** The table of Saqqâra, discovered in 1863, has been published by Mariette, _La Table de Saqqâra (Revue Archéologique_, 2nd series, vol. x. p. 169, et seq.), and reproduced in the _Monuments Divers_, pl. 58.
*** The Royal Canon of Turin, which dates from the Ramesside period, gives, indeed, the names of these early kings without a break, until the list reaches Unas; at this point it sums up the number of Pharaohs and the aggregate years of their reigns, thus indicating the end of a dynasty. In the intervals between the dynasties rubrics are placed, pointing out the changes which took place in the order of direct succession. The division of the same group of sovereigns into five dynasties has been preserved to us by Manetho.
Manetho of Sebennytos, who wrote a history of Europe for the use of Alexandrine Greeks, had adopted, on some unknown authority, a division of thirty-one dynasties from Menés to the Macedonian Conquest, and his system has prevailed--not, indeed, on account of its excellence, but because it is the only complete one which has come down to us.[*] All the families inscribed in his lists ruled in succession.[**]
* The best restoration of the system of Manetho is that by Lepsius, _Das Konigsbuch der Alten Ægypter_, which should be completed and corrected from the memoirs of Lauth, Lieblein, Krall, and Unger. A common fault attaches to all these memoirs, so remarkable in many respects. They regard the work of Manetho, not as representing a more or less ingenious system applied to Egyptian history, but as furnishing an authentic scheme of this history, in which it is necessary to enclose all the royal names which the monuments have revealed, and are still daily revealing to us.
** E. de Rougé triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to Bunsen, now nearly fifty years ago, that all Manetho's dynasties are successive, and the monuments discovered from year to year in Egypt have confirmed his demonstration in every detail.
The country was no doubt frequently broken up into a dozen or more independent states, each possessing its own kings during several generations; but the annalists had from the outset discarded these collateral lines, and recognized only one legitimate dynasty, of which the rest were but vassals. Their theory of legitimacy does not always agree with actual history, and the particular line of princes which they rejected as usurpers represented at times the only family possessing true rights to the crown.[*]