4t) Proceedings of the Rui/al Irish Acudenii/. 



Prosopis and defeat of the inTaders in the 5th year of the reign of 

 Meneptah II. 



Circ. B.C. 1266. ])J!eneptah II. repels the invasion of the foreigners,, 

 who had come into Egypt " to seek sustejiajice for their mouths.'''' 



Circ. E.c. 1233. Set-nekht, lived in times of disturbance and 

 tronhles — troubles in Egypt caused by foreigners. "The land of 

 Egypt belonged to princes from foreign parts." 



Circ. B.C. 1200. Eamessu-Haq.-On = Ramses III., occupied mth 

 wars against foreign nations who had invaded the borders of Egypt. 



It would thus appear that from about B.C. 1360 (Seti I.), to the end 



of the reign of Eamses III. {circ. b.c. 1166), repeated invasions of 



the Delta took place by the maritime nations of the MediteiTanean and 



their allies, consequent on famine, at least in one case (Meneptah II.), 



and foreigners established themselves therein, almost to the exclusiou 



of the Egyptians. As regards the nations and tribes mentioned in the 



inscriptions as having come fi'om the extreme western shores of the 



Mediterranean, certain of these may have been fi'om the Spanish side, 



even from the basins of the rivers which had been dried up ; possibly 



fi-om the western coast of Spain. The Egyptian records of the period 



m.entioned support, therefore, to some extent the traditions relative to 



the occuiTence of great and prolonged di'ought in Spain having caused 



an immense emigration from that country to others not so affected, 



such as the Yalley of the JSTile ; the date of that event may have been 



as late as 1156 e.g. (Pedi'o Beuter), but the probability is, that it took 



place somewhere in or about the twelfth century b.c Considerations 



of another order would lead to the acceptance of this date for the 



Spanish drought and consequent famine and emigrations (bearing in 



mind that the causes of the drought operated over a much wider extent 



of land than Spain alone). Thus the dates relative to the Etruscan 



emigration would seem to bear upon this point, and are, consequently, 



worthy of citation. In the article on '^ £truria" ("Br. Encyclo- 



psedia," 1878) it is stated, p. 637 — " 2^ext to years they counted by 



saecula, each representing the longest life of the time, and reaching in 



some cases to 123 years ; but with an average apparently of 100. The 



Eti'm'ian nation was to endui-e ten sseculse. The beginning of the 



tenth was enounced in the year 44 b.c, p. 639. It appears from a 



statement of Yarro, quoted by Censorius (DeDie Xatali XVIL, SfoL), 



that EtiTiscan histoiy was divided into ten periods, or seculse ; and it 



is known otherwise that the tenth of these began in the year 44 b.c 



The fom' first saecula are given as having lasted each 100 years; the 



fifth, 123 years; the sixth, 119 years; and, allowing for the eighth 



