kings of Egypt were gods, "who dwelt upon earth with men." The last of this divine dynasty was Horus, son of Osiris—whom the Greeks identified with Apollo. The sufferings and death of Osiris were the great mystery of the Egyptian creed. Herodotus had seen his burial-place at Saïs, and knew the mysterious rites with which, under cover of night, these sufferings were commemorated. But he "will by no means speak of them," or even mention the god by name. Either the priests had enjoined secrecy upon him as the price of their information; or perhaps, being himself initiated in the Greek Mysteries, he had a scrupulous reverence for those of Egypt. Osiris was the great principle of Good, who slew his brother Typhon, the representative of Evil; and is pictured in the hieroglyphic paintings as the great judge of the dead. The first king of human race was Men, or Menes, the founder of Memphis, who began a line of three hundred and thirty monarchs (including one queen), whose names were read off to Herodotus from a roll of papyrus. Eighteen were said to be Ethiopians. Of most of these kings the priests professed to know little more than the names; but Mœris, the last of them, left his name to a large artificial lake, or reservoir, near the "City of Crocodiles," from which water was conveyed to all parts of the neighbourhood His successor, Sesostris, is said to have conquered all Asia, and even to have subdued Scythia and Thrace, in Europe, marking the limits of his conquests by pillars—two of which, in Palestine, Herodotus declares that he himself saw.[1] Sesostris, after his return from his
- ↑ There is little doubt that these are the tablets still to be seen near Beyrout.
