Manetho - Life and Work

Life and Work

Although no sources for the dates of his life and death remain, his work is usually associated with the reigns of Ptolemy I Soter (323-283 BC) and Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BC). If the mention of Manetho in the Hibeh Papyri, dated to 241/40 BC, is in fact Manetho the author of Aegyptiaca, then he may well have been working during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes (246-222 BC) as well. Although he was Egyptian and his topics dealt with Egyptian matters, he wrote solely in the Greek language. Other works he wrote include Against Herodotus, The Sacred Book, On Antiquity and Religion, On Festivals, On the Preparation of Kyphi, and the Digest of Physics. The astrological treatise Book of Sothis has also been attributed to Manetho. In Aegyptiaca, he invented the term "dynasty" (Greek: dynasteia, meaning abstractly "governmental power") to represent groups of kings with a common origin.

He was probably a priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis (according to George Syncellus, he was the chief priest), and was also considered an authority on the cult of Sarapis (a derivation of Osiris and Apis). Sarapis itself was a Greco-Macedonian version of the Egyptian cult, probably started after Alexander the Great's establishment of Alexandria in Egypt. A statue of the god was imported between 286 and 278 BC by Ptolemy (probably Ptolemy Soter, as Tacitus and Plutarch attest,; although Ptolemy Philadelphus is possible, and there was a tradition in antiquity that it was Ptolemy Euergetes.) where Timotheus of Athens (an authority on Demeter at Eleusis) and Manetho directed the project.