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The priest who invented dynasties
Who Manetho Was
Manetho probably wrote in the time of the second or third Ptolemy, and his history ends around Alexander the Great. Scattered fragments of evidence suggest he was an Egyptian priest, possibly the chief priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. For each dynasty he gave the kings' names, the length of their reigns where he knew it, and often the city they ruled from.
Why He Wrote
Historians deduce why he wrote. The early Ptolemies were working to present Egypt as one of the most important parts of Alexander's former empire and themselves as its rightful rulers, and a great history of Egypt served that. A writer named Berossus produced a similar history of the Near East around the same time, and Manetho's work is thought to be a response to it.
What Survives
His own text is lost. It survives in three main epitomes, copies made at least four or five centuries after his time, and they differ in details, so they cannot all be faithful to what he wrote.
How does Manetho's dynasty scheme hold up?
Egyptologists still number the kings by Manetho's dynasties, and they group them into the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. Independent king lists confirm much of his order, among them the Turin King List, a papyrus written in the time of Ramesses II. Manetho's scheme was later extended with a 31st dynasty, covering Persian rule. Modern scholars use his numbering as a convenient framework even where his details differ from the monuments.
Why did Berossus write in Greek?
Berossus was a Babylonian priest of the god Marduk who wrote a history of Babylonia, known as the Babyloniaca. He dedicated it to Antiochus I, a Seleucid king, around 280 BC. Greek was the language of the ruling class in the kingdoms that followed Alexander. Manetho's history of Egypt was likewise written in Greek.
How did Manetho's work reach us?
His text survives only in quotations and summaries by later writers. Three main versions come through Christian chroniclers: Sextus Julius Africanus around AD 220, Eusebius about a century later, and the Byzantine monk George Syncellus, who drew on both around AD 800. These authors copied Manetho's lists of kings to fit their own timelines of world history. Their numbers for reigns often disagree with one another.
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