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his name. For my own part, as I can easily believe that he, which fied out of Egypt into Greece, was a man of such quality as the soldan Sanar, of whom we spoke before; so do I not find how in so short a reign as five years, a work of that labour could be finished, which was required unto the lake of Moeris and the monuments therein; whereof his own sepulchre and his wife's being some part, it is manifest that he was not buried in Argos. Wherefore, of Myris, and of all other kings whose age is uncertain, and of whose reigns we have no assurance, I may truly say that their great works are not enough to prove them of the house of Pharaoh; seeing that greater deeds, or more absolute than were those of Joseph, who bought all the people of Egypt as bondmen, and all their land for bread, of Gehoar who founded Cairo, and of Sanar, who made the country tributary, were performed by none of them.

It shall, therefore, be enough to set down the length of their reigns, whom we find to have followed one another in order of succession; but, in rehearsing the great acts which were performed, I will not stand to examine whether they that did them were kings or no.

The lake of Moeris is, by the report of Diodorus and Herodotus, three thousand six hundred furlongs in compass, and fifty fathoms deep. It served to receive the waters of Nilus, when the overflow, being too great, was harmful to the country; and to supply the defect, by letting out the waters of the lake when the river did not rise high enough. In opening the sluices of this lake, for the letting in or out of waters, were spent fifty talents; but the lake itself defrayed that cost; seeing the tribute imposed upon fish taken therein was every day one talent, which Myris gave to his wife to buy sweet ointments and other ornaments for her body. In the midst of it was left an island, wherein were the sepulchres of Myris and his wife, and over each of them a pyra.

mid, that was a furlong, or, (according to Herodotus,) fifty paces high; having on the tops their statues, sitting in thrones. I find not the description of this lake in maps answerable to the report of historians; yet it is very great.

The years of Armeus are, by Manethon, divided, by inserting one Armesis, (whom Eusebius omits,) that should have reigned one year and odd months of the time; but I hold not this difference worthy of examination. After Ramesses, his son Amenophis held the kingdom forty years. Some give him only nineteen years; and Mercator thinks him to have been the king that was drowned in the Red Sea; whereof I have already spoken in the first book.

SECT. IV.

Of the kings that reigned in the Dynasty of the Larthes.

SETHOSIS, or Zethus, reigned after his father Amenophis, fifty-five years. To him are ascribed the famous acts of that ancient Sesostris. But the state of the world was not such in these times, that so great an expedition, as the old Sesostris made, could have been either easily performed, or forgotten in the countries through which he passed, had it now been performed; as any man will perceive if he look upon my chronological table, and consider who liv ed with this Zethus. With this king began the dynasty of the Larthes; which Reineccius conjectures to have had the same signification, wherein the old kings of Etruria, were called Lartes, (the Etrurians being issued out of Lydia, the Lydians out of Egypt,) and to have signified as much as Imperator or general. The wars in which these kings were generals, I take to have been against the Ethiopians; for sure I am, that they troubled not the country of Palæstina, that lay next unto them on the one hand, nor is it likely that they travelled over the desert sands, on the VOL. III.

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other hand, to seek matter of conquest, in the poor countries of Africa. But these generals, (if the Larthes were such,) were not many. Five only had that title; and the last of these took it, perhaps, as hereditary from the first; in such sort as the Roman emperors were proud, for a while, to be called Antonini, till the most unsuitable conditions of Heliogabalus made his successors forbear the name.

