NITOCRIS, the Greek form of the royal name Neit-aker, which see. (An Archaic Dictionary, Cooper, 1876).

NITOCRIS. The Turin papyrus gives the name of Nit-aqert as one of the Pharaohs of the VIth Dynasty, so it would appear that Herodotus was writing of an actual personage, whether or not the story that he tells was well founded.  Manetho says of Nitocris that she governed twelve years, "the noblest and most beautiful woman of that period, fair, and at the same time the builder of the Third Pyramid."  Brugsch, commenting upon this, says:  "It is difficult to discover the historical foundation for the tale of Herodotus, and we would only say that it must indicate that about the time of Queen Nitocris, internecine murders and dissensions began in the kingdom, awakened by the poisonous envy of the pretenders to the throne."  As to Manetho's assertion that Nitocris built the Third Pyramid, it has been explained by Perring that the Third Pyramid was transformed and enlarged at a later date.  It is suggested that "Queen Nitocris took possession of Men-kau-Ra's tomb, left the king's sarcophagus in a lower vault, and placed her own in the chamber in front.  If we are to be guided by the ruined fragments of bluish basalt which lie on the spot, she had the surface of the monument faced with that costly decoration of highly polished granite, which afterward served inventive Greek story-tellers with a foundation for the tale of Rhodopis, the hetaira, who reduced her friends to beggary that she might obtain vast sums of money for the building of the pyramid."
    THE BEAUTIFUL NITOCRIS.  Various romances have become associated with traditions in reference to Nitocris.  She was credited with supernatural witchery, and it was said that after her death her naked spirit haunted the pyramid she was alleged to have built, and that by the magic of her mere smile she drove her lovers mad.  The story of her revenge upon the men who, in a riot, had killed her brother the king, is given by Herodotus as above.  The brother she avenged was Menthesouphis, whom Meyer places at some distance from her in the line.  Round this same Nitocris gathered other legends, among them the original of our Cinderella story.  According to this version, Nitocris was originally a courtesan named Rhodopis ("Rosy-cheeked"—a translation into Greek of the name Nitocris).  Once when she was bathing in the river, an eagle stole one of her little gilded sandals, and flying away let it fall into the lap of a king, who was holding a court of justice in the open air.  He was so taken with the beauty of the tiny shoe that he had a search made for the woman whom it fitted, and made her his queen. (The Historians' History of the World, Williams, 1907).