ais hapasais aretais, kai dia touto
tachu kurion genesthai tou sumpantos kosmou.] _Zeus_ (or Jupiter) _having
got the entire supremacy marched over the whole earth, benefiting mankind
wherever he came. And as he was a person of great bodily strength, and at
the same time had every princely quality, he very soon subdued the whole
world_.

No mention is made of any conquests achieved by Orus: and tho reason is,
because he was the same as Osiris. Indeed they were all the same personage:
but Orus was more particularly Osiris in his second state; and therefore
represented by the antient Egyptians as a child. What is omitted by him,
was made up by his immediate successor Thoules; who like those, who
preceded, conquered every country which was inhabited. [874][Greek: Eita
Osiris, meth' hon Oros, kai meta auton Thoules, hos kai heos tou okeanou
pasan ten gen pareilephen.] _After him_ (that is, Soeus, or Sosis,) _came
Osiris; and then Orus: to whom succeeded Thoules, who conquered the whole
earth quite to the ocean_. The like history is given of him by [875]Suidas,
and by the author of the [876]Chronicon Paschale.

These accounts I have collated, and brought in succession to one another;
that we may at a view see the absurdity of the history, if taken in the
common acceptation. And however numerous my instances may have been, I
shall introduce other examples before I quit the subject. I must
particularly speak of an Egyptian hero, equally ideal with those
abovementioned; whose history, though the most romantic and improbable of
any, has been admitted as credible and true. The person to whom I allude,
is the celebrated Sesostris. Most of the antient historians speak of his
great achievements; and the most learned of the modern chronologists have
endeavoured to determine his aera, and point out the time of his reign. But
their endeavours have been fruitless; and they vary about the time when he
lived not less than a thousand years: nay, some differ even more than this
in the aera, which they assign to him.

SESOSTRIS.

Among the writers who have written concerning this extraordinary personage,
Diodorus Siculus is the most uniform and full; and with his evidence I will
begin my account. He[877] informs us, that, when this prince was a youth,
he was entrusted by his father with a great army. He upon this invaded
Arabia: and though he was obliged to encounter hunger and thirst in the
wilds, which he traversed; yet he subdued the w