, the more inexplicable appears the use he has made of that List in his The fact, however, is undeniable, whether he

canon.

found the List ready made for him, or invented it himself. The former seems to us the more probable, although Syncellus gives no authority for the document, and that Eusebius had no knowledge of it, we have now the conclusive evidence of the Armenian translation. The name of King Asseth proves that Syncellus -if indeed, he himself undertook any independent course of investigation had that list before him in forming his chronography. He calls him, as we have seen, Father of Amos, and is at great pains to inform us that some copies assign 16, others 20 years to his reign. All this is explained from the List, where Asseth is inscribed with 20 years, which number Syncellus specifies as the most accurate.

What has here been said suggests the following remark: Syncellus passes a severe judgment on Eusebius, and upon the whole with justice; but in the formation of his own canon he is as much inferior to the Bishop of Cæsarea, as the eighth century is to the fourth. Speculative criticism without creative talent is the infallible sign of a declining age.

Syncellus accordingly was an acute critic in the minutiæ of by-gone times, but was not qualified to apprehend the fundamental fallacy of the principles by which he was guided, and the futility of every system formed upon such principles. Still, however, he was a scholar and a critic. In spite of his confusion of good and bad authorities in the chronology of a dark primeval antiquity, where the prejudices of his age precluded the separation of the genuine from the apocryphal, he nevertheless knew how to distinguish between truth and fable. Egyptian history itself, in its substantial integrity at least, was transmitted by him in a candid and intelligent spirit, as a sacred deposit of historical truths.

Within a century after his time we find in John Malalas 16 (about 900), the complete extinction of all

168 Joh. Malalas Chronog. book i. end, and ii. init. (p. 16-26). Bonn. Comp. Chron. Pasc. p. 106. R. 14. 16. P.

Egyptian tradition, although in the midst of continual appeals to the much calumniated name of Manetho.

From this author, followed by Cedrenus, about 1050, and by a subsequent continuator of the "Chronicon Paschale," we learn how "the giant Nabrod (Nimrod), the son of Chus (Kush), the Ethiopian, of the race of Ham, built Babylon. Chronus ruled over Syria and Persia, the son of a certain Uranus, who reigned 56 years. His wife's name was Semiramis. He was succeeded by Ninus, the father of Zoroaster; after whom came Thuras, then Ares and Baal, to whom the first Stelæ were dedicated; then Lamis; then Sardanapalus, slain by a Persian. Picus, who is also Zeus, the brother of Ninus, reigned over Italy. After the death of Picus, his son Faunus reigned-also called Hermes. He visited Egypt, where Mestraim reigned, of the posterity of Hain. After his death the Egyptians made Hermes their king, who reigned over them 39 years."

"To him (3) succeeded Vulcan, who reigned 1680 days, or 4 years 7 months and three quarters. He was a severe lawgiver, and enacted a law against adultery. His son Helius (4) reigned 4477 days. As he had a very keen eyesight, he discovered an Egyptian woman in the act of adultery, and punished her, as was right, according to his father's law. It was from this event that Homer derived his instructive fable of Mars and Venus. But the learned Palæphatus has related the fact as it really occurred. His son Sosis (5) succeeded him, then Osiris (6), then Orus (7), and last of all, Thulis (8). The latter subdued the whole country as far as Ocean. In Africa he was vouchsafed a wise and providential oracle in hexameter verse, commencing as follows" (we endeavour to imitate the lameness of both versification and language):

"First of all comes God, then the Word, and then with them the Spirit."

"He was soon after killed."

"Manetho registered these primeval reigns of the Egyptian Kings. It is also stated in his writings that the five planets bore quite different names among the Egyptians. Saturn, they called the Enlightening; Jupiter, the Shining; Mars, the Fiery; Venus, the Loveliest; Mercury, the Sparkling.

"In later times, Sostris, of the descendants of Ham, was the first who reigned over Egypt (in the Chronicle, Sesostris). This conqueror brought 15,000 young Scythians to settle in Persia, where they still reside: the Persians call them Parthyâi; and they preserve their Scythian dialect to this day.

"Hermes Trismegistus lived under Sesostris. Pharaoh, who is likewise called Maracho (in the Chronicle, Nachor-Necho ?), succeeded him on the throne, and from him sprung the kings who afterward successively reigned over Egypt."

With such an example before us of the rapid degradation of history into fiction, how can we wonder at those fables of our own middle ages, where Æneas and Ascanius appear as the ancestors of the Franks? In Germany also, history relapsed into fiction, during the same dark period. The realities of human existence were banished into the background, and historical fact denoted every thing except itself. Here, however, from the ruins of history a genial tradition arose, and was matured into the great national epos of the German races; and, even on the crumbling remains of the primeval Cimmerian world, a fair edifice of poetry, beaming with life, and love, and energy, was constructed. But lastly, there lay here in the bosom of dreamy time the germ of a New World; and, with the downfall of Byzantium, a light burst forth over the departed glories of Greece and Rome, by the rays of which the darkest pages of the past were destined ere long to be again brilliantly illumined.