374 On the Chronology of Egypt. 



If, now, we take the catalogue of Eratosthenes, which com- 

 mences with Menes, we shall find, at the distance of 670 years 

 from Menes, a king named Achescus Ocaras, who reigned only 

 one year ; preceded by a king named Apappus, who reigned a 

 hundred years, and succeeded by queen Nitocris, who reigned 

 six years. Mr. Mac Cullagh thinks that Apappus is the king 

 in whose reign Moses was born ; that Ocaras is he who pursued 

 the Israelites to the Red Sea ; and that Nitocris is the famous 

 queen mentioned by Herodotus. It may be objected that 

 Eratosthenes gives us the succession of Theban kings, whereas 

 the Pharaohs of the Mosaic history reigned in Lower Egypt ; 

 but it is remarkable that the three sovereigns mentioned above 

 are found in Manetho's dynasties among those who reigned at 

 Memphis ; and it is singular that these are the only sovereigns 

 (except Menes and his immediate successor) in which the dynas- 

 ties of Manetho and the catalogue of Eratosthenes agree. All 

 the other names are different. Of course the predecessors of 

 Apappus, at Thebes and at Memphis, were different ; and thus 

 we can easily understand how there arose up at Memphis " a 

 new king who knew not Joseph." It would appear, in fact, 

 that Apappus was of a Theban family, and that he succeeded, for 

 some reason or another, to the throne of Lower Egypt. He was 

 only six years old (as we learn from Manetho) when he came to 

 the throne ; and it is natural to suppose that his chief advisers, 

 as he grew up, were the courtiers who accompanied the young 

 king from his own country to Memphis, and who knew nothing 

 of Joseph, and cared nothing for his people. Accordingly, when 

 Apappus arrived at manhood he issued an order that every 

 male child of the Hebrews should be destroyed, lest they should 

 grow too numerous for the Egyptians ; and, under these circum- 

 stances, Moses was born in the twenty-first year of his reign, 

 and was saved by the king's young daughter, a girl about ten 

 years old. About the sixtieth year of Apappus, Moses was 

 obliged to fly to the land of Midian, for having killed an 

 Egyptian ; and when at length the king of Egypt died 

 " after many days," as it is in the original Moses returned in 



