Part 19

_Herodotus_ therefore [404] hath inverted the order of the Kings _Astyages_ and _Cyaxeres_, making _Cyaxeres_ to be the son and successor of _Phraortes_, and the father and predecessor of _Astyages_ the father of _Mandane_, and grandfather of _Cyrus_, and telling us, that this _Astyages_ married _Ariene_ the daughter of _Alyattes_ King of _Lydia_, and was at length taken prisoner and deprived of his dominion by _Cyrus_: and _Pausanias_ hath copied after _Herodotus_, in telling us that _Astyages_ the son of _Cyaxeres_ Reigned in _Media_ in the days of _Alyattes_ King of _Lydia_. _Cyaxeres_ had a son who married _Ariene_ the daughter of _Alyattes_; but this son was not the father of _Mandane_, and grandfather of _Cyrus_, but of the same age with _Cyrus_: and his true name is preserved in the name of the _Darics_, which upon the conquest of _Crœsus_ by the conduct of his General _Cyrus_, he coyned out of the gold and silver of the conquered _Lydians_: his name was therefore _Darius_, as he is called by _Daniel_; for _Daniel_ tells us, that this _Darius_ was a _Mede_, and that his father's name was _Assuerus_, that is _Axeres_ or _Cyaxeres_, as above: considering therefore that _Cyaxeres_ Reigned long, and that no author mentions more Kings of _Media_ than one called _Astyages_, and that _Æschylus_ who lived in those days knew but of two great Monarchs of _Media_ and _Persia_, the father and the son, older than _Cyrus_; it seems to me that _Astyages_, the father of _Mandane_ and grandfather of _Cyrus_, was the father and predecessor of _Cyaxeres_; and that the son and successor of _Cyaxeres_ was called _Darius_. _Cyaxeres_, [405] according to _Herodotus_, Reigned 40 years, and his successor 35, and _Cyrus_, according to _Xenophon_, seven: _Cyrus_ died _Anno Nabonass._ 219, according to the Canon, and therefore _Cyaxeres_ died _Anno Nabonass._ 177, and began his Reign _Anno Nabonass._ 137, and his father _Astyages_ Reigned 26 years, beginning his Reign at the death of _Phraortes_, who was slain by the _Assyrians_, _Anno Nabonass._ 111, as above.

Of all the Kings of the _Medes_, _Cyaxeres_ was greatest warrior. _Herodotus_ [406] saith that he was much more valiant than his ancestors, and that he was the first who divided the Kingdom into provinces, and reduced the irregular and undisciplined forces of the _Medes_ into discipline and order: and therefore by the testimony of _Herodotus_ he was that King of the _Medes_ whom _Æschylus_ makes the first conqueror and founder of the Empire; for _Herodotus_ represents him and his son to have been the two immediate predecessors of _Cyrus_, erring only in the name of the son. _Astyages_ did nothing glorious: in the beginning of his Reign a great body of _Scythians_ commanded by _Madyes_, [407] invaded _Media_ and _Parthia_, as above, and Reigned there about 28 years; but at length his son _Cyaxeres_ circumvented and slew them in a feast, and made the rest fly to their brethren in _Parthia_; and immediately after, in conjunction with _Nebuchadnezzar_, invaded and subverted the Kingdom of _Assyria_, and destroyed _Nineveh_.

In the fourth year of _Jehoiakim_, which the _Jews_ reckon to be the first of _Nebuchadnezzar_, dating his Reign from his being made King by his father, or from the month _Nisan_ preceding, when the victors had newly shared the Empire of the _Assyrians_, and in prosecuting their victory were invading _Syria_ and _Phœnicia_, and were ready to invade the nations round about; God [408] threatned that _he would take all the families of the North, _that is, the armies of the _Medes_,_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_ the King of _Babylon_, and bring them against _Judæa_ and against the nations round about, and utterly destroy those nations, and make them an astonishment and lasting desolations, and cause them all to drink the wine-cup of his fury_; and in particular, he names _the Kings of _Judah_ and _Egypt_, and those of _Edom_, and _Moab_, and _Ammon_, and _Tyre_, and _Zidon_, and the Isles of the Sea, and _Arabia_, and _Zimri_, and all the Kings of _Elam_, and all the Kings of the _Medes_, and all the Kings of the North, and the King of _Sesac_; and that after seventy years, he would also punish the King of _Babylon__. Here, in numbering the nations which should suffer, he omits the _Assyrians_ as fallen already, and names the Kings of _Elam_ or _Persia_, and _Sesac_ or _Susa_, as distinct from those of the _Medes_ and _Babylonians_; and therefore the _Persians_ were not yet subdued by the _Medes_, nor the King of _Susa_ by the _Chaldæans_; and as by the punishment of the King of _Babylon_ he means the conquest of _Babylon_ by the _Medes_; so by the punishment of the _Medes_ he seems to mean the conquest of the _Medes_ by _Cyrus_.

