all the dynasties of Manetho's list as successive or in part
contemporaneous. Thus, it is held by some scholars that several of these
families were reigning at the same time in the different cities of Upper
and Lower Egypt; while others think that they all reigned at different
epochs, and that the sum of the lengths of the several dynasties gives us
the true date of the beginning of the political history of the country.
Accordingly, some place the beginning of the First Dynasty at about 5000
B.C., while others put it at about 3000 B.C. The constantly growing
evidence of the monuments is in favor of the higher figures.

MENES, THE FIRST OF THE PHARAOHS.--Menes is the first kingly personage,
shadowy and indistinct in form, that we discover in the early dawn of
Egyptian history. Tradition makes him the founder of Memphis, near the
head of the Delta, the site of which capital he secured against the
inundations of the Nile by vast dikes and various engineering works. To
him is ascribed the achievement of first consolidating the numerous petty
principalities of Lower Egypt into a single state.

THE FOURTH DYNASTY: THE PYRAMID KINGS (about 2700 B.C.).--The kings of the
Fourth Dynasty, who reigned at Memphis, are called the Pyramid builders.
Kufu I., the Cheops of the Greeks, was the first great builder. To him we
can now positively ascribe the building of the Great Pyramid, the largest
of the Gizeh group, near Cairo; for his name has been found upon some of
the stones,--painted on them by his workmen before the blocks were taken
from the quarries.

The mountains of stone heaped together by the Pyramid kings are proof that
they were cruel oppressors of their people, and burdened them with useless
labor upon these monuments of their ambition. Tradition tells how the very
memory of these monarchs was hated by the people. Herodotus says that the