Ancient Historians · Part 14 · Egypt and Babylon · B2
Manetho and Berossus
Part 14 of Ancient Historians: after Alexander, the new Greek kings of Egypt and Babylon wanted to understand the ancient lands they ruled. Two priests answered them, in Greek: Manetho, an Egyptian priest who wrote the history of Egypt for Ptolemy II, here in Alexandria, and gave us the thirty dynasties still used today; and Berossus, a priest of Marduk in Babylon, who told the Greeks about creation, a great flood and a fish-man who taught humanity to write. The passive for history and the language of chronology (reigned, was succeeded by, during the reign of, preceded), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
So far, all our historians have been Greeks writing about other peoples. Tonight, two other peoples write about themselves, in Greek. And one of them wrote in this city, for the king who founded our Library.
The same king, if I remember rightly, under whom our scriptures were translated into Greek.
Exactly, Philo: Ptolemy the Second. In the same years, an Egyptian priest gave him the history of Egypt, a Babylonian priest gave the Seleucid king the history of Babylon, and Jewish scholars, the story says, gave him the Torah. Three ancient peoples, translating themselves for their new Greek rulers. Tonight’s grammar is the grammar of chronology: who reigned when, and who came after whom.
Thirty dynasties? That’s a lot of kings to remember.
Manetho was an Egyptian priest from Sebennytos, probably at the great temple of Heliopolis. Around 280 BCE, for Ptolemy II, he wrote the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt in Greek, using the records of the temples. He divided the kings of Egypt into thirty dynasties, ruling families, from the first king, Menes, to the Persian conquest; a thirty-first was added later. Egyptologists still use his dynasties today. His book is lost; we know it from quotations, especially in Josephus and…
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