158 The Rev. E. Hincks on the Years and Cycles 



Georgius quoted as a statement of Manetho. Georgius gives, indeed, copious 

 extracts from Manetho, as transmitted both by Africanus and by Eusebius ; and 

 in these extracts he mentions several facts respecting different Egyptian kings ; 

 but the passage in which he speaks of the year does not occur in any of these 

 extracts. It is to be found (page 123 C. D. Paris edition) in the Catalogue of 

 Egyptian Kings, which he gives as his own ; — a catalogue, which is universally 

 admitted to be full of the grossest errors, so as to be utterly unworthy of notice. 

 In that catalogue he mentions a king, whom he calls Asseth ; he places him 

 immediately before Tethmosis or Amosis, and he elsewhere says that he was the 

 father of Tethmosis. No such king is mentioned either by Africanus or Euse- 

 bius ; and Josephus calls the father of Tethmosis Alisphragmuthosis. There 

 was, therefore, some reason for Scaliger to wonder, " whence Georgius fished up 

 this king Asseth." Josephus, however, mentions a king Assis, the last of the 

 shepherd sovereigns ; and this appears to have been the Asseth of Georgius. It 

 is true, that, according to Manetho, as preserved by Josephus, the reign of Assis 

 terminated 251 years before that of Tethmosis began ; and that Assis was one of 

 the Shepherd conquerors, while Tethmosis was the native prince who expelled 

 them. These would be no objections in the eyes of Georgius. It would be 

 quite in accordance with his peculiar method of cataloguing kings to place these 

 two sovereigns in the relation of father and son ! After mentioning Asseth, 

 Georgius makes the following remark : — " He added the five additional days of 

 the years ; and in his time, as they say, the Egyptian year was appointed to con- 

 sist of 365 days, when it before this was composed of only 360." Here we have 

 the statement, which later writers have so generally acquiesced in ; and we have 

 it repeated in the same sentence, apparently for greater emphasis ; but it still 

 rests on the authority of Georgius only ; and I can by no means esteem the 

 authority of a blundering writer in the eighth century, as suf&cient to establish a 

 fact, which is intrinsically so improbable. But, it will be objected, would 

 Georgius have been likely to invent such a statement ? Must he not have had 

 some foundation for it in some ancient writing now lost ? I grant that it is 

 improbable that he fabricated such a statement without foundation ; but I think 

 there is every probability that he misunderstood the statement of the unknown 

 author which served him as a foundation. In the double statement of Georgius 

 we may, I think, discern the original text of the unknown writer and the glosses 



