Manĕtho
（
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).
