opening period of history for
what it is--namely, a system invented at a much later date, by means of
various artifices and combinations--to be partially accepted in default
of a better, but without according to it that excessive confidence which
it has hitherto received. The two Thinite dynasties, in direct descent
from the first human king Menes, furnish, like this hero himself, only a
tissue of romantic tales and miraculous legends in the place of history.
A double-headed stork, which had appeared in the first year of Teti,
son of Menes, had foreshadowed to Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine
under Ouenephes, and a terrible plague under Semempses, had depopulated
the country: the laws had been relaxed, great crimes had been committed,
and revolts had broken out. During the reign of Boethos, a gulf had
opened near Bubastis, and swallowed up many people, then the Nile had
flowed with honey for fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and
Sesochris was supposed to have been a giant in stature. A few details
about royal edifices were mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid
the foundation of the great palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the
pyramids of Ko-kome near Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had
published books on theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and
medicine; several had made laws which lasted down to the beginning of
the Christian era. One of them was called Kakou, the male of males, or
the bull of bulls. They explained his name by the statement that he had
concerned himself about the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods,
Hapis of Memphis, Mnevis of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes. After
him, Binothris had conferred the right of succession upon all the women
of the blood-royal. The accession of the IIIrd dynasty, a Memphite one
according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous character
of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes, and the
two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the disk of
the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the rebels,
who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven, and
yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to
be identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
things seriously, and the Gr