dred and
forty-one generations of men;(448) which make eleven thousand three
hundred and forty years; allowing three generations to a hundred years.
They counted the like number of priests and kings. The latter, whether
gods or men, had succeeded one another without interruption, under the
name of Piromis, an Egyptian word signifying good and virtuous. The
Egyptian priests showed Herodotus three hundred and forty-one wooden
colossal statues of these Piromis, all ranged in order in a great hall.
Such was the folly of the Egyptians, to lose themselves as it were in a
remote antiquity, to which no other people could dare to pretend.

(M86) THARACA. He it was who joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army, to
relieve Jerusalem.(449) After the death of Sethon, who had sitten fourteen
years on the throne, Tharaca ascended it, and reigned eighteen years. He
was the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt.

After his death, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the
succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were
great disorders and confusions among them.

(M87) At last,(450) twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together,
seized upon the kingdom, and divided it amongst themselves into as many
parts. It was agreed by them, that each should govern his own district
with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade
or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this
agreement, and to bind it with the most dreadful oaths, to elude the
prediction of an oracle, which had foretold, that he among them who should
offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the
sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost
harmony: and to leave a famous monument of their concord to posterity,
they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which
was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many
edifices underground as appeared above it. I have spoken elsewhere of this
labyrinth.

One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical
sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priests, having presented
each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting; when
Psammetichus,(451) without any design, supplied the want of this bowl with
his brazen helmet, (for each wore one,) and with it performed the ceremony
of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the k