The Egyptians anciently boasted of a very great and lasting Empire under their Kings Ammon, Osiris, Bacchus, Sesostris, Hercules, Memnon, &c. reaching eastward to the Indies, and westward to the Atlantic Ocean; and out of vanity have made this monarchy some thousands of years older than the world: let us now try to rectify the Chronology of Egypt; by comparing the affairs of Egypt with the synchronizing affairs of the Greeks and Hebrews.
Bacchus the conqueror loved two women, Venus and Ariadne: Venus was the mistress of Anchises and Cinyras, and mother of Æneas, who all lived ‘till the destruction of Troy; and the sons of Bacchus and Ariadne were Argonauts; as above: and therefore the great Bacchus flourished but one Generation before the Argonautic expedition. This Bacchus 1 was potent at sea, conquered eastward as far as India returned in triumph, brought his army over the Hellespont; conquered Thrace, left music, dancing and poetry there; killed Lycurgus King of Thrace, and Pentheus the grandson of Cadmus; gave the Kingdom of Lycurgus to Tharops; and one of his minstrells, called by the Greeks Calliope, to Oeagrus the son of Tharops; and of Oeagrus and Calliope was born Orpheus, who sailed with the Argonauts: this Bacchus was therefore contemporary to Sesostris; and both being Kings of Egypt, and potent at sea, and great conquerors, and carrying on their conquests into India and Thrace, they must be one and the same man.
The antient Greeks, who made the fables of the Gods, related that Io the daughter of Inachus was carried into Egypt; and there became the Egyptian Isis; and that Apis the son of Phoroneus after death became the God Serapis; and some said that Epaphus was the son of Io: Serapis and Epaphus are Osiris, and therefore Isis and Osiris, in the opinion of the ancient Greeks who made the fables of the Gods, were not above two or three Generations older than the Argonautic expedition. Dicæarchus, as he is cited by the scholiast upon Apollonius, 2 represents them two Generations older than Sesostris, saying that after Orus the son of Osiris and Isis, Reigned Sesonchosis. He seems to have followed the opinion of the people of Naxus, who made Bacchus two Generations older than Theseus, and for that end feigned two Minos’s and two Ariadnes; for by the consent of all antiquity Osiris and Bacchus were one and the same King of Egypt: this is affirmed by the Egyptians, as well as by the Greeks; and some of the antient Mythologists, as Eumolpus and Orpheus, 3 called Osiris by the names of Dionysus and Sirius. Osiris was King of all Egypt, and a great conqueror, and came over the Hellespont in the days of Triptolemus, and subdued Thrace, and there killed Lycurgus; and therefore his expedition falls in with that of the great Bacchus. Osiris, Bacchus and Sesostris lived about the same time, and by the relation of historians were all of them Kings of all Egypt, and Reigned at Thebes, and adorned that city, and were very potent by land and sea: all three were great conquerors, and carried on their conquests by land through Asia as far as India: all three came over the Hellespont and were there in danger of losing their army: all three conquered Thrace, and there put a stop to their victories, and returned back from thence into Egypt: all three left pillars with inscriptions in their conquests: and therefore all three must be one and the same King of Egypt; and this King can be no other than Sesac. All Egypt, including Thebais, Ethiopia and Libya, had no common King before the expulsion of the Shepherds who Reigned in the lower Egypt; no Conqueror of Syria, India, Asia minor and Thrace, before Sesac; and the sacred history admits of no Egyptian conqueror of Palestine before this King.