The Kings of Egypt who expelled the Shepherds and Succeeded them, Reigned I think first at Coptos, and then at Thebes, and then at Memphis. At Coptos I place Misphragmuthosis and Amosis or Thomosis who expelled the Shepherds, and abolished their custom of sacrificing men, and extended the Coptic language, and the name of Αια Κοπτου, Aegyptus, to the conquest. Then Thebes became the Royal City of Ammon, and from him was called No-Ammon, and his conquest on the west of Egypt was called Ammonia. After him, in the same city of Thebes, Reigned Osiris, Orus, Menes or Amenophis, and Ramesses: but Memphis and her miracles were not yet celebrated in Greece; for Homer celebrates Thebes as in its glory in his days, and makes no mention of Memphis. After Menes had built Memphis, Mœris the successor of Ramesses adorned it, and made it the seat of the Kingdom, and this was almost two Generations after the Trojan war. Cinyras, the Vulcan who married Venus, and under the Kings of Egypt Reigned over Cyprus and part of Phœnicia, and made armour for those Kings, lived 'till the times of the Trojan war: and upon his death Menes or Memnon might Deify him, and found the famous Temple of Vulcan in that city for his worship, but not live to finish it. In a plain [[330]] not far from Memphis are many small Pyramids, said to be built by Venephes or Enephes; and I suspect that Venephes and Enephes have been corruptly written for Menephes or Amenophis, the letters AM being almost worn out in some old manuscript: for after the example of these Pyramids, the following Kings, Mœris and his successors, built others much larger. The plain in which they were built was the burying-place of that city, as appears by the Mummies there found; and therefore the Pyramids were the sepulchral monuments of the Kings and Princes of that city: and by these and such like works the city grew famous soon after the days of Homer; who therefore flourished in the Reign of Ramesses.
Herodotus [[331]] is the oldest historian now extant who wrote of the antiquities of Egypt, and had what he wrote from the Priests of that country: and Diodorus, who wrote almost 400 years after him, and had his relations also from the Priests of Egypt, placed many nameless Kings between those whom Herodotus placed in continual succession. The Priests of Egypt had therefore, between the days of Herodotus and Diodorus, out of vanity, very much increased the number of their Kings: and what they did after the days of Herodotus, they began to do before his days; for he tells us that they recited to him out of their books, the names of 330 Kings who Reigned after Menes, but did nothing memorable, except Nitocris and Mœris the last of them: all these Reigned at Thebes, 'till Mœris translated the seat of the Empire from Thebes to Memphis. After Mœris he reckons Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rhampsinitus, Cheops, Cephren, Mycerinus, Asychis, Anysis, Sabacon, Anysis again, Sethon, twelve contemporary Kings, Psammitichus, Nechus, Psammis, Apries, Amasis, and Psammenitus. The Egyptians had before the days of Solon made their monarchy 9000 years old, and now they reckon'd to Herodotus a succession of 330 Kings Reigning so many Generations, that is about 11000 years, before Sesostris: but the Kings who Reigned long before Sesostris might Reign over several little Kingdoms in several parts of Egypt, before the rise of their Monarchy; and by consequence before the days of Eli and Samuel, and so are not under our consideration: and these names may have been multiplied by corruption; and some of them, as Athothes or Thoth, the secretary of Osiris; Tosorthrus or Æsculapius a Physician who invented building with square stones; and Thuor or Polybus the husband of Alcandra, were only Princes of Egypt. If with Herodotus we omit the names of those Kings who did nothing memorable, and consider only those whose actions are recorded, and who left splendid monuments of their having Reigned over Egypt, such as were Temples, Statues, Pyramids, Obelisks, and Palaces dedicated or ascribed to them, these Kings reduced into good order will give us all or almost all the Kings of Egypt, from the days of the expulsion of the Shepherds and founding of the Monarchy, downwards to the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses: for Sesostris Reigned in the Age of the Gods of Egypt: being Deified by the names of Osiris, Hercules and Bacchus, as above; and therefore Menes, Nitocris, and Mœris are to be placed after him; Menes and his son Ramesses Reigned next after the Gods, and therefore Nitocris and Mœris Reigned after Ramesses: Mœris is set down immediately before Cheops, three times in the Dynastys of the Kings of Egypt composed by Eratosthenes, and once in the Dynasties of Manetho; and in the same Dynasties Nitocris is set after the builders of the three great Pyramids, and according to Herodotus her brother Reigned before her, and was slain, and she revenged his death; and according to Syncellus she built the third great Pyramid; and the builders of the Pyramids Reigned at Memphis, and by consequence after Mœris. Now from these things I gather that the Kings of Egypt mentioned by Herodotus ought to be placed in this order; Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Menes, Rhampsinitus, Mœris, Cheops, Cephren, Mycerinus, Nitocris, Asychis, Anysis, Sabacon, Anysis again, Sethon, twelve contemporary Kings, Psammitichus, Nechus, Psammis, Apries, Amasis, Psammenitus.
Pheron is by Herodotus said to be the son and successor of Sesostris. He was Deified by the name of Orus.
