Life of Sethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians () is an influential fantasy novel originally published in six volumes at Paris in 1731 by the French abbé Jean Terrasson. An English translation by Thomas Lediard published at London by J. Walthoe appeared in 1732.
According to classicist Mary Lefkowitz, Sethos:
The book is cited in Afrocentric works that argued for a suppressed Egyptian origin of Greek culture and philosophy, including Martin Bernal's Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical CivilizationMary R. Lefkowitz, Guy MacLean Rogers (eds.), Black Athena Revisited, UNC Press Books, 1996, p. 358. and George James's Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy Is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy.BOOKS ATTACKING AFROCENTRISM, John Elson, Time, Feb. 19, 1996 It is also a key source of popular conspiracy theories positing a secret pagan subculture of Freemasons, devotees of Satan, and environmentalists dedicated to the overthrow of Christianity.Great Awful Books, Charles Paul Freund, Oct. 17, 1996, Slate
Historical Sethos The Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories (book II, chapter 141) writes of a High Priest of Ptah named Sethos ( Sethon) who became pharaoh and defeated the Assyrians with divine intervention. This name is probably a corruption of Shebitku (or Shabataka), the actual pharaoh at the time, who was a Kushite of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories (Anchor, 2007), p. 182Alan B. Lloyd, Commentary on Book II, in A Commentary on Herodotus, Books I–IV (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 237. According to Herodotus:
See also Thamos, King of Egypt, an 18th-century play also set in ancient Egypt
References
External links Tomes I and II of The Life of Sethos (French) The Life of Sethos, Volume I in the 1732 (English translation) The Life of Sethos, Vol. 1 of 2 (1732 English Translation by Lediard) at Project Gutenberg 1777 German translation of the Volume I of The Life of Sethos Séthos – Abbé Jean Terrasson, réédition (French) Sethos, tragédie nouvelle dédiée au grand Corneille, by Alexandre Tanevot, 1740 tragedy inspired by Terrasson's novel __NOTOC__