After this, in the beginning of the Reign of _Zedekiah_, that is, in the ninth year of _Nebuchadnezzar,_ God threatned that _he would give the Kingdoms of _Edom_, _Moab_, and _Ammon_, and _Tyre_ and _Zidon_, into the hand of _Nebuchadnezzar_ King of _Babylon_, and that all the nations should serve him, and his son, and his son's son until the very time of his land should come, and many nations and great Kings should serve themselves of him_, Jer. xxvii. And at the same time God thus predicted the approaching conquest of the _Persians_ by the _Medes_ and their confederates: _Behold_, saith he, _I will break the bow of _Elam_, the chief of their might: and upon _Elam_ will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them towards all those winds, and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of _Elam_ shall not come: for I will cause _Elam_ to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life; and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I will send the sword after them 'till I have consumed them; and I will set my throne in _Elam_, and will destroy from thence the King and the Princes, saith the Lord: but it shall come to pass in the latter days, _viz. in the Reign of _Cyrus_,_ that I will bring again the captivity of _Elam_, saith the Lord._ Jer. xlix. 35, _&c._ The _Persians_ were therefore hitherto a free nation under their own King, but soon after this were invaded, subdued, captivated, and dispersed into the nations round about, and continued in servitude until the Reign of _Cyrus_: and since the _Medes_ and _Chaldæans_ did not conquer the _Persians_ 'till after the ninth year of _Nebuchadnezzar_, it gives us occasion to enquire what that active warrior _Cyaxeres_ was doing next after the taking of _Nineveh_.

When _Cyaxeres_ expelled the _Scythians_, [409] some of them made their peace with him, and staid in _Media_, and presented to him daily some of the venison which they took in hunting: but happening one day to catch nothing, _Cyaxeres_ in a passion treated them with opprobrious language: this they resented, and soon after killed one of the children of the _Medes_, dressed it like venison, and presented it to _Cyaxeres_, and then fled to _Alyattes_ King of _Lydia_; whence followed a war of five years between the two Kings _Cyaxeres_ and _Alyattes_: and thence I gather that the Kingdoms of the _Medes_ and _Lydians_ were now contiguous, and by consequence that _Cyaxeres_, soon after the conquest of _Nineveh_, seized the regions belonging to the _Assyrians_, as far as to the river _Halys_. In the sixth year of this war, in the midst of a battel between the two Kings, there was a total Eclipse of the Sun, predicted by _Thales_; [410] and this Eclipse fell upon the 28th of _May_, _Anno Nabonass._ 163, forty and seven years before the taking of _Babylon_, and put an end to the battel: and thereupon the two Kings made peace by the mediation of _Nebuchadnezzar_ King of _Babylon_, and _Syennesis_ King of _Cilicia_; and the peace was ratified by a marriage, between _Darius_ the son of _Cyaxeres_ and _Ariene_ the daughter of _Alyattes_: _Darius_ was therefore fifteen or sixteen years old at the time of this marriage; for he was 62 years old at the taking of _Babylon_.

In the eleventh year of _Zedekiah's_ Reign, the year in which _Nebuchadnezzar_ took _Jerusalem_ and destroyed the Temple, _Ezekiel_ comparing the Kingdoms of the East to trees in the garden of _Eden_, thus mentions their being conquered by the Kings of the _Medes_ and _Chaldæans: Behold_, saith he, _the_ Assyrian _was a Cedar in_ Lebanon _with fair branches,--his height was exalted above all the trees of the field,--and under his shadow dwelt all great nations,--not any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty:--but I have delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen,--I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to the grave with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of _Eden_, the choice and best of _Lebanon_, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth: they also went down into the grave with him, unto them that be slain with the sword, and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen,_ Ezek. xxxi.

