Herodotus does not conceal the doubts raised in his mind by the high antiquity claimed in these accounts by the priests. He found an especial difficulty in the fact that Dionysus Osiris, who, according to his computation, was born 1,600 years at the most before his own time (_i.e._ about 2050 B.C.), must have lived more than 15,000 years earlier, according to the assertion of the Egyptians. By their account 341 kings reigned from Menes to Sethos; and on this basis Herodotus reckoned the duration and commencement of the Egyptian kingdom. He took 33-1/3 years as the length of a generation, and thus Menes must have begun to reign 340 generations, or 11,340 years before the accession of Sethos. Further, Herodotus placed over 150 years between the accession of Sethos and the death of Amasis, and thus according to his data we get the enormous total of 11,500 years for the duration of the Egyptian kingdom from Menes till its overthrow by the Persians. Menes therefore must have ascended the throne before the year 12000 B.C.; the rule of Osiris commenced 15500 B.C.; and that of the Twelve Gods 17500 B.C. If we leave the gods out of the question, and reduce the length of a generation, which Herodotus has put too high, to its real average of twenty-five years, the 340 generations with those of Sethos, Psammetichus, Necho, Psammetichus II., Apries, and Amasis, make up 8,650 years, and since the Persians took Egypt in 525 B.C., the beginning of the reign of Menes still falls in the year 9175 B.C. This incredible fact is not made more credible because Plato represents an Egyptian priest asserting to Solon that the annals of Sais reached back 8,000 years; or speaks in the "Laws" of works of Egyptian art, ten thousand years old.[6]