A reading Book II of Herodotus, “Euterpe”, one is struck in chapter 142 by the ten thousand years that the Greek historian counts for the dating and of which Manetho of Sebennytos, “official” historian of Egypt , do not talk. Was the Ionian traveler mistaken? Let's start by re-reading his contentious passage:
“CXLII. Up to this point in my history, the Egyptians and their priests showed me that, from their first king, until the priest of Vulcan who reigned last, there had been three hundred and forty-one generations, and during this time long succession of generations, as many high priests and as many kings. Now three hundred generations are ten thousand years, for three generations are a hundred years; and the forty-one generations that remain beyond the three hundred are one thousand three hundred and forty years. They added that during those eleven thousand three hundred and forty years no god had manifested himself in human form, and that nothing like this had been seen either in the times before that time, or among other kings. who reigned in Egypt in later times; They also assured me that, in this long series of years, the sun had risen four times out of its ordinary place, and among others twice where it is setting now, and that it had also set two times where we see it rising today; that this had brought no change in Egypt; that the productions of the land and the floods of the Nile had been the same, and that there had been neither more diseases, nor a greater mortality ”
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Stories, volume 2. Euterpe, book 2
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Release Date | 2002-11-15T00:00:01Z |
Edition | Bilingual |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 321 |
Publication Date | 2002-11-15T00:00:01Z |