CHAPTER IV.

FIRST LINE OF 330 KINGS, ONLY THREE MENTIONED.

The priests informed me, that Menes, who first ruled over Egypt, in the first place protected Memphis by a mound; for the whole river formerly ran close to the sandy mountain on the side of Libya; but Menes, beginning about a hundred stades above Memphis, filled in the elbow toward the south, dried up the old channel, and conducted the river into a canal, so as to make it flow between the mountains. This bend of the Nile is still carefully upheld by the Persians, and made secure every year; for if the river should break through and overflow in this part, there would be danger lest all Memphis should be flooded. When the part cut off had been made firm land by this Menes, who was first king, he built on it the city that is now called Memphis; and outside of it he excavated a lake from the river toward the north and the west; for the Nile itself bounds it toward the east. In the next place, they relate that he built in it the temple of Vulcan, which is vast and well worthy of mention. After this the priests enumerated from a book the names of three hundred and thirty other kings. In so many generations of men, there were eighteen Ethiopians and one native queen, the rest were Egyptians. The name of this woman who reigned, was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, Nitocris: they said that she avenged her brother, whom the Egyptians had slain, while reigning over them. After they had slain him, they delivered the kingdom to her; and she, to avenge him, destroyed many of the Egyptians by this stratagem: she caused an extensive apartment to be made underground, and pretended that she was going to consecrate it, then inviting those of the Egyptians whom she knew to have been principally concerned in the murder, she gave them a great banquet, and in the midst of the feast let in the river upon them, through a large concealed channel. Of the other kings they did not say that they were in any respect renowned, except the last, Mœris; he accomplished some memorable works, as the portal of Vulcan's temple, facing the north wind; and dug a lake, and built pyramids in it, the size of which I shall mention when I come to speak of the lake itself.