Table Of ContentThe Complete Works of
MANETHO
(fl. 3rd century BC)
Contents
The Translations
AEGYPTIACA
OTHER FRAGMENTS
The Greek and Latin Texts
LIST OF GREEK AND LATIN TEXTS
The Biography
INTRODUCTION TO MANETHO by W. G. Waddell
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2018
Version 1
The Complete Works of
MANETHO
By Delphi Classics, 2018
COPYRIGHT
Complete Works of Manetho
First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2018.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
ISBN: 978 1 78656 394 1
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The Translations
Sebennytos, an ancient city of Lower Egypt, located on the Damietta branch of the Nile in the Delta;
modern day Samannud — Manetho’s birthplace
AEGYPTIACA
Translated by W. G. Waddell
Manetho was an Egyptian priest that flourished in the third century BC. He
wrote one or more books in Greek, detailing the history and civilisation of his
homeland. Although his complete original texts are now lost, important remains
have survived, transmitted to us as fragments from several ancient authors. The
most important of these writers are Josephus, who quotes long passages of
discourse, and Eusebius and the Christian chronographer Africanus, who for the
most part have preserved lists of Egyptian kings, grouped by “Dynasties”. For
many centuries, before hieroglyphics could be read, Manetho’s writings, in spite
of their mangled state, were one of the chief sources of information on Egyptian
history. Following the decipherment of hieroglyphics in the nineteenth century,
Manetho was superseded in favour of first-hand knowledge from the papyri and
inscriptions from the tombs of Egypt.
Manetho is believed to have authored the Aegyptiaca at the request of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Some commentators have suggested that Aegyptiaca
was written as a competing account to Herodotus’ Histories , in order to provide
a lacking national history for Egypt. The work is of great interest due to its
chronology of the reigns of the ancient pharaohs. Organised chronologically and
divided into three books, Manetho’s work was innovative due to its division of
rulers into dynasties. The term “dynasty” is used to refer to a group of kings with
a common origin, as Manetho introduces new dynasties whenever he detects
discontinuity, whether geographical (Dynasty IV from Memphis, Dynasty V
from Elephantine) or genealogical (especially in Dynasty I, when he
occasionally refers a successive pharaoh as the “son” of the previous to define
what he means by “continuity”). Within the superstructure of a genealogical
table, Manetho fills in the gaps with substantial narratives of the Pharaonic
kings.
The earliest known mention of Aegyptiaca is by the Jewish historian Josephus
in his work Against Apion , dated after AD 94. Before this, no extant text
mentions the Aegyptiaca in at least 300 years, causing many to question its real
date and authorship. The notion that an official and authoritative history of
Egypt composed in Greek at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus could go
unnoticed by professional scholars and Alexandrian librarians for centuries until
Josephus is scarcely credible. The work may have instead been written in the
Roman period, not long before it is first mentioned. Therefore, some scholars
speculate that the real author was the historian Ptolemy of Mendes, an educated
Greek born and raised in Egypt, who had decided to attribute his three-book
history to Manetho in order to give it credibility.
The first Book opens with a brief biography of Manetho and an explanation
of the purpose of the work. In the preamble the author states that the first
Hermes who is identified as the god Thoth invented writing. The writings of this
first Hermes were then translated into a new script called hieroglyphics by his
son Hermes Trismegistus, who is the second Hermes. The books written by this
second Hermes were later collected and arranged by his son, the god
Agathodaemon. According to the author, Agathodaemon only finished his
editorial work of arranging the “sacred books” written by his father Hermes
Trismegistus after the accession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was only at this
point that Manetho was given access to these sources, when he utilised them to
write his own detailed history of Egypt in Greek for the reigning Ptolemaic king.
The accession of Ptolemy II Philadelphus is considered by the author to be a
major turning point in Egypt’s history as it was only during this king’s reign that
the god Agathodaemon completed editing the “sacred books” — a prerequisite
for Manetho to compose a history of Egypt in Greek.
The author proceeds to discuss the earliest times in Egypt, listing the reigns of
the gods and demigods and the spirits of the dead as kings of Egypt.
Accordingly, there were seven god-kings, then four lines of demigods, and then
the spirits of the dead (another class of demigods) but the number and their
names are not preserved in the surviving fragments. The author does not
transliterate the names of the gods, demigods, or the spirits of the dead, but
provides the Greek equivalents by a convention that predates him: e.g.
(Egyptian) Ptah = (Greek) Hephaestus; Ra = Helios; Shu, son of Ra = Sosis; Geb
= Cronos; Asar = Osiris; Isis = Demeter; Set = Typhon; Horus = Orus; Thoth =
the first Hermes; etc. Stories about each of these gods, and possibly others, most
likely would have been given here. This may explain how syncretism developed
between seemingly disparate religions.
As for the dynasties that followed the spirits of the dead, the author states that
Egypt was ruled by five native or indigenous Egyptian tribes, and goes on to
explain that the country was ruled by a total of thirty mortal dynasties prior to
the Greek conquest by Alexander the Great. It is believed that Book One
discussed the first eleven dynasties, which now fall into the periods of history
that Egyptologists refer to as the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period and
the early Middle Kingdom.
The second Book covered Dynasties XII–XVIII in the first edition, grouping
the kings of Dynasty XIX in with Dynasty XVIII. The book detailed the end of
the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period, the Hyksos invasion,
and then their expulsion and the establishment of the New Kingdom by Ahmose
I, the founder of Dynasty XVIII. Book Two was also of particular interest to
Josephus, where he equated the Hyksos or “shepherd-kings” with the ancient
Israelites that made their famous exodus out of Egypt.
The final Book continued with the “XIXth dynasty” and concluded with the
“XXXth dynasty”. The Saite Renaissance occurs in the “XXVth dynasty, while
the “XXVIth dynasty” involves the Persian Anshanite rule of Cambyses and
then Barziya, sons of Cyrus the Great. Barziya was denounced as a Magian (the
Magians were a tribe of Medes) fraud by his successor who overthrew him. The
numbering system for the dynasties used in the first edition was revised by the
author in subsequent editions, yet he almost certainly concluded Book Three
with Darius III.
A bust depicting Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC)
