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Diodorus (i. 62) makes Remphis succeed Proteus; he does not tell the tale of the thieves, but only that the king was famous for avarice. The kings of the twentieth dynasty almost all bear the name ‘Rameses’ (III to XI), from which H.'s ‘Rhampsinitus’ is formed by the termination ‘nitus’; this seems to correspond to the name of Neith, the goddess of Sais (Maspero, Ann. des É. G., 1877, p. 133). With this imaginary king, whose name blends Theban and Saite elements in an impossible way, H. combines Rameses III, who certainly was a temple-builder at Memphis; he was also renowned for his wealth (cf. B. M. G. p. 250); his treasuries can still be seen at Medînet Habu (Baedeker, p. 322). So far history confirms the framework into which H. has introduced a popular tale; for the prevalence of robberies of royal tombs under the twentieth dynasty cf. B. M. G. p. 250. The tale itself is one of the most familiar pieces of universal folklore; we may compare it to that of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, or to that of Trophonius and Agamedes (Paus. ix. 37. 3, who gives an almost exact epitome of the first two parts, α and β, of the story of H.). A list of twentyeight variants of the story, from all parts of the world, is given by Frazer (Paus. v. 177). The king's daughter's question, the device of the thief, and the marriage that ends the story, all show that it belongs to fairyland, not to the world of reality. For a further discussion of it cf. Maspero, C. P. pp. xl. seq., 180 seq., who maintains that it is, if not Egyptian in origin, at least thoroughly ‘egyptianized’. θέρος, χειμῶνα. The identification of these statues is more than suspicious; the Egyptians divided the year into three seasons, not two, those of the inundation, of growth, and of the harvest. And only one instance is known in Egypt of symbolic statues of this kind (Sourdille, R. p. 215).
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