HKB
ages of the great Gods of Egypt; and Amenophis was the Menes who Reigned next after them: he was Succeeded by Ramesses, and Moeris, and some time after by Hophra.
Diodorus [343] recites the same Kings of Egypt with Herodotus, but in a more confused order, and repeats some of them twice, or oftener, under various names, and omits others: his Kings are these; Jupiter Ammon and Juno, Osiris and Isis, Horus, Menes, Busiris I, Busiris II, Osymanduas, Uchoreus, Myris, Sesoosis I, Sesoosis II, Amasis, Actisanes, Mendes or Marrus, Proteus, Remphis, Chembis, Cephren, Mycerinus or Cherinus, Gnephacthus, Bocchoris, Sabacon, twelve contemporary Kings, Psammitichus, * * Apries, Amasis. Here I take Sesoosis I, and Sesoosis II, Busiris I, and Busiris II, to be the same Kings with Osiris and Orus: also Osymanduas to be the same with Amenophis or Menes: also Amasis, and Actisanes, an Ethiopian who conquered him, to be the same with Anysis and Sabacon in Herodotus: and Uchoreus, Mendes, Marrus, and Myris, to be only several names of one and the same King. Whence the catalogue of Diodorus will be reduced to this: Jupiter Ammon and Juno; Osiris, Busiris or Sesoosis, and Isis; Horus, Busiris II, or Sesoosis II; Menes, or Osymanduas; Proteus; Remphis or Ramesses; Uchoreus, Mendes, Marrus, or Myris; Chembis or Cheops; Cephren; Mycerinus; * * Gnephacthus; Bocchoris; Amasis, or Anysis; Actisanes, or Sabacon; * twelve contemporary Kings; Psammitichus; * * Apries; Amasis: to which, if in their proper places you add Nitocris, Asychis, Sethon, Nechus, and Psammis, you will have the catalogue of Herodotus.
The Dynasties of Manetho and Eratosthenes seem to be filled with many such names of Kings as Herodotus omitted: when it shall be made appear that any of them Reigned in Egypt after the expulsion of the Shepherds, and were different from the Kings described above, they may be inserted in their proper places.
Egypt was conquered by the Ethiopians under Sabacon, about the beginning of the Æra of Nabonassar, or perhaps three or four years before, that is, about three hundred years before Herodotus wrote his history; and about eighty years after that conquest, it was conquered again by the Assyrians under Asserhadon: and the history of Egypt set down by Herodotus from the time of this last conquest, is right both as to the number, and order, and names of the Kings, and as to the length of their Reigns: and therein he is now followed by historians, being the only author who hath given us so good a history of Egypt, for that interval of time. If his history of the earlier times be less accurate, it was because the archives of Egypt had suffered much during the Reign of the Ethiopians and Assyrians: and it is not likely that the Priests of Egypt, who lived two or three hundred years after the days of Herodotus, could mend the matter: on the contrary, after Cambyses had carried away the records of Egypt, the Priests were daily feigning new Kings, to make their Gods and nation look ancient; as is manifest by comparing Herodotus with Diodorus Siculus, and both of them with what Plato relates out of the Poem of Solon: which Poem makes the wars of the great Gods of Egypt against the Greeks, to have been in the days of Cecrops, Erechtheus and Erichthonius, and a little before those of Theseus; these Gods at that time instituting Temples and Sacred Rites to themselves. I have therefore chosen to rely upon the stories related to Herodotus by the Priests of Egypt in those days, and corrected by the Poem of Solon, so as to make these Gods of Egypt no older than Cecrops and Erechtheus, and their successor Menes no older than Theseus and Memnon, and the Temple of Vulcan not above 280 years in building: rather than to correct Herodotus by Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus, and others, who lived after the Priests of Egypt had corrupted their Antiquities much more than they had done in the days of Herodotus.