Proteus Reigned in the lower Egypt when Paris sailed thither; that is at the end of the Trojan war, according to [[332]] Herodotus: and at that time Amenophis was King of Egypt and Ethiopia: but in his absence Proteus might be governor of some part of the lower Egypt under him; for Homer places Proteus upon the sea-coasts, and makes him a sea God, and calls him the servant of Neptune; and Herodotus saith that he rose up from among the common people, and that Proteus was his name translated into Greek, and this name in Greek signifies only a Prince or President. He succeeded Pheron, and was succeeded by Rhampsinitus according to Herodotus; and so was contemporary to Amenophis.
Amenophis Reigned next after Orus and Isis the last of the Gods; he Reigned at first over all Egypt, and then over Memphis and the upper parts of Egypt; and by conquering Osarsiphus, who had revolted from him, became King of all Egypt again, about 51 years after the death of Solomon. He built Memphis and ordered the worship of the Gods of Egypt, and built a Palace at Abydus, and the Memnonia at This and Susa, and the magnificent Temple of Vulcan in Memphis; the building with square stones being found out before by Tosorthrus, the Æsculapius of Egypt: he is by corruption of his name called Menes, Mines, Minæus, Mineus, Minies, Mnevis, Enephes, Venephes, Phamenophis, Osymanthyas, Osimandes, Ismandes, Imandes, Memnon, Arminon.
Amenophis was succeeded by his son, called by Herodotus, Rhampsinitus, and by others Ramses, Ramises, Rameses, Ramesses, [[333]] Ramestes, Rhampses, Remphis. Upon an Obelisk erected by this King in Heliopolis, and sent to Rome by the Emperor Constantius, was an inscription, interpreted by Hermapion an Egyptian Priest, expressing that the King was long lived, and Reigned over a great part of the earth: and Strabo, [[334]] an eye-witness, tells us, that in the monuments of the Kings of Egypt, above the Memnonium were inscriptions upon Obelisks, expressing the riches of the Kings, and their Reigning as far as Scythia, Bactria, India and Ionia: and Tacitus [[335]] tells us from an inscription seen at Thebes by Cæsar Germanicus, and interpreted to him by the Egyptian Priests, that this King Ramesses had an army of 700000 men, and Reigned over Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, Scythia, Armenia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Lycia; whence the Monarchy of Assyria was not yet risen. This King was very covetous, and a great collector of taxes, and one of the richest of all the Kings of Egypt, and built the western portico of the Temple of Vulcan.
Mœris inheriting the riches of Ramesses, built the northern portico of that Temple more sumptuously, and made the Lake of Mœris, with two great Pyramids of brick in the midst of it: and for preserving the division of Egypt into equal shares amongst the soldiers, this King wrote a book of surveying, which gave a beginning to Geometry. He is called also Maris, Myris, Meres, Marres, Smarres; and more corruptly, by changing Μ into Α, Τ, Β, Σ, YΧ, Λ, &c. Ayres, Tyris, Byires, Soris, Uchoreus, Lachares, Labaris, &c.
Diodorus [[336]] places Uchoreus between Osymanduas and Myris, that is between Amenophis and Mœris, and saith that he built Memphis, and fortified it to admiration with a mighty rampart of earth, and a broad and deep trench, which was filled with the water of the Nile, and made there a vast and deep Lake for receiving the water of the Nile in the time of its overflowing, and built palaces in the city; and that this place was so commodiously seated that most of the Kings who Reigned after him preferred it before Thebes, and removed the Court from thence to this place, so that the magnificence of Thebes from that time began to decrease, and that of Memphis to increase, 'till Alexander King of Macedon built Alexandria. These great works of Uchoreus and those of Mœris savour of one and the same genius, and were certainly done by one and the same King, distinguished into two by a corruption of the name as above; for this Lake of Uchoreus was certainly the same with that of Mœris.
After the example of the two brick Pyramids made by Mœris, the three next Kings, Cheops, Cephren and Mycerinus built the three great Pyramids at Memphis; and therefore Reigned in that city. Cheops shut up the Temples of the Nomes, and prohibited the worship of the Gods of Egypt, designing no doubt to have been worshipped himself after death: he is called also Chembis, Chemmis, Chemnis, Phiops, Apathus, Apappus, Suphis, Saophis, Syphoas, Syphaosis, Soiphis, Syphuris, Anoiphis, Anoisis: he built the biggest of the three great Pyramids which stand together; and his brother Cephren or Cerpheres built the second, and his son Mycerinus founded the third: this last King was celebrated for clemency and justice; he shut up the dead body of his daughter in a hollow ox, and caused her to be worshipped daily with odours: he is called also Cheres, Cherinus, Bicheres, Moscheres, Mencheres. He died before the third Pyramid was finished, and his sister and successor Nitocris finished it.
Then Reigned Asychis, who built the eastern portico of the Temple of Vulcan very splendidly, and among the small Pyramids a large Pyramid of brick, made of mud dug out of the Lake of Mœris: and these are the Kings who Reigned at Memphis, and spent their time in adorning that city, until the Ethiopians and the Assyrians and others revolted, and Egypt lost all her dominion abroad, and became again divided into several small Kingdoms.