Manetho

• a priest of Heliopolis, who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek.

(Μανεθώς or Μανεθών). An Egyptian, a priest at Heliopolis in the reign of the first Ptolemy (B.C. 283-246), and who was the first Egyptian to give in Greek an account of the history and religion of his native country. One work was entitled Τῶν Φυσικῶν Ἐπιτομή, dealing with the theology of the Egyptians and with the origin of the world; the second was styled Αἰγυπτιακὴ Ἱστορία, and in three books treated of Aegyptian chronology and history. The first book covers the mythical period prior to the eleventh dynasty; the second, from the eleventh to the twentieth; the third, from the twentieth dynasty to the reign of Nectanebus, the last native Egyptian king. The original works of Manetho are lost, but copious extracts remain preserved by the ecclesiastical writers, especially Iulius Africanus, Eusebius , and Georgius Syncellus. The sources of Manetho's history were the early archives and sacred books of Egypt, and in recent years much corroborative evidence of the truth of what he wrote has been derived by Egyptologists from the hieroglyphics and other sources. The fragments of Manetho are collected and edited by C. Müller in his Frag. Hist. Graec. (Paris, 1856). A long astrological poem in six books and entitled Ἀποτελεσματικά, once ascribed to Manetho, is now regarded as written several centuries later than his time. It is edited by Axt and Rigler (Cologne, 1832), and Köchly (1858).