The next year _Ezekiel_, in another prophesy, thus enumerates the principal nations who had been subdued and slaughtered by the conquering sword of _Cyaxeres_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_. __Asthur_ is there and all her company, _viz. in _Hades_ or the lower parts of the earth, where the dead bodies lay buried_, his graves are about him; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused their terrour in the land of the living. There is _Elam_, and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terrour in the land of the living: yet have they born their shame with them that go down into the pit.--There is _Meshech_, _Tubal_, and all her multitude [411]; her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terrour in the land of the living.--There is _Edom_, her Kings, and all her Princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword.--There be the Princes of the North all of them, and all the _Zidonians_, which with their terrour are gone down with the slain_, Ezek. xxxii. Here by the Princes of the North I understand those on the north of _Judæa_, and chiefly the Princes of _Armenia_ and _Cappadocia_, who fell in the wars which _Cyaxeres_ made in reducing those countries after the taking of _Nineveh_. _Elam_ or _Persia_ was conquered by the _Medes_, and _Susiana_ by the _Babylonians_, after the ninth, and before the nineteenth year of _Nebuchadnezzar_: and therefore we cannot err much if we place these conquests in the twelfth or fourteenth year of _Nebuchadnezzar_: in the nineteenth, twentieth, and one and twentieth year of this King, he invaded and [412] conquered _Judæa_, _Moab_, _Ammon_, _Edom_, the _Philistims_ and _Zidon_; and [413] the next year he besieged _Tyre_, and after a siege of thirteen years he took it, in the 35th year of his Reign; and then he [414] invaded and conquered _Egypt_, _Ethiopia_ and _Libya_; and about eighteen or twenty years after the death of this King, _Darius_ the _Mede_ conquered the Kingdom of _Sardes_; and after five or six years more he invaded and conquered the Empire of _Babylon_: and thereby finished the work of propagating the _Medo-Persian_ Monarchy over all _Asia_, as _Æschylus_ represents.

Now this is that _Darius_ who coined a great number of pieces of pure gold called _Darics_, or _Stateres Darici:_ for _Suidas_, _Harpocration_, and the Scholiast of _Aristophanes_> [415] tell us, that these were coined not by the father of _Xerxes_, but by an earlier _Darius_, by _Darius_ the first, by the first King of the _Medes_ and _Persians_ who coined gold money. They were stamped on one side with the effigies of an Archer, who was crowned with a spiked crown, had a bow in his left hand, and an arrow in his right, and was cloathed with a long robe; I have seen one of them in gold, and another in silver: they were of the same weight and value with the _Attic Stater_ or piece of gold money weighing two _Attic_ drachms. _Darius_ seems to have learnt the art and use of money from the conquered Kingdom of the _Lydians_, and to have recoined their gold: for the _Medes_, before they conquered the _Lydians_, had no money. _Herodotus_ [416] tells us, that _when_ Crœsus _was preparing to invade_ Cyrus, _a certain _Lydian_ called _Sandanis_ advised him, that he was preparing an expedition against a nation who were cloathed with leathern breeches, who eat not such victuals as they would, but such as their barren country afforded; who drank no wine, but water only, who eat no figs nor other good meat, who had nothing to lose, but might get much from the _Lydians__: _for the _Persians__, saith _Herodotus_, _before they conquered the _Lydians_, had nothing rich or valuable_: and [417] _Isaiah_ tells us, that _the _Medes_ regarded not silver, nor delighted in gold_; but the _Lydians_ and _Phrygians_ were exceeding rich, even to a proverb: _Midas & Crœsus_, saith [418] _Pliny, infinitum possederant. Jam Cyrus devicta Asia_ [auri] _pondo xxxiv millia invenerat, præter vasa aurea aurumque factum, & in eo folia ac platanum vitemque. Qua victoria argenti quingenta millia talentorum reportavit, & craterem Semiramidis cujus pondus quindecim talentorum colligebat. Talentum autem Ægyptium pondo octoginta capere Varro tradit._ What the conqueror did with all this gold and silver appears by the _Darics_. The _Lydians_, according to [419] _Herodotus_, were the first who coined gold and silver, and _Crœsus_ coined gold monies in plenty, called _Crœsei_; and it was not reasonable that the monies of the Kings of _Lydia_ should continue current after the overthrow of their Kingdom, and therefore _Darius_ recoined it with his own effigies, but without altering the current weight and value: he Reigned then from before the conquest of _Sardes_ 'till after the conquest of _Babylon_.

And since the cup of _Semiramis_ was preserved 'till the conquest of _Crœsus_ by _Darius_, it is not probable that she could be older than is represented by _Herodotus_.

This conquest of the Kingdom of _Lydia_ put the _Greeks_ into fear of the _Medes_: for _Theognis_, who lived at _Megara_ in the very times of these wars, writes thus, [420]

Πινωμεν, χαριεντα μετ' αλληλοισι λεγοντες, Μηδεν τον Μηδων δειδιοτες πολεμον.

