62 THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS.

was "a most excellent custom," towards which our modern civilisation is making timid approaches. We shall hear of this king again in connection with Polyc- rates, the despot of Samos. The account which Herodotus here gives of the kings of Egypt, however interesting and entertaining, must be read with the full understanding that its value in a historical point of view is about the same as that of Livy's popular account of the early kings of Home. He was unacquainted with the Egyptian language, and though the priests may not have purposely imposed upon him, he had to depend on the anecdotes which came to him through the medium of the caste of drago- mans who were settled at Memphis. In consequence of this, the consecutiveness and general symmetry of his account only serves to conceal some palpable mis- statements. Perhaps the greatest is that which makes the builders of the Pyramids later in time than the builders of the temples and other monuments. Modern investigations have tended to give great weight to the authority of a native chronicler, spoken of with much respect by early Christian writers, but who afterwards fell into disrepute Manetho, the high priest in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus. His record is utterly fatal to the main facts of the account given by He- rodotus. After dynasties of gods and heroes which reigned more than sixteen thousand years, he brings us to the builders of the Pyramids, whom Herodotus places at a late period of his history, perhaps because his Greek informants first became acquainted with the monuments at Memphis itself. He was probably fur- nished with two distinct lists of kings, both to a great extent mythical, which he took to be separate and