178 The Rev. E. Hincks an the Years and Cycles 



It is evident from this last sentence, that Tacitus, and those from whom he 

 derived his information, were completely mystified by the Egyptian priests ; and 

 that they supposed the phoenix to be a real bird. Pliny appears to have thought 

 the same. He speaks of it in his Natural History B. 10, c. 2 ; and, while he 

 mentions 660 years as the length of its life, he preserves an important statement 

 of Manilius, that " in the life of this bird a revolution of the Great Year was 

 completed, and the seasons and stars returned to the same situations." Brotier, 

 in his note on the above cited passage in Tacitus, after correcting an absurd 

 mistake of Hardouin, who understood Manilius to speak of the paschal cycle of 

 532 years, gives it as his own opinion, that he spoke of the canicular cycle of 

 1461 years; after describing which, he says, "This is that most celebrated 

 revolution of the Great Year, and restitution of the zodiac, which was shadowed 

 forth by a bird, sacred to the sun, and renewing its existence from itself ; 

 whence the Egyptian fable of the Phoenix originated.'"' There can be no 

 doubt in the minds of any, who are acquainted with Egyptian literature, that this 

 idea of Brotier's is a correct one, and that the appearance of a phosnix was a 

 mystical mode of expressing the renewing of a cycle. He had, however, no 

 right to assume that the cycle spoken of by Manilius was the canicular cycle, or 

 that the Egyptians used no other cycle than this. We learn from Censorinus, 

 that that cycle was renewed A. D. 138 ; the phoenix whose life was 1461 years 

 appeared at that time ; but we learn from this passage of Tacitus that some 

 phoenix made its appearance A. D. 34, which was the year in which Fabius and 

 Vitellius were consuls. We learn also that this phoenix, or a different one, had 

 previously appeared in the reigns of Sesostris, of Amasis, and of Ptolemy Phila- 



definiere. De numero annorum varia traduntur : maxime vulgatum quingentorum spatium : sunt, 

 (jui asseverent, inille quadringentos sexaginta unum interjici ; prioresque dites, Sesostride primum, 

 post Amaside dominantibus, dein Ptoletnaeo, qui ex Macedonibus tertius regiiavit, in civitatem, cui 

 Heliopolis nomen advolavisse, multo ceterarum volucrum comitatu, novam faciem mirantium. Sed 

 antiquitas quidem obscura; inter Ptolemseum ac Tiberium minus ducenti quinquaginta anni fuerunt; 

 unde nonnulli falsum hunc phaenicem, neque Arabum e terris credidere, nihilque usurpavisse ex his, 

 quae vetus niemoria firmavit : confecto quippe annorum numero, ubi mors propinquet, suis in terris 

 struere nidum, eique vim genitalem affundere, ex qua foetura oriri ; et primum adulto curam sepeli- 

 endi patris ; neque id temere, sed sublato myrrhae pondere, tentatoque per longum iter, ubi par 

 oneri, par meatui sit, subire patrium corpus, inque solis aram perferre atque adolere. Haec incerta 

 et fabulosis aucta. Ceterum aspici aliquando in vEgypto earn volucrem non ambigitur. 



