MANDRAKE
TOO
MANETHO
regions aUoi:jed to possess strengthening virtues, when used in small quantities, hut they call it tujfuh el-nwja- ni.m, or " apjiles of the possessed," owing to the tempo- rary insanity which an over-dose produces. "At first," says a traveller, " I felt inclined to doubt the assertion, but during my residence in the country I had the op- portunity of witnessing its etfect on an English travel- ler, a Mr. L., who had the temerity to test the property of the mandrake. A few hours after partaking of tlie root he began to show unequivocal symptoms of insan- ity ; and such was its effect on the nervous system that he had to be relieved by cupping and other remedies before he could be restored to consciousness" (Dupuis, IIoli/ Fuices [18J6], i, 272). The name 'Move-apple" — Gesenius's translation of dudaim — was formerly in this country given to a kindred plant, the tomato {Lycope?-- siciiin esculentiun), a native of South America, but now largely cultivated everywhere for its agreeable acidulous fruit. " From a certain rude resemblance of old roots of the mandrake to the human form, whence Pythago- ras is said to have called the mandrake aj'3pai7ro/[(op- (^ov, and Columella (10, 19) semikomo, some strange su- perstitious notions have arisen concerning it. Josephus (War, vii, 6, 3) evidently alludes to one of these super- stitions, though he calls the plant haaras. In a Vienna MS. of Dioscorides is a curious drawing which repre- sents Euresis, the goddess of discovery, handing to Di- oscorides a root of the mandrake ; the dog employed f(ir the purpose is depicted in the agonies of death (Daube- ny's Rmnan Ihishandry, p. 275). The mandrake is foiind abundantly in the Grecian islands, and in some parts of the south of Europe. The root is spindle-shaped, and
Atropa Mamlraiiora OJficinarvm.
often divided into two or three forks. The leaves, which are long, sharp-pointed, and hairy, rise immedi- ately from the ground. The flowers arc dingv white, stained with veins of purple. The fruit is of apale or- ange color, and about the size of a nutmeg ; but it would appear that the ])lant varies considerably in appearance according to the localities where it grows. The man- ilrake (A/rojxi iniiiidrarjora) is closely allied to the well- known deadly nightshade (.1. bdkidomtd), and belongs to the order SohimicvxK'' (Sipith). See Liebctantz, Ik Rachdis Dudaim (Vitemb. 1702); Simon, De D^XI^n etc. (Halle, 17.35) ; Ant. l?ertolini, Comment, de Mandra- f/oris (Bol. 18.3G) ; Dougta-i .l7^«fcf^ i, 35; Velthuysen, Comment, iib. d. Jlohelied, p. 502 ; Eichhorn, Rej^ert. xi.
158; Michaelis, Siippl. p. 410; Oken, LeJirb, d. Nnftirs- f/esc/i. II, ii, 333 ; W. Bickerton, Dissertation on the Man- drake of the Ancients (Lond. 1737) ; Tristram, Nat. Hist, of Bible, p. 466 sq.
Mandyas (fiavSuac), a vestment of the Greek priests, not unlike the cope of the Komanists, but with bells at the lower edges, in supposed imitation of the Jewish high-priest.
Ma'neh (nDTS, manek', Ezek. xlv, 12, a piortion as divided by weight ; hence the Greek p^va, a mina ; ren- dered " pound" in 1 Kings x, 17 ; Ezra ii, 69 ; Neh. vii, 21, 22), a weight of a hundred shekels, as we gather from 1 Kings X, 17 (compare 2 Chron. ix, 16). Another and somewhat obscure specification is given in Ezek. xlv, 12, " twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh ;" spoken either of a triple maneh of twenty, twenty-jive, and fifty shekels ; or of a single maneh of sixty shekels, distributed into three parts of fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five. There are other ex- planations offered (as by the Chaldee paraphrast, by Jarchi, J. D. Michaelis, and others), but the latter is gen- erally supposed to be the best. See Weights.
Manetho (Mai^e^iov or MaveBioc), of Sebenny- Tus, a distinguished Egyptian historian, a native of Diospolis, according to some, or of Mende or Heliopolis, according to others, is said to have lived in the time of Ptolemy PhLladelphus, and to have been a man of great learning and wisdom (/Elian, Be Animal, x, 16). He belonged to the priestly caste, and was himself a priest, and interpreter or recorder of religious usages, and of the religious and probably also historical writings. His name has been interpreted " beloved of Thoth ;" in the son(j of Lagos and Ptolemy Philadelphus, Mai en tef, or 3fa Net, " beloved of Neith ;" but both interpretations are doubtful. Scarcelj^ anything is known of the history of Jlanetho himself, and he is more renowned for his Egyptian history than on any other account. On the occasion of Ptolemy I dreaming of the god Serapis at Si- nope, Manetho was considted by the monarch, and, in conjiuiction with Timotheus of Athens, the interpreter of the Eleusinian mysteries, declared the statue of Sera- pis, brought by orders of the king from Sinope, to be that of the god Serapis or Pluto, and the god had a tem- ple and his worship inaugurated at Alexandria. It ap- pears probable, however, that there were more than one individual of this name, and it is therefore doubtful whether all the works which were attributed by ancient writers to iManetho were in reality MTitten by the iMa- netho who lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. (See below.)
Writings. — The only work of Manetho which has come down to us complete is a poem of six books, in hexameter verse, on the influence of the stars {aTzoriXi- a par IK a), which was first published by Gronovius (Ley- den, 1698), and has also been edited by Axtius and Rig- ler (Cologne, 1832). It is probable, however, for many reasons, as Hej'ne has shown in his Opinscula A cademica (i, 95), that parts, at least, of this poem could not have been written till a much later date. We also possess considerable fragments of a work of Manetho on the his- tory of the ancient kings of Egypt. (See below.) It was in tliree books or parts, and comprised the ]ieriod from the earliest times to the death of the last Persian Darius. Some of these fragments are preserved in the treatise of Josephus against Apion; and still greater portions in the "Chronicles" of George Syncellus, a monk of the 9th century. The " Chronicles" of Syncellus were jirinci- pally compiled from the "Chronicles" of Julius Africanus and Eusebius, bishop of Cicsarea, both of whom made great use of Manetho's "History." The work of Afri- canus is lost, and we only possess a Latin version of that of Eusebius, which was translated out of the Armenian version of the Greek text preserved at Constantinople. Manetho is said to have derived his history of the kings of Egypt, whom he divides into thirty classes, called dy- nasties, from the sacred records in the temple at Heli-