Cyrus, by which the early part of his reign was much troubled. The retreat of the 10,000 Greeks who had fought for Cyrus and survived his overthrow and death under the conduct of the historian himself, has been more admired and celebrated than most ancient or modern victories. The submission of Cyprus, the king marched inte Egypt 350 B. C., and completely reduced it, chiefly by the assistance of Mentor the Rhodian, and 10,000 mercenary Greeks whom he had drawn into his service. Egyptians were treated with a severity more congenial to the savage disposition of Ochus than was the moderation to which policy had constrained him in Phoenicia : he dismantled the towns; he plundered the temples of their treasures and public records; and the ox-god Apis he sacrificed to an ass ——— a severe practical satire upon the animal-worship revenge upon the Egyptians for their having nicknamed himself The Ass, on account of his apparent inactivity and sluggishness. Ochus returned in triumph to Babylon, laden with spoil of gold and silver, and other precious things from the kingdoms and provinces he had conquered. From this decisive war the humiliation of Egypt may be dated. It was between the periods of disturbance which have been indicated, namely, in 373 B. C., that the high-priest Joiada died, and was succeeded by his son Jonathan or Jochanan (John). About the time of the Egyptian invasion, this person occasioned much trouble to his nation. His brother of Egypt, and not less significant as an act of Jesus had become so great a favorite with the Persian governor Bagoses, that he nominated him to the priesthood. When Jesus came to Jerusalem in that capacity, he was slain by Jonathan in the very temple. Bagoses no sooner heard of this outrage than he hastened to Jerusalem; and when an attempt was made to exclude him from the temple as a Gentile, and consequently unclean, he replied with vehemence, "What! am not I as clean as the dead carcass that lies in your temple?" The punishment which Bagoses imposed for the murder of Jesus was a heavy tax upon the lambs offered in sacrifice. This onerous impost was not remitted until the succeeding reign; and it must have been the more sensibly felt, as the priests had for many years been accustomed to receive large contributions from the Persian kings toward defraying the expense of the sacrifices. Artaxerxes Memnon was succeeded on the throne of Persia by his son Ochus. In his reign, among many other disturbances which we need not mention, the Sidonians, Phoenicians, and Cyprians revolted, and made common cause with the Egyptians, who still maintained their independence. After repeated failures of his generals to reduce them, Ochus himself took the coinmand of the expedition against them. He besieged Sidon, which was betrayed to him. by the king Tennes; on which the Sidonians in despair set fire to the city, and burned themselves with all their treasures. Terrified by this catastrophe of Sidon, the other Phoenicians submitted on the best terms they could obtain; and among them we may include the Jews, who seem to have joined the common cause. Being anxious to invade Egypt, Ochus was not unreasonable in his demands. After having also received the of the Phoenicians has been already inti- | whom he had spared, he placed on the throne, mated. This appears from the fact that expecting to reign in his name. But finding Ochus went from Phoenicia to Jericho, sub- that the young king contemplated the punishdued that city, took some of the inhabitants ment of the murderer of his father and his with him into Egypt, and sent others into brothers, Bagoas anticipated his intention, Hyrcania to people that province. But that and in the third year of his reign destroyed the disaffection of the Jews was not general, him and all the remaining members of his or that, at least, it was not shared by the family. The eunuch, whose soul was now hardened to iron by the concurrent and repeated action of grief and crime, tendered the sceptre to Codomanus, the governor of Armenia, a descendant of Darius Nothus, † and who on his accession assumed the name of Darius, and is known in history as Darius Codomanus, B. C. 335. Bagoas soon repented of his choice, and plotted the death of this king also; but Darius, having discovered his design, returned to his