_Let us drink, talking pleasant things with one another,_ _Not fearing the war of the _Medes_._

And again, [421]

Αυτος δε στρατον ‛υβριστην Μηδων απερυκε Τησδε πολευς, ‛ινα σοι λαοι εν ευφροσυνηι Ηρος επερχομενου κλειτας πεμπωσ' ‛εκατομβας, Τερπομενοι κιθαρη και ερατηι θαλιηι, Παιανωντε χοροις, ιαχωσι τε, σον περι βωμον. Η γαρ εγωγε δεδοικ', αφραδιην εσορων Και στασιν ‛Ελληνων λαοφθορον· αλλα συ Φοιβε, ‛Ιλαος ‛ημετερην τηνδε φυλασσε πολιν.

_Thou _Apollo_ drive away the injurious army of the _Medes__ _From this city, that the people may with joy_ _Send thee choice hecatombs in the spring,_ _Delighted with the harp and chearful feasting,_ _And chorus's of _Pœans_ and acclamations about thy altar_. _For truly I am afraid, beholding the folly_ _And sedition of the _Greeks_, which corrupts the people: but thou _Apollo_,_ _Being propitious, keep this our city._

The Poet tells us further that discord had destroyed _Magnesia_, _Colophon_, and _Smyrna_, cities of _Ionia_ and _Phrygia_, and would destroy the _Greeks_; which is as much as to say that the _Medes_ had then conquered those cities.

The _Medes_ therefore Reigned 'till the taking of _Sardes_: and further, according to _Xenophon_ and the Scriptures, they Reigned 'till the taking of _Babylon_: for _Xenophon_ [422] tells us, that after the taking of _Babylon_, _Cyrus_ went to the King of the _Medes_ at _Ecbatane_ and succeeded him in the Kingdom: and _Jerom_, [423] _that _Babylon_ was taken by _Darius_ King of the _Medes_ and his kinsman _Cyrus__: and the Scriptures tell us, that _Babylon_ was destroyed by _a nation out of the north_, _Jerem_. l. 3, 9, 41. by _the Kingdoms of _Ararat Minni, or _Armenia__, and _Ashchenez, or _Phrygia minor___, _Jer_. li. 27. by the _Medes_, _Isa._ xiii. 17, 19. _by the Kings of the _Medes_ and the captains and rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominion_, _Jer_. li. 11, 28. The Kingdom of _Babylon_ was _numbred and finished and broken and given to the _Medes_ and _Persians__, _Dan._ v. 26. 28. first to the _Medes_ under _Darius_, and then to the _Persians_ under _Cyrus_: for _Darius_ Reigned over _Babylon_ like a conqueror, not observing the laws of the _Babylonians_, but introducing the immutable laws of the conquering nations, the _Medes_ and _Persians_, _Dan._ vi. 8, 12, 15; and the _Medes_ in his Reign are set before the _Persians_, _Dan._ ib. & v. 28, & viii. 20. as the _Persians_ were afterwards in the Reign of _Cyrus_ and his successors set before the _Medes_, _Esther_ i. 3, 14, 18, 19. _Dan._ x. 1, 20. and xi. 2. which shews that in the Reign of _Darius_ the _Medes_ were uppermost.

You may know also by the great number of provinces in the Kingdom of _Darius_, that he was King of the _Medes_ and _Persians_: for upon the conquest of _Babylon_, he set over the whole Kingdom an hundred and twenty Princes, _Dan._ vi. 1. and afterwards when _Cambyses_ and _Darius Hystaspis_ had added some new territories, the whole contained but 127 provinces.

