rus?" The answer seems to be, that
we cannot tell. The Egyptians believed in Menes as a man; they placed
him at the head of their dynastic lists; but they had no contemporary
monument to show inscribed with his name. A name like that of Menes is
found at the beginning of things in so many nations, that on that
account alone the word would be suspicious; in Greece it is Minos, in
Phrygia Manis, in Lydia Manes, in India Menu, in Germany Mannus. And
again, the name of the founder is so like that of the city which he
founded, that another suspicion arises--Have we not here one of the many
instances of a personal name made out of a local one, as Nin or Ninus
from Nineveh (Ninua), Romulus from Roma, and the like? Probably we shall
do best to acquiesce in the judgment of Dr. Birch: "Menes must be placed
among those founders of monarchies whose personal existence a severe and
enlightened criticism doubts or denies."

The city was, however, a reality, the embankment was a reality, the
temple of Phthah was a reality, and the founding of a kingdom in Egypt,
which included both the Upper and the Lower country some considerable
time before the date of Abraham, was a reality, which the sternest
criticism need not--nay, cannot--doubt. All antiquity attests that the
valley of the Nile was one of the first seats of civilization. Abraham
found a settled government established there when he visited the
country, and a consecutive series of monuments carries the date of the
first civilization at least as far back as B.C. 2700--probably further.

If the great Menes, then, notwithstanding all that we are told of his
doings, be a mere shadowy personage, little more than _magni nominis
umbra_, what shall we say of his twenty or thirty successors of the
first, second, and third dynasties? What but that they are shadows of
shadows? The native monuments of the early Ramesside period (about B.C.
1400-1300) assign to this time some twenty-five names of kings; but they
do not agree in their order, nor do they altogether agree in the names.
The kings, if they were kings, have left no history--we can only by
conjecture attach to them any particular buildings, we can give no
account of their actions, we can assign no chronology to their reigns.
They are of no more importance in the "story of Egypt" than the Alban
kings in the "story of Rome." "Non ragionam di loro, ma guarda e passi."

The first living, breathing, acting, flesh-and-blood personage, who