Berossus & Manetho · a new plain-English translation from the original language
CA 1.73-78. I shall begin first from the writings of the Egyptians. Their originals themselves cannot be set out here; but Manetho was a man Egyptian by birth who had shared in Greek learning, as is plain — for he wrote his country's history in the Greek tongue, translating, as he himself says, from the sacred records; and he convicts Herodotus of having falsified many of the Egyptian matters through ignorance. This Manetho, then, in the second book of his Aegyptiaca, writes as follows about us. I shall quote his wording, as if bringing forward the man himself as witness: 'There was a king of ours named Timaios. In his reign, I know not how, the god blew against us; and unexpectedly, from the eastern parts, men of obscure stock, emboldened, marched against the country, and easily, without a battle, took it by main force; and having overpowered its rulers, they thereafter burned the cities savagely, razed the temples of the gods, and treated all the natives with the utmost hostility, slaughtering some, and leading the children and wives of others into slavery. In the end they made one of their own number king, whose name was Salitis. He kept his seat at Memphis, levying tribute on the upper and the lower country, and leaving garrisons in the most suitable places. Above all he secured the eastern parts, foreseeing that the Assyrians, as they one day grew stronger, would make an assault upon his kingdom in desire of it. And finding in the Sethroite nome a city most advantageously placed, lying east of the Bubastite branch of the river, called from some ancient theology Auaris, he founded it, made it exceedingly strong with walls, and settled in it a mass of armed men — up to two hundred and forty thousand — as a garrison.'
CA 1.79-84. 'There he would come in summer, partly to measure out grain and to provide pay, and partly to drill the troops carefully in arms, to frighten those outside. And having ruled nineteen years, he ended his life. After him another reigned forty-four years, called Beon; after him another, Apachnas, thirty-six years and seven months; then Apophis, sixty-one, and Iannas, fifty years and one month; and after all these, Assis, forty-nine years with two months besides. And these six arose among them as the first rulers, longing always and ever more to tear out the root of Egypt. And their whole nation was called Hyksos — that is, shepherd kings: for hyk in the sacred tongue means king, and sos in the common speech is shepherd and shepherds; and so joined together it becomes Hyksos. Some say they were Arabs.' In another copy, however, it is said that the expression hyk denotes not kings but, on the contrary, marks the shepherds as captives; for hyk again in Egyptian, and hak aspirated, expressly signifies captives. And this seems to me more persuasive, and more in keeping with ancient history. 'These kings named above, of the people called Shepherds, and their descendants,' he says, 'held mastery of Egypt for five hundred and eleven years.'
CA 1.85-90. 'After this,' he says, 'the kings of the Thebaid and of the rest of Egypt rose against the Shepherds, and a great and long war broke out. Under a king whose name was Misphragmouthosis, the Shepherds,' he says, 'being worsted, were driven out of all the rest of Egypt and shut up in a place holding ten thousand arouras in circuit: Auaris is the place's name. All this,' says Manetho, 'the Shepherds surrounded with a great strong wall, so as to keep all their possessions and their plunder within a stronghold. And Thoummosis, the son of Misphragmouthosis, attempted to take them by siege and main force, sitting down before the walls with four hundred and eighty thousand men; but when he despaired of the siege, he made a covenant that they should all leave Egypt and go wherever they wished, unharmed. And they, upon these terms, with their whole households and possessions — no fewer than two hundred and forty thousand — journeyed out of Egypt across the desert into Syria; and fearing the dominion of the Assyrians, who at that time were masters of Asia, they built a city in the land now called Judea, sufficient for so many tens of thousands of people, and named it Jerusalem.'
CA 1.91-96. In another book of the Aegyptiaca Manetho says that this nation, the so-called Shepherds, stand written in their sacred books as captives — and rightly so; for to our earliest forefathers shepherding was ancestral, and leading a nomad life they were called shepherds. And again, it was not without reason that they were recorded as captives by the Egyptians, since our forefather Joseph told the king of the Egyptians that he was a captive, and later, with the king's permission, sent for his brothers to come to Egypt. But I shall make a more precise examination of these matters elsewhere. For now I bring forward the Egyptians as witnesses of this antiquity. I shall set down again, then, how Manetho's account stands with respect to the order of the times. He says thus: 'After the people of the Shepherds went out of Egypt to Jerusalem, Tethmosis, the king who drove them out of Egypt, reigned thereafter twenty-five years and four months, and ended his life; and his son Chebron took over the rule, thirteen years. After him, Amenophis, twenty years, seven months. His sister Amessis next: twenty-one years, nine months. Then her son Mephres: twelve years, nine months. Then his son Mephramouthosis: twenty-five years, ten months. Then his son Thmosis: nine years, eight months. Then his son Amenophis: thirty years, ten months. Then his son Horus: thirty-six years, five months. Then his daughter Akencheres: twelve years, one month. Then her brother Rathotis: nine years.'
CA 1.97-102. 'Then his son Akencheres, twelve years and five months; then his son Akencheres the Second, twelve years and three months; then his son Harmais, four years and one month; then his son Ramesses, one year and four months; then his son Harmesses Miamoun, sixty-six years and two months; then his son Amenophis, nineteen years and six months; and then his son Sethos, also called Ramesses, holding a force of cavalry and of ships. This king appointed his brother Harmais steward of Egypt and clothed him with all the rest of the royal authority, charging him only not to wear the diadem, not to wrong the queen who was mother of his children, and to keep away likewise from the other royal concubines. He himself marched against Cyprus and Phoenicia, and again against the Assyrians and the Medes, and took them all under his hand, some by the spear, some without a battle through fear of his great force; and growing proud on his successes, he advanced still more boldly, overthrowing the cities and lands toward the east. When a good span of time had passed, Harmais, who had been left behind in Egypt, did fearlessly everything the opposite of what his brother had charged him not to do: he took the queen by force, used the other concubines continually and without restraint, and, persuaded by his friends, began wearing the diadem, and rose against his brother. But the man set over the priests of Egypt wrote a letter and sent it to Sethos, disclosing everything to him — and that his brother Harmais had risen against him. At once, therefore, he turned back to Pelusium and took hold of his own kingdom. And the land was called Aigyptos from his name; for he says that Sethos was called Aigyptos, and Harmais his brother, Danaos.'
CA 1.103-105. So far Manetho. And it is plain, from the reckoning of the years of time stated, that the so-called Shepherds — our forefathers — departed from Egypt and settled this land three hundred and ninety-three years before Danaos came to Argos; and yet the Argives count him their most ancient figure. Manetho has thus borne witness for us, from the writings of the Egyptians, to two things of the greatest weight: first, the arrival into Egypt from elsewhere; and then the departure from there, so ancient in time that it precedes the Trojan war by nearly a thousand years. But as for the things Manetho added not from the Egyptian writings but, as he himself has admitted, from tales told without an author, I shall refute them later in detail, and show his implausible falsehood for what it is.