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If we knew who Sesostris was, we could figure out whom to equate Pheros with,
whose name is seemingly derived from the title 'pharaoh'. At any rate he should be considered a New Kingdom figure.
The whole story doesn't seem to have any historical merit. It sounds like a satire on female chastity. Similar
stories are known from most cultures.
Now after Sesostris had brought his life to an end, his son Pheros,
they told me, received in succession the kingdom, and he made no
warlike expedition, and moreover it chanced to him to become blind by
reason of the following accident:
When the river had come down in
flood rising to a height of eighteen cubits, higher than ever before
that time, and had gone over the fields, a wind fell upon it and the
river became agitated by waves: and this king (they say) moved by
presumptuous folly took a spear and cast it into the midst of the
eddies of the stream; and immediately upon this he had a disease of
the eyes and was by it made blind.
For ten years then he was blind,
and in the eleventh year there came to him an oracle from the city of
Buto saying that the time of his punishment had expired, and that he
should see again if he washed his eyes with the water of a woman who
had accompanied with her own husband only and had not had knowledge of
other men: and first he made trial of his own wife, and then, as he
continued blind, he went on to try all the women in turn; and when he
had at least regained his sight he gathered together all the women of
whom he had made trial, excepting her by whose means he had regained
his sight, to one city which now is named Erythrabolos, and having
gathered them to this he consumed them all by fire, as well as the
city itself; but as for her by whose means he had regained his sight,
he had her himself to wife.
Then after he had escaped the malady of
his eyes he dedicated offerings at each one of the temples which were
of renown, and especially (to mention only that which is most worthy
of mention) he dedicated at the temple of the Sun works which are
worth seeing, namely two obelisks of stone, each of a single block,
measuring in length a hundred cubits each one and in breadth eight
cubits.
Herodotus Histories II,111
Project Gutenberg
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