164 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



A chronicle, named the ancient *, and which 

 some consider anterior, others posterior, to Ma- 

 netho, gives still different calculations. The to- 

 tal duration of its kings is 36,525 years, of which 

 the sun reigned 30,000, the other gods 3984, and 

 the demi-gods 217 ; there remaining for those of 

 the human race only 2339 years. There are thus 

 also but 113 generations, in place of the 340 of 

 Herodotus. 



A learned man of an order different from that 

 of Manetho, the astronomer Eratosthenes, dis- 

 covered and published, in the reign of Ptolemy 

 Euergetes, about 240 years before Christ, a par- 

 ticular list of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, 

 commencing with Menes, and continuing for a 

 space of 1024 years ; of which we have an extract 

 that Syncellus has copied from Apollodorus f . 

 Scarcely any of the names found in this list cor- 

 respond with those of the others. 



Diodorus went to Egypt in the reign of Pto- 

 lemy Auletes, about sixty years before Christ, 

 consequently two centuries after Manetho, and 

 four after Herodotus. He also collected from the 

 narratives of the priests a history of the coun- 

 try, and his account is again quite different from 

 those of his predecessors $. It isjio longer Menes 



* Syncell. p. 51. t Ibid, p. 91. el seq. 



% Diod. Sic. lib. i. sect. 2. 



