307 



correct readings of the Catalogue, though perhaps they could 

 not be said to be absolutely certain without the additional 

 light obtained from that of Dindorf. 



The Catalogue in question professes to contain the names 

 of thirty-eight sovereigns, with the years of their reigns ; the 

 whole succession occupying, as is stated, a period of 1076 

 years ; but it is only in the last eight reigns that the errors 

 and inconsistencies occur. The thirty-second prince is called 

 Stamenemes /3, that is, Stamenemes the Second, though 

 there is, at present, no other of that name in the list ; and 

 the beginning of his reign — as appears from the years of the 

 world, which Syncellus has annexed according to the Con- 

 stantinopolitan reckoning — follows the termination of the 

 preceding one by an interval of twenty-six years. Jackson, 

 in his Chronological Antiquities, is positive that this prince is 

 called the Second by a mistake, and adds the years that are 

 wanting to the reign of his predecessor, as Goar had pre- 

 viously done. In the first part of this view all authors, with- 

 out exception, are agreed, though they do not explain how a 

 mistake, so very odd, could have originated ; but the learned 

 Marsham, — who, having adopted the short chronology of the 

 Hebrew Bible, is so hard pressed to find room for the Egyp- 

 tian dynasties that he is obliged to begin the reign of 

 Menes the very year after the Deluge, — is glad to omit the 

 twenty-six years altogether, thus reducing the sum of all the 

 reigns to 1050 years, contrary to what is expressly stated by 

 Syncellus. The natural inference from the state of the MSS. 

 is, however, simply this : that the thirty-second king was 

 Stamenemes I., that he reigned twenty-six years, and was 

 succeeded by Stamenemes II. We may easily conceive that 

 the eye of the transcriber, deceived by the identity of names, 

 passed over the first, and rested on the second, thus occa- 

 sioning the error. Indeed there can now be no doubt that this 

 was the fact ; because, in the MS. marked (B) by Dindorf, 

 the next king is numbered as the thirty-fourth, the next but 