Here it may be objected, that the dynasties, (as appears by his particular,) took name from the kings; that the kings also did administer the government themselves; and that therefore I am deceived in as'cribing so much unto the viceroys. But it is to be considered, that what is said of these Larthes, depends only upon conjecture, and that the authority of the regents, or viceroys, might be great enough, though some few kings took the conduct of armies into their own hands. For so we find in John Leo, 1. 8. that the soldan of Egypt, (after such time as the soldan Saladin, murdering the caliph, got the sovereignty to himself,) had under him a viceroy, styled Eddaguadare, who had authority to place or displace any magistrates or officers, and that this man's family was almost as great as the soldan's own. Yet was there also the Amir Cabir, or lord-general of the soldan's forces, who had the charge of defending the land, and might, as he thought good, spend of the soldan's treasure. So might the office of the viceroys continue, though the kings themselves, taking the charge, or title of generals, upon them, did somewhat abridge the greatness of that second place. As for the names of the dynasties, it skills not whence they were drawn ; whether from their country, as those of the Thebans and Diapolitans, or from some eminent men, or man, who ruled in that time; as many think, that the seventeenth dynasty was called of the shepherds, because Joseph governed in part thereof, or from the kiugs themselves that reigned; as this was said to be of the Larthes or ge

nerals. The next, as Manetho, (but Annius's Manetho,) hath it, was without any Larthes or generals, yet it was not without kings, forasmuch as Vaphres and Sesac reigned therein, if many others did not. But let us now return to the business we

left.

Ramesses was king after Zethus, or Sethosis, threescore and six years. He is mistaken for that second Sesostris, of whom I have spoken in the first book. I find nothing worth rehearsal of this Ramesses, or of Amenophis, and Annemenes, that followed him in or der, the former of which reigned forty, the latter sixand twenty years. Wherefore it may very well be, that the name which Zethus had from valour, was taken by these as hereditary.

Thuoris, the last of the Larthes, reigned only seven years; yet is he thought to have been that Proteus of whom Herodotus hath mention, saying, that he took Helena from Paris, and after the sack of Troy, restored her to Menelaus. I need say no more in refutation of this, than that the time of Thuoris's reign, lasted not so long as from the rape of Helen to her restitution.

This Proteus or Cetes, (as he is named by some,) together with Thon, and others, mentioned by Greek writers in this business, or in other such matters, may seem to be under-officers; for such only are like to have had their residency about Pharos, and the seacoast, where Menelaus arrived. Of Proteus, who detained Helen, it is said, that he could fortel things to come, and that he could change himself into all shapes; whereby is signified his crafty head, for which he is grown into a proverb. The poets feigned him a sea-god, and keeper of Neptune's seal-fishes, for belike he was some under-officer to the admiral, having charge of the fishing about the isle of Pharos, as was said before.

Remphes, the son of Proteus, is reckoned the next king by Diodorus, as also by Herodotus, who calls

him Ramsinitus, and tells a long tale, fit to please children, of his covetousness, and how his treasurehouse was robbed by a cunning thief, that at last married his daughter. But of this a man may be lieve what he list. How long this king reigned I know not, nor think that either he or his father did reign at all.

SECT. V.

Of Egyptian kings whose names are found scattered in sundry authors, their times being not recorded. The kings of Egypt, according to Cedrenus. Of Vaphres and Sesac.

MANY other names of Egyptian kings are found scattered here and there; as Tonephersobis, of whom Suidas delivers only the bare name and title; Senemures, or Senepos, mentioned in Macrobius, who perhaps was the same that by Suidas is called Senyes, or Evenes, noted by occasion of a great physician that lived under him; Banchyris, recorded by the same Suidas, for his great justice; and Thulis, of whom Suidas tells great matters;-as that his empire extended to the ocean sea; that he gave name to the isle of Thule, which some take to be Iceland; and that he consulted with the devil, or, (which is all one,) with Serapis, desiring to know, who before him had been, or after him should be so mighty as himself. The answer or confession of the devil was remarkable; which I find englished in the translation of Plessis's work, Of the trueness of Christian religion. The Greek verses are somewhat otherwise, and much more imperfect in those copies that I have of Cedrenus and Suidas, but the sense is all one; which is this:

First God, and next The Word, and then The Sprite,
Which three be One, and join in One all three ;

Whose force is endless.

Get thee hence frail wight,

The man of life unknown, excelleth thee.

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