Egyptian Chronology. 473 



the improved astronomy of his own day, there is strong cor- 

 roboration of our views. The citation is therefore repeated. 



6 The Egyptians do not commence their year, like the 

 Romans, with Aquarius, but with Cancer; for near Cancer 

 appears the star Sothis, which the Greeks call the Dogstar ; 

 and the rising of the Dogstar is with them the renewal of the 

 year, because this star rules over the epoch of the nativity of 

 the world.' 



This indication becomes still more precise ; for, according 

 to the calculation of Biot, from 2800 B.C. to 1000 A.D. the Sun 

 has always been in the sign Cancer, at the period of the year at 

 which Sirius rose heliacally in Egypt. And this did not, at 

 the time Porphyry lived, take place when the Sun was in the 

 first point of Cancer. Hence, when the Alexandrian school 

 fixed the epoch of their year at the entrance of the Sun into 

 Cancer, they must have referred to a circumstance that did not 

 exist in their own day, but which had occurred 2800 years 

 before the Christian era. Here, then, we again find an astro- 

 nomical epoch, of a date closely coinciding with the two already 

 determined. 



IV. The passage in Herodotus is very remarkable, and its 

 meaning has been much disputed. Some, from its appearing 

 to involve an apparent absurdity, have been for rejecting 

 it as a fable ; while others have sought in it a hidden meaning, 

 whence the date of the origin of the Egyptian monarchy may 

 be deduced. The information of Herodotus was derived from 

 the Egyptian priests, and he does not appear to have himself 

 credited their statements ; still, however, he is not content with 

 detailing their communications simply, but adds comments of 

 his own, which obscure the sense that the mystic expressions 

 of the priests were intended to convey. Thus, in the earlier 

 -part of the passage, he informs us, that from Menes, the first 

 mortal who reigned in Egypt, they counted three hundred and 

 forty-one generations, and during this long series of genera- 

 tions a similar number of kings and priests. On this he 

 founds a calculation that these reigns comprised the vast 

 period of 11,340 years. But the calculation is obviously his 

 own ; and if it be admitted that, before the conquest of the 

 shepherd kings, Egypt contained several kingdoms, as is most 



