35
But as it is, since the question is open to the judgement of all and one must resort to conjecture, who, reasoning from what is probable, would be considered to have a better claim to the authorship of the institutions of Egypt rather than a son of Poseidon, a descendant of Zeus on his mother’s side, the most powerful personage of his time and the most renowned among all other peoples? For surely it is not fitting that any who were in all these respects inferior should, in preference to Busiris, have the credit of being the authors of those great benefactions.
36
Furthermore, it could be easily proved on chronological grounds also that the statements of the detractors of Busiris are false. For the same writers who accuse Busiris of slaying strangers also assert that he died at the hands of Heracles;
37
but all chroniclers agree that Heracles was later by four generations than Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, and that Busiris lived more than two hundred years earlier than Perseus. And yet what can be more absurd than that one who was desirous of clearing Busiris of the calumny has failed to mention that evidence, so manifest and so conclusive?
