Part 10

A learned man of an order different from that of Manetho, the astronomer Eratosthenes, discovered and published, in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, about 240 years before Christ, a particular list of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, commencing with Menes, and continuing for a space of 1024 years; of which we have an extract that Syncellus has copied from Apollodorus[150]. Scarcely any of the names found in this list correspond with those of the others.

Diodorus went to Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes, about sixty years before Christ, consequently two centuries after Manetho, and four after Herodotus. He also collected from the narratives of the priests a history of the country, and his account is again quite different from those of his predecessors[151]. It is no longer Menes who built Memphis, but Uchoræus; and long before his time Busiris the second had built Thebes. The eighth ancestor of Uchoræus, Osymandyas, possessed himself of Bactria, and crushed rebellions in it. Long after him, Sesoosis made still more extensive conquests, having proceeded as far as the Ganges, and returned by Scythia and the Tanais. Unfortunately these names of kings are unknown to all the preceding historians, and none of the nations which they conquered have preserved the slightest traces of them. As to the gods and heroes, their reign, according to Diodorus, extended through a space of 18,000 years, while that of the human sovereigns was 15,000. Four hundred and seventy of the kings were Egyptians, and four Ethiopians, without reckoning the Persians and Macedonians. The fables, besides, with which the whole is intermingled, do not yield in childishness to those of Herodotus.

In the eighteenth year of the Christian era, Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, led by the desire of becoming acquainted with the antiquities of this celebrated land, went over to Egypt, at the risk of incurring the displeasure of a prince so suspicious as his uncle, and proceeded up the Nile as far as Thebes. It was no more Sesostris or Osymandyas, of whom the priests spoke to him as a conqueror, but Rhamses, who, at the head of 700,000 men, had invaded Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, Scythia, Asia-Minor, and Syria[152].

Lastly, in the celebrated article of Pliny upon the obelisks[153], we find names of kings which are not to be seen elsewhere; Sothies, Mnevis, Zmarreus, Eraphius, Mestires, a Semenpserteus, contemporary of Pythagoras, &c. A Ramises, who might be thought the same as Rhamses, is there made to live at the time of the siege of Troy.

I am not sure whether it has been attempted to reconcile these discordant lists by the supposition that the kings have borne several names. For my own part, when I consider not only the discrepancy of these various accounts, but, above all, the mixture of authentic facts, attested by vast monuments, and of puerile extravagancies, it appears to me much more natural to conclude, that the Egyptian priests possessed no real history whatever; that, inferior still to those of India, they had not even suitable and connected fables; that they preserved only lists more or less defective of their kings, and some remembrances of the more distinguished among them, of those especially who had taken care to have their names inscribed upon the temples and other great edifices which adorned their country; but that these remembrances were confused, that they rested merely upon the traditional explanation which was given to the representations painted or sculptured upon the monuments; explanations founded solely upon hieroglyphical inscriptions, conceived, like that which has been handed down to us[154], in very general terms, and which, passing from mouth to mouth, were altered, as to their details, at the pleasure of those who communicated them to strangers; and that it is consequently impossible to rest any proposition relative to the antiquity of the presently existing continents, upon the shreds of these traditions, so incomplete even in their own times, and become utterly unintelligible under the pen of those who have been the means of transmitting them to us.

Should this assertion require other proofs, they would be found in the list of the sacred works of Hermes, which were carried by the Egyptian priests in their solemn processions. Clement of Alexandria[155] names them all to the number of forty-two, and there is not even found among them, as is the case with the Brahmins, one epic poem, or one book, which has the pretension to be a narrative, or to fix in any way a single great action or a single event.

