16 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



heavenly bodies) with the calculation of the 

 Egyptians.* " This sidereal or Sothic year," says 

 Censorinus, "the Greeks term *kvvixov,' the Latins 

 ' canicularem/ because its commencement is taken 

 from the rising of the Dog-star on the first day 

 of the month called by the Egyptians Thoth t ; '* 

 which, while it accords with the observations of 

 Porphyry, that "the first day of the month is fixed 

 in Egypt by the rising of Sothis," fully confutes 

 the opinion of those who suppose that the name 

 Thoth was applied to the first day alone, and not 

 to the month itself. 



That the five days, called of the Epact, were 

 added at a most remote period, may readily be 

 credited; and so convinced were the Egyptians 

 of this, that they referred it to the fabulous times 

 of their history, wrapping it up in the guise of 

 allegory ; and it is highly probable that the in- 

 tercalation of the quarter day, or one day in four 

 years, was also of very early date. 



On this subject, much controversy has been 

 expended, without, as usual on such occasions, 

 arriving at any satisfactory result ; many doubting 

 that it was known to them before the late time of 

 the Roman conquest, some confining it to the 

 period of the Persian conquest, and others assign- 

 ing to it the year 1322 before our era, which 

 was the beginning of a Sothic period, when the 

 solar year of 365 days coincided with the Sothic 



* Mure's " Calendar and Zodiac of Ancient Egypt," p. 8. 

 f Censorin. de Die Nat. c. 13. Porphyry and Solinus say the Egyp- 

 tians considered tliis period to commence at the beginning of the world. 



