Essay on the Theory of the Earth

by baron Georges Cuvier

Those of Sais, for example, informed Solon, about 550 years before Christ, that, as Egypt was not subject to deluges, they had preserved not only their own annals, but those of other nations also; that the cities of Athens and Sais had been built by Minerva, the former 9000 years before, the latter only 8000; and to these dates they added the well known fables respecting the Atlantes, and the resistance which the ancient Athenians opposed to their conquests, together with the whole romantic description of the Atlantis[141], a description in which we find events and genealogies similar to those of all mythological romances.

A century later, about 450 years before Christ, the priests of Memphis gave entirely different accounts to Herodotus[142]. Menes, the first king of Egypt, according to them, had built Memphis, and inclosed the Nile within dikes, as if it were possible that the first king of a country could perform operations of this kind. Between this prince and Mœris, who, according to them, reigned 900 years before the period at which this account was given (1350 years before Christ), they had a succession of three hundred and thirty other kings.

After these kings came Sesostris, who extended his conquests as far as Colchis[143]; and altogether, there were, to the time of Sethos, three hundred and forty-one kings, and three hundred and forty-one chief priests, in three hundred and forty-one generations, during a space of 11,340 years. And, in this interval, as if to insure the authenticity of their chronology, these priests asserted that the sun had risen twice where he sets, without any change having taken place in the climate or productions of the country, and without any of the gods having at that time, or before, made their appearance and reigned in Egypt.

To this fable, which, despite of all the pretended explanations that have been given of it, evinces so gross an ignorance of astronomy, they added, regarding Sesostris, Phero, Helenius, and Rhampsinitus, the kings who built the pyramids, and an Ethiopian conqueror named Sabacos, a set of tales equally absurd.

The priests of Thebes did better: they shewed Herodotus, and they had before shewn to Hecatæus, three hundred and forty-five colossal figures of wood, which represented three hundred and forty-five high priests, who had succeeded to each other from father to son, all men, all born the one of the other, but who had been preceded by gods[144]. Other Egyptians told him that they had exact registers, not only of the reign of men, but also of that of gods. They reckoned 17,000 years from Hercules to Amases, and 15,000 from Bacchus. Pan had even been prior to Hercules[145]. These people evidently took for history some allegories relating to pantheistic metaphysics, which formed, unknown to them, the basis of their mythology.

It is only from the time of Sethos that Herodotus commences the part of his history which is somewhat rational; and it is worthy of remark, that this part begins with an event which agrees with the Hebrew annals, the destruction of the army of the King of Assyria, Sennacherib[146]; and this agreement continues under Necho[147], and under Hophra or Apries.

Two centuries after Herodotus (about 260 years before Christ) Ptolemy Philadelphus, a prince of a foreign race, wished to become acquainted with the history of the country which events had called him to govern. A priest, called Manetho, was employed to write it for him. It was not from registers or archives that he pretended to compile this work, but from the sacred books of Agathodæmon, the son of the second Hermes, and the father of Tat, who had copied it upon pillars erected before the flood by Tot or the first Hermes, in the Seriadic land[148]. And this second Hermes, this Agathodæmon, this Tat, are personages of whom nothing had ever been said before, any more than of the Seriadic land, or of its pillars. The deluge itself was an event entirely unknown to the Egyptians of preceding times, and concerning which Manetho says nothing in what remains of his dynasties. The product resembles its source; not only is the whole full of absurdities, but they are absurdities peculiar to the work, and utterly irreconcilable with those which the priests of older times had related to Solon and Herodotus.

It is Vulcan who commences the series of divine kings. He reigns 9000 years; the gods and demi-gods reign 1985 years. The names, and successions, and dates of Manetho are utterly unlike any thing that was published before or after him; and from the discrepancy of the extracts given by Josephus, Julius Africanus, and Eusebius, we may infer that his narratives were as obscure and confused in themselves, as they were discordant with those of other authors. Even the duration of the respective reigns of his human kings is not settled. According to Julius Africanus, it extended to 5101; according to Eusebius, to 4723; and according to Syncellus, to 3555 years. It might be thought that the differences in the names and cyphers arose from the inaccuracy of copyists; but Josephus quotes a passage at length, the details of which are manifestly in contradiction with the extracts of his successors.