The interesting researches of M. Champollion the younger, and his astonishing discoveries regarding the language of the hieroglyphics[156], far from overturning these conjectures, on the contrary, confirm them. This ingenious antiquary has read, in a series of hieroglyphic paintings in the temple of Abydos[157], the prenomens of a certain number of kings placed in regular succession one after another; and a part of these prenomens (the last ten) recurring on various other monuments, accompanied with proper names, he has concluded that they are those of kings who bore those proper names, and this has afforded him nearly the same kings, and in the same order, as those of which Manetho composes his eighteenth dynasty, that which expelled the shepherds. The concordance, however, is not complete: in the painting of Abydos, six of the names that appear in Manetho’s list are wanting; there are some, again, which bear no resemblance; and, lastly, there unfortunately occurs a blank before the most remarkable of all, the Rhamses, who appears the same as the king represented on many of the finest monuments, with the attributes of a great conqueror. It would be, according to M. Champollion, in the list of Manetho, the Sethos, the chief of the nineteenth dynasty, who, in fact, is indicated as powerful in ships and in cavalry, and as having carried his arms into Cyprus, Media and Persia. M. Champollion thinks, with Marsham and many others, that it is this Rhamses, or this Sethos, who is the Sesostris, or the Sesoosis of the Greeks; and this opinion possesses some probability, in this respect, that the representations of the victories of Rhamses, probably carried over the wandering tribes in the vicinity of Egypt, or at the most into Syria, have given rise to those fabulous ideas of vast conquests attributed, by some other confusion, to a Sesostris. But, in Manetho, it is in the twelfth dynasty, and not in the eighteenth, that a prince bearing the name of Sesostris is inscribed, who is noted as having conquered Asia and Thrace[158]. Marsham also asserts, that this twelfth dynasty and the eighteenth make but one[159]. Manetho could not himself, therefore, have understood the lists which he copied. Lastly, if we admit in their full degree, both the historical truth of this bas-relief of Abydos, and its accordance, whether with the part of Manetho’s lists that seems to correspond to it, or with the other hieroglyphic inscriptions, this consequence would result, that the pretended eighteenth dynasty, the first regarding which the ancient chronologists begin to manifest some agreement, is also the first which has left traces of its existence upon monuments. Manetho may have consulted this document and others of a like nature; but it is not the less obvious, that a mere list, a series of names or of portraits, as he has throughout, is far from being a history.

Ought not this, then, which is proved and demonstrated with respect to the Indians, and which I have rendered so probable with respect to the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, be presumed also to be the case with those of the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris? Established, like the Indians[160] and Egyptians, upon a much frequented route of commerce, in vast plains, which they had been obliged to intersect with numerous canals; instructed, like them, by hereditary priests, the pretended depositaries of secret books, the privileged possessors of the sciences, astrologers, builders of pyramids, and other great monuments[161]; should they not also resemble them in other essential points? Should not their history be equally a mere collection of legendary tales? I venture almost to assert, that not only is this probable, but that it is actually demonstrated.

Up to this period neither Moses nor Homer speak of any great empire in Upper Asia. Herodotus[162] gives to the supremacy of the Assyrians a duration of only 520 years, and does not attribute to their origin a greater antiquity than about eight centuries before his own time. After having been at Babylon, where he consulted the priests, he had not even learnt the name of Ninus as king of the Assyrians, and does not mention him otherwise than as the father of Agro[163], the first Lydian king of the family of the Heraclides. Notwithstanding, he makes him the son of Belus: so much confusion had there been in the traditions. Though he speaks of Semiramis as one of the queens who left great monuments in Babylon, he only places her seven generations before Cyrus.

Hellanicus, who was cotemporary with Herodotus, far from allowing that Semiramis had built any thing at Babylon, attributes the foundation of that city to Chaldæus, the fourteenth successor of Ninus[164]. Berosus, a Babylonian and a priest, who wrote scarcely a hundred and twenty years after Herodotus, gives an astounding antiquity to Babylon; but it is to Nabuchodonosor, a prince comparatively very modern, that he attributes the principal monuments[165]. Regarding even Cyrus, a prince so remarkable, and whose history must have been so well known and so popular, Herodotus, who only lived a hundred years after him, owns that, in his time, there already existed three different opinions; and, in fact, sixty years later, Xenophon gives a biography of this prince quite at variance with that of Herodotus.

Ctesias, who was nearly cotemporary with Xenophon, pretends to have extracted from the royal archives of the Medes, a chronology which carries back the origin of the Assyrian monarchy upwards of 800 years, putting at the head of their kings, that same Ninus, the son of Belus, whom Herodotus had made one of the Heraclides; and, at the same time, he attributes to Ninus and Semiramis conquests towards the west, of an extent absolutely incompatible with the Jewish and Egyptian history of the times in question[166].

According to Megasthenes, it was Nabuchodonosor who made these incredible conquests. He pushed them by way of Libya, as far as Spain[167]. We find that, in the time of Alexander, Nabuchodonosor had completely usurped the reputation which Semiramis had possessed in the time of Artaxerxes. But we must suppose, without doubt, that Semiramis and Nabuchodonosor had conquered Ethiopia and Libya, much in the same way as the Egyptians made India and Bactria to be subdued by Sesostris or Osymandias.

It would lead to no result were we now to examine the different accounts respecting Sardanapalus, in which a celebrated writer imagined he had found proofs of the existence of three princes of that name, who were all victims of similar misfortunes[168]; much in the same way as another writer found in the Indian Vicramaditjia, at least three princes, who were equally the heroes of similar adventures.

