MANETHO, or MANETHO SEBEN NYTA, Egyptian historian: native of Seben nytus, in the Delta and of the priestly order. He is believed to have lived in the reigns of Ptolemy I and II and to have written in the reign of Ptolemy I (323-285 a.c.), or of Ptolemy II (285-247 a.c.). According to some he was priest of Diospolis or Heliopolis ; others contend that he was high-priest of Alexandria. His name has been interpreted variously as °Beloved of Thoth)) or "Beloved of Neith? Scarcely anything is known of the history of Manetho himself, and he is renowned chiefly for his Egyptian annals. On the occasion of Ptolemy I dreaming of the god Serapis at Sinope, Manetho was consulted by the monarch, and in conjunction with Timotheus of Athens, interpreter of the Eleusinian mysteries, de clared the statue of Serapis, brought by orders of the king from Sinope, to be that of the god Serapis or Pluto ; whereupon the god had a temple and his worship inaugurated at Alex andria. The fame of Manetho was much in creased by his writing in the Greek language, and so being enabled to communicate from Egyptian sources a more correct knowledge of the history of his native country than the Greek writers who had preceded him. Of this his tory, only extracts given by Josephus in his work against Apion, and an epitome by Euse bius and other ecclesiastical writers, remain. It appears to have been written in a compendious annalistic style of narrative, resembling the accounts given by Herodotus. The work of Manetho was in three books, the first began with the mythic reigns of gods and kings and ended with the 11th dynasty of mortals; the second continued the history from the 12th to the 19th dynasty; the third from the 20th to the 30th dynasty, when Egypt fell under the dominion of Alexander the Great. The reigns of the gods are given as amounting to 24,900 years, and the epoch of Menes, founder of the monarchy, commenced 3,555 years before Alex ander (332 a.c.). The difficulties attending the
reconciliation of this chronology with the synchronestic history of the Hebrews, Greeks and other nations, have given rise to numerous speculations and chronological systems since the revival of learning. The accession of newer and better information from the original sources of Egyptian monuments, papyri and other documents has considerably enhanced the general value of the history of Manetho, which, prior to their discovery, had fallen into dis credit. But the restoration of the history of Manetho, notwithstanding all these resources and the positive epoch of the monarchy, are still to •be sought, though certain dynasties, in the second and third books of his works, can be reconciled with monumental evidence. Besides the true work of Manetho above cited, another work, 'Sothis,' or the (Dogstar) (in allusion to the cycle of heliacal rising of that star of 1461 years) dedicated to Sehastos or Augustus, the title of the Roman emperors, has been handed down; but there is considerable support for the opinion that it is spurious, and was added by the epitomizers; and another work, called the (Old Chronicle,' in which the history was arranged according to cycles, was compiled by them. Besides the history, 11/41anotho wrote (Ton Physikon Epitome,' treating on the origin of gods and the world and the laws of morality; and another work on the preparation of the sacred kyphi, a kind of frankincense. The astronomical work called is a spurious production of the 5th century after Christ. Consult Boekh, (Manetho) (Berlin 1845) ; Bunsen, Place in Universal His (London 1848-67) ; Midler, C., torici Grxci (2 vols., Leipzig 1870 71).