MANETHON

Form: or Manethos.

An Egyptian of Sebennytus, who lived in the second half of the 3rd century B.C. He was high priest at Heliopolis in Egypt, and wrote in Greek a history of his native country from the oldest times to its conquest by Alexander the Great, founded on the sacred records of the Egyptians. Recent hieroglyphic discoveries have confirmed the authority of this work against the doubts and suspicions previously entertained, and show it to have been compiled from good sources: only a third of the kings' names and some fragments have been preserved by later writers. He has been wrongly considered the author of a Greek poem in six books, treating of the influence of the constellations on the fates of men, entitled Apotelesmatica; various parts of it seem to have been written by different authors between the 3rd and 5th century after Christ.