It is apparently from the want of agreement in all these accounts, that Strabo thought himself justified in saying, that the authority of Herodotus and Ctesias was not equal to that of Homer or Hesiod[169]. Nor has Ctesias been more happy in transcribers than Manetho; and it is very difficult, at the present day, to harmonize the extracts made from his writings by Diodorus, Eusebius, and the Syncelle.

Since there existed such a state of uncertainty in the fifth century before the Christian era, how should it be imagined that Berosus had been able to clear it up in the third century before that era; or how should we repose more confidence in the 430,000 years which he puts before the deluge, or the 35,000 years which he places between the deluge and Semiramis, than in the registers of 150,000 years, which he boasts of having consulted[170].

Structures raised in remote provinces, and bearing the name of Semiramis, have been spoken of; and columns erected by Sesostris[171] have been pretended to have been seen in Asia Minor, in Thrace. But, in the same way, in Persia, at the present day, the ancient monuments, perhaps even some of the above, bear the name of Roustan; and in Egypt or Arabia, they bear the names of Joseph or Solomon. This is an ancient custom among the eastern nations, and probably among all ignorant people. The peasants of our own country give the name of Cæsar’s Camp to all the remains of Roman entrenchments.

In a word, the more I consider the subject, the more I am persuaded that there existed no ancient history at Babylon or Ecbatan, more than in Egypt and India. And, in place of reducing mythology to history, with Evhemere and Bannier, I am of opinion that a great part of history should be referred to mythology.

It is only at the epoch of what is commonly called the Second Kingdom of Assyria, that the history of the Assyrians and Chaldeans begins to become more intelligible; and this epoch is also that at which the history of the Egyptians undergoes a similar change, when the kings of Nineveh, of Babylon, and of Egypt, commence their conflicts on the theatre of Syria and Palestine.

It appears, nevertheless, that the authors of these countries, or those who had consulted the traditions regarding them, Berosus, and Hieronymus, and Nicholas de Damas, agreed in speaking of a deluge. Berosus has even described it with circumstances so similar to those detailed in the book of Genesis, that it is almost impossible what he says of it should not have been derived from the same sources, even although he removes its epoch a great number of ages back,--insomuch, at least, as we may judge of it, by the confused extracts which Josephus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, have preserved of his writings. But we must remark, and with this observation we shall conclude what we have to say with regard to the Babylonians, that these numerous ages, and this long series of kings, placed between the deluge and Semiramis, are a new thing, entirely peculiar to Berosus, and of which Ctesias, and those who have followed him, had no idea, and which has not even been adopted by any of the profane authors posterior to Berosus. Justin and Velleius consider Ninus as the first of the conquerors, and those who, contrary to all probability, place him highest, only refer him to a period of forty centuries before the present time[172].

The Armenian authors of the middle age nearly agree with one of the texts of Genesis, when they refer the deluge to a period of 4916 years from their own time; and it might be thought that having collected the old traditions, and perhaps extracted the old chronicles of their country, they form an additional authority in favour of the newness of the nations. But when we reflect that their historical literature commences only in the fifth century, and that they were acquainted with Eusebius, we perceive that they must have accommodated themselves to his authority, and to that of the Bible. Moses of Chorene expressly professes to have followed the Greeks, and we see that his ancient history is moulded after Ctesias[173].

However, it is certain, that the tradition of the deluge existed in Armenia long before the conversion of its inhabitants to Christianity; and the city, which, according to Josephus, was called _the Place of the Descent_, still exists at the foot of Mount Ararat, and bears the name of _Nachid-chevan_, which, in fact, has the same signification.[174]

Along with the Armenians, we include the Arabians, Persians, Turks, Mongolians, and Abyssinians, of the present day. Their ancient books, if they ever had any, no longer exist. They have no ancient history, but that which they have recently made up, and which they have modelled after the Bible; hence, what they say of the deluge is borrowed from Genesis, and adds nothing to the authority of that book.

It were curious to inquire what had been the opinion of the ancient Persians upon this subject, before it was modified by the Christian and Mahomedan creeds. We find it deposited in their Boundehesh, or Cosmogony, a work of the time of Sassanides, (but evidently extracted or translated from more ancient works), and which was discovered by Anquetil du Perron, among the Parsis of India. According to it, the total duration of the world could only be 12,000 years; hence it cannot still be very old. The appearance of _Cayoumortz_ (the bull-man, the first of the human race), is preceded by the creation of a great water.[175]

For the rest, it would be as useless to expect a regular history of ancient times from the Parsis, as from the other eastern nations. The Magi have left none, any more than the Brahmins or Chaldeans. Of this there is nothing more required for proof than the uncertainty which exists regarding the epoch of Zoroaster. It is even asserted, that the little history they may have possessed, that which relates to the Achemenides, the successors of Cyrus to Alexander, had been expressly altered, and this in consequence of an official order to that purpose from a monarch named Sassanides[176].

