We have one account only of the circumstances of the great invasion by which Egypt fell under a foreign yoke.  It purports to come from the native historian, Manetho; but it is delivered to us directly by Josephus, who, in his reports of what other writers had narrated, is not always to be implicitly trusted.  Manetho, according to him, declared as follows:  “There was once a king of Egypt named Timaeus, in whose reign the gods being offended, for I know not what cause, with our nation, certain men of ignoble race, coming from the eastern regions, had the courage to invade the country, and falling upon it unawares, conquered it easily without a battle.  After the submission of the princes, they conducted themselves in a most barbarous fashion towards the whole of the inhabitants, slaying some, and reducing to slavery the wives and the children of the others.  Moreover they savagely set the cities on fire, and demolished the temples of the gods.  At last, they took one of their number called Salatis, and made him king over them.  Salatis resided at Memphis, where he received tribute both from Upper and Lower Egypt, while at the same time he placed garrisons in all the most suitable situations.  He strongly fortified the frontier, especially on the side of the east, since he foresaw that the Assyrians, who were then exceedingly powerful, might desire to make themselves masters of his kingdom.  Having found, moreover, in the Sethroite nome, to the east of the Bubastite branch of the Nile, a city very favourably situated, and called, on account of an ancient theological tradition, Avaris, he rebuilt it and strengthened it with walls of great thickness, which he guarded with a body of two hundred and forty thousand men.  Each summer he visited the place, to see their supplies of corn measured out for his soldiers and their pay delivered to them, as well as to superintend their military exercises, in order that foreigners might hold them in respect.”

The king, Timaeus, does not appear either in the lists of Manetho or upon the monuments, nor is it possible to determine the time of the invasion more precisely than this—­that it fell into the interval between Manetho’s twelfth and his eighteenth dynasties.  The invaders are characterized by the Egyptians as Menti or Sati; but these terms are used so vaguely that nothing definite can be concluded from them.  On the whole, it is perhaps most probable that the invading army, like that of Attila, consisted of a vast variety of races—­“a collection of all the nomadic hordes of Syria and Arabia”—­who made common cause against a foe known to be wealthy, and who all equally desired settlements in a land reputed the most productive in the East.  An overwhelming flood of men—­a quarter of a million, if we may believe Manetho—­poured into the land, impetuous, irresistible.  All at once, a danger had come beyond all possible previous calculation—­a danger from which there was no escape.  It was as when the northern barbarians swooped down in their