The extent of the _Babylonian_ Empire was much the same with that of _Nineveh_ after the revolt of the _Medes_. _Berosus_ saith that _Nebuchadnezzar_ held _Egypt_, _Syria_, _Phœnicia_ and _Arabia_: and _Strabo_ adds _Arbela_ to the territories of _Babylon_; and saying that _Babylon_ was anciently the metropolis of _Assyria_, he thus describes the limits of this _Assyrian_ Empire. _Contiguous_, [424] saith he, _to _Persia_ and _Susiana_ are the _Assyrians_: for so they call _Babylonia_, and the greatest part of the region about it: part of which is _Arturia_, wherein is _Ninus [_or_ Nineveh;]_ and _Apolloniatis_, and the _Elymæans_, and the _Parætacæ_, and _Chalonitis_ by the mountain _Zagrus_, and the fields near _Ninus_, and _Dolomene_, and _Chalachene_, and _Chazene_, and _Adiabene_, and the nations of _Mesopotamia_ near the _Gordyæans_, and the _Mygdones_ about _Nisibis_, unto _Zeugma_ upon _Euphrates_; and a large region on this side _Euphrates_ inhabited by the _Arabians_ and _Syrians_ properly so called, as far as _Cilicia_ and _Phœnicia_ and _Libya_ and the sea of _Egypt_ and the _Sinus Issicus__: and a little after describing the extent of the _Babylonian_ region, he bounds it on the north, with the _Armenians_ and _Medes_ unto the mountain _Zagrus_; on the east side, with _Susa_ and _Elymais_ and _Parætacene_, inclusively; on the south, with the _Persian Gulph_ and _Chaldæa_; and on the west, with the _Arabes Scenitæ_ as far as _Adiabene_ and _Gordyæa_: afterwards speaking of _Susiana_ and _Sitacene_, a region between _Babylon_ and _Susa_, and of _Parætacene_ and _Cossæa_ and _Elymais_, and of the _Sagapeni_ and _Siloceni_, two little adjoining Provinces, he concludes, [425] _and these are the nations which inhabit _Babylonia_ eastward: to the north are _Media_ and _Armenia_, _exclusively_, and westward are _Adiabene_ and _Mesopotamia_, _inclusively_; the greatest part of _Adiabene_ is plain, the same being part of _Babylonia_: in same places it borders on _Armenia_: for the _Medes_, _Armenians_ and _Babylonians_ warred frequently on one another_. Thus far _Strabo_.

When _Cyrus_ took _Babylon_, he changed the Kingdom into a Satrapy or Province: whereby the bounds were long after known: and by this means _Herodotus_ [426] gives us an estimate of the bigness of this Monarchy in proportion to that of the _Persians_, telling us that _whilst every region over which the King of _Persia_ Reigned in his days, was distributed for the nourishment of his army, besides the tributes, the _Babylonian_ region nourished him four months of the twelve in the year, and all the rest of _Asia_ eight: so the power of the region_, saith he, _is equivalent to the third part of _Asia_, and its Principality, which the _Persians_ call a _Satrapy_, is far the best of all the Provinces_.

_Babylon_ [427] was a square city of 120 furlongs, or 15 miles on every side, compassed first with a broad and deep ditch, and then with a wall fifty cubits thick, and two hundred high. _Euphrates_ flowed through the middle of it southward, a few leagues on this side _Tigris_: and in the middle of one half westward stood the King's new Palace, built by _Nebuchadnezzar_; and in the middle of the other half stood the Temple of _Belus_, with the old Palace between that Temple and the river: this old Palace was built by the _Assyrians_, according to [428] _Isaiah_, and by consequence, by _Pul_ and his son _Nabonassar_, as above: _they founded the city for the _Arabians_, and set up the towers thereof, and raised the Palaces thereof_: and at that time _Sabacon_ the _Ethiopian_ invaded _Egypt_, and made great multitudes of _Egyptians_ fly from him into _Chaldæa_, and carry thither their Astronomy, and Astrology, and Architecture, and the form of their year, which they preserved there in the _Æra_ of _Nabonassar_: for the practice of observing the Stars began in _Egypt_ in the days of _Ammon_, as above, and was propagated from thence in the Reign of his son _Sesac_ into _Afric_, _Europe_, and _Asia_ by conquest; and then _Atlas_ formed the Sphere of the _Libyans_, and _Chiron_ that of the _Greeks_, and the _Chaldæans_ also made a Sphere of their own. But Astrology was invented in _Egypt_ by _Nichepsos_, or _Necepsos_, one of the Kings of the lower _Egypt_, and _Petosiris_ his Priest, a little before the days of _Sabacon_, and propagated thence into _Chaldæa_, where _Zoroaster_ the Legislator of the _Magi_ met with it: so _Paulinus_,

_Quique magos docuit mysteria vana Necepsos_:

And _Diodorus_, [429] _they say that the _Chaldæans_ in _Babylonia_ are colonies of the _Egyptians_, and being taught by the Priests of _Egypt_ became famous for Astrology_. By the influence of the same colonies, the Temple of _Jupiter Belus_ in _Babylon_ seems to have been erected in the form of the _Egyptian_ Pyramids: for [430] this Temple was a solid Tower or Pyramid a furlong square, and a furlong high, with seven retractions, which made it appear like eight towers standing upon one another, and growing less and less to the top: and in the eighth tower was a Temple with a bed and a golden table, kept by a woman, after the manner of the _Egyptians_ in the Temple of _Jupiter Ammon_ at _Thebes_; and above the Temple was a place for observing the Stars: they went up to the top of it by steps on the outside, and the bottom was compassed with a court, and the court with a building two furlongs in length on every side.