In order to discover authentic dates of the commencement of empires, and traces of a general deluge, we must therefore go beyond the great deserts of Tartary. Toward the east and north we find another race of men, who differ from us as much in their institutions and manners as in their form and temperament. Their language consists of monosyllables, and they make use of arbitrary hieroglyphics in writing. They have only a political system of morals, without religion; for the superstitions of Fo were imported among them from India. Their yellow skin, their prominent cheeks, their narrow and oblique eyes, and their scanty beard, render them so different from us, that one is tempted to believe that their ancestors and ours had escaped the great catastrophe on two different sides. But however this may be, the epoch which they assign to their deluge is nearly the same as ours.

The Chou-king is the most ancient of the Chinese books[177]; it is said to have been compiled by Confucius, about 2255 years ago, from fragments of more ancient works. Two hundred years afterwards, a general persecution of the men of letters, and destruction of the books, is said to have taken place under the emperor Chi-Hoang-ti, whose object in this was to destroy the traces of the feudal government established under the dynasty which preceded his. Forty years after, under the dynasty which had overturned that to which Chi-Hoang-ti belonged, a portion of the Chou-king was restored from memory by an old literatus, and another was discovered in a tomb; but nearly the half of it was for ever lost. Now, this book, the most authentic which the Chinese possess, commences the history of their country with the reign of an emperor named _Yao_, whom it represents to us as occupied in removing the waters, _which, having risen to the skies, still bathed the foot of the higher mountains, covered the less elevated hills_, and rendered the plains impassable[178]. According to some, the reign of Yao was 4163 years before the present time; according to others, 3943. The discrepancy in the opinions regarding this epoch even amounts to 284 years.

A few pages farther on we find one _Yu_, a minister and engineer, re-establishing the courses of the waters, raising embankments, digging canals, and regulating the taxes of all the provinces in China, that is to say, in an empire extending 600 leagues in all directions. But the impossibility of such operations, after such events, shews clearly that the whole is nothing else than a moral and political romance[179].

More modern Chinese historians have added a series of emperors before Yao, but with a multitude of fabulous circumstances, without venturing to assign them fixed epochs. These writers are at perpetual variance with each other, even regarding the number and names of their emperors, and are not universally approved by their countrymen. Fouhi, with the body of a serpent, the head of an ox, and the teeth of a tortoise, together with his successors, who are not less monstrous, are altogether absurd, and have no more existed than Enceladon and Briareus.

Is it possible that mere chance could have produced so striking a result, as to make the traditional origin of the Assyrian, Indian, and Chinese monarchies agree in being referred to an epoch of nearly 4000 years from the present period? Would the ideas of nations which have had so little communication with each other, and whose language, religion, and laws are altogether different, have corresponded upon this point, had they not been founded upon truth?

We could not expect precise dates from the natives of America, who had no real writings, and whose oldest traditions extended only to a few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. And yet, even among them, traces of a deluge are imagined to be found in their rude hieroglyphics. They have their Noah, or Deucalion, as well as the Indians, Babylonians, and Greeks[180].

The Negroes, the most degraded race among men, whose forms approach the nearest to the brutes, and whose intellect has not yet arrived at the institution of regular governments, or at any thing having the least appearance of systematic knowledge, have preserved no sort of annals or traditions. They cannot, therefore, afford us any information on the subject of our present researches, though all their characters clearly shew us that they have escaped from the great catastrophe, at another point than the Caucasian and Altaic races, from which they had perhaps been separated for a long time previous to the occurrence of that catastrophe.

But if the ancients, it is argued, have left no history, their long existence as nations is not the less attested by the advances which they have made in astronomy, by observations whose date is easily determined, and even by monuments which still remain, and which themselves bear their dates. Thus, the length of the year, such as the Egyptians are supposed to have determined it, according to the heliacal rising of Sirius, proves correct for a period comprised between the year 3000 and the year 1000 before Christ, a period to which the traditions of their conquests and of the great prosperity of their empire also refer. This accuracy proves to what perfection they had carried their observations, and shews that they had for many ages applied themselves to such investigations.

In order to determine the force of this argument, it is necessary that we should here enter upon some explanations.

The solstice is the moment of the year at which the rise of the Nile commences, and that which the Egyptians must have observed with most attention. Having, at the beginning, made, from imperfect observations, a civil or sacred year of three hundred and sixty-five days complete, they would preserve it from superstitious motives, even after they had perceived that it did not agree with the natural or tropical year, and did not bring back the seasons to the same days[181]. However, it was this tropical year which it behoved them to mark for the purpose of directing them in their agricultural operations.