MANETHO. Manetho Sebennyta (Mαvε‰v, Mavε0ω, Mavε0ως, Mavε0ω0, <fcc., i.e., Mai en Thoth, “beloved by Thoth”), Egyptian priest and annalist, was a native of Sebennytus (Semmenùd) in the Delta. His name is connected by Plutarch with the reign of Ptolemy I., and he is usually stated to have written under Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, though the only authority for this is an epistle to that king of the Pseudo-Manetho, author of the forged Book of Sothis preserved by Syncellus. He was instructed in Greek— so Josephus tells us—and the three books of his Αιγυπτιακά composed in that language opened to foreigners the history of Egypt from the mythical period downwards, as it was preserved in the records of the priests. Unhappily the book is now known only by some lists and fragments preserved by Josephus in his treatise Against Apion, by Eusebius in his Chronica, and by Syncellus. Syncellus used the work of Eusebius (also known to us through Jerome and the Armenian version) and the lost Pentabiblan of Africanus. Thus the little that we know of Manetho’s history has reached us through a process of transcription and retranscription very unfavourable to the correct transmission of the lists of kings and dynasties, to which Josephus alone adds any considerable narrative excerpts. It seems indeed that our authorities themselves used varying and partly corrupt recensions of the original text, and that deliberate corruptions of the Manethonic tradition were not wanting appears from the existence of the Book of Sothis cited by Syncellus, which was undoubtedly a spurious work. That Manetho himself made honest use of his Egyptian sources is generally recognized, since the Egyptian monuments have afforded confirmation of many, though by no means all, of his ...