different
dynasties did not reign successively after one another, but many of them
at the same time, and in different countries of Egypt. There were in Egypt
four principal dynasties, that of Thebes, of Thin, of Memphis, and of
Tanis. I shall not here give my readers a list of the kings who have
reigned in Egypt, of most of whom we have only the names transmitted to
us. I shall only take notice of what seems to me most proper, to give
youth the necessary light into this part of history, for whose sake
principally I engaged in this undertaking; and I shall confine myself
chiefly to the memoirs left us by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus,
concerning the Egyptian kings, without even scrupulously preserving the
exactness of succession, at least in the early part of the monarchy, which
is very obscure; and without pretending to reconcile these two historians.
Their design, especially that of Herodotus, was not to lay before us an
exact series of the kings of Egypt, but only to point out those princes
whose history appeared to them most important and instructive. I shall
follow the same plan, and hope to be forgiven, for not having involved
either myself or my readers in a labyrinth of almost inextricable
difficulties, from which the most able can scarce disengage themselves,
when they pretend to follow the series of history, and reduce it to fixed
and certain dates. The curious may consult the learned pieces,(402) in
which this subject is treated in all its extent.

I am to premise, that Herodotus, upon the credit of the Egyptian priests,
whom he had consulted, gives us a great number of oracles and singular
incidents, all which, though he relates them as so many facts, the
judicious reader will easily discover to be what they really are--I mean,
fictions.

The ancient history of Egypt comprehends 2158 years, and is naturally
divided into three periods.

The first begins with the establishment of the Egyptian monarchy, by Menes
or Misraim, the son of Cham,(403) in the year of the world 1816; and ends
with the destruction of that monarchy by Cambyses, king of Persia, in the
year of the world 3479. This first period contains 1663 years.

The second period is intermixed with the Persian and Grecian history, and
extends to the death of Alexander the Great, which happened in the year
3681, and consequently includes 202 years.

The third period is that in which a new monarchy was formed in Egypt by
the Lagidae, or Ptolemies, d