After whom again there followed—
| Dynasty XXVI. of Memphites, generations vii, years of the same generations | 177 |
And then after—
|
Dynasty XXVII. [Here the designation, generations, and years are purposely omitted; but the years are implied by the sum total, which follows below, to be certainly | 184] |
| Dynasty XXVIII. of Persians, generations v, years of the same generations | 124 |
| Then Dynasty XXIX. of Tanites, generations , years | 39 |
And, lastly, after all the above—
| Dynasty XXX. of one Tanite king, years | |
| Generations cxiii, years | 36,525 |
Sum of all the years of the XXX. Dynasties, three myriads, six thousand five hundred and twenty-five (Kings 1881 years).”
These 36,525 years, when divided by 1461, the Sothic cycle (as noted by Syncellus), give the quotient xxv. We need not digress into the conjectural reasons why twenty-five such periods were taken, rather than any other number. We will be content at starting to see in its relation to the cycle evidence of the purely fictitious character of its myriads of years, and a clue to the significance of the indication, “after them xv generations of the Cynic cycle,” &c.
Mr Palmer (i. xxiii.) says, that the question which first suggested itself to him was—
“To what Sothic cycle are these 443 years or xv generations said to belong?” [for there was the doubt whether there was any real Sothic cycle at all.] “For a Sothic cycle is not merely a space of 1461 Egyptian years, but it is that particular space of 1461 such years, and that only, which begins from the conjunction of the movable new year or Thoth, with the heliacal rising of Sirius, fixed to 20th July of our Gregorian calendar for that part of Egypt which is just above Memphis.... For the author of a chronicle ending with Nectanebo, or at any date between the Sothic epochs, 20th July B.C. 1322 (the known commencement of a cycle), and 20th July A.D. 139, ‘the Sothic cycle,’ could only mean the cycle actually current” [i.e. B.C. 1322 to A.D. 139 = 1461].... “After this discovery, if the perception of a truism can be called a discovery, it followed naturally to observe further that in constructing a fanciful scheme ... ending at any other date than a true cyclical epoch, the first operation ... must be to cut off all those years of the true current cycle which were yet to run out, below the date fixed upon, and to throw them back so that they might be reckoned as past instead of being looked forward to as future. This, then, was what the author of the Old Chronicle had done; and, with an ironical humour common among the Egyptians, he had told his readers to their faces the nature of his trick, ticketing and labelling the key to it (the 443 years) and tying it in the lock, or rather leaving it in the lock itself.” Counting, then, back 139 years of the 443 “from the 20th July A.D. 139 to 20th July B.C. 1, and 304 more from 20th July B.C. 1, we come to 20th July in 305 B.C. (if the years be fixed, sidereal, or solar years), or to 8th November 305, if they be (as they really are) vague Egyptian years” (305 B.C. being the year in which Ptolemy Lagi assumed the crown).