On the Chronology of Egypt. 375 



the beginning of the reign of Ocaras, before whom were per- 

 formed those signs and wonders which prepared the way for the 

 departure of the Israelites. On the night of the Passover, the 

 king lost his first-born, perhaps his only son ; and this may be 

 the reason that he was succeeded by his sister Xitocris. The 

 short reign of Ocaras (a single year) might be explained by 

 supposing he was drowned in the Eed Sea; but as there is 

 nothing in the sacred narrative which obliges us to admit that 

 the king perished in this manner, we may adopt the account of 

 Herodotus, that he was murdered by his subjects. We may 

 imagine that some of his nobles remained with Pharaoh on the 

 shore ; and that when they saw the sea return and swallow up all 

 that had gone in after the Israelites, they murdered the king, 

 whose obstinacy had brought such calamities on his people, and 

 then placed his sister Nitocris on the throne. As Nitocris was the 

 daughter of Apappus, there is nothing to prevent us from sup- 

 posing that the queen, now ninety years old, was the princess who 

 had saved the infant Moses. Weary of her life, she lived only 

 to avenge her brother. For this purpose, says Herodotus, she 

 constructed a large subterranean chamber, to which, when it was 

 finished, she invited the principal agents in her brother's death ; 

 and there, by the waters of the Nile admitted through a secret 

 canal, they were drowned in the midst of the banquet. The 

 queen then threw herself into a room filled with ashes, where 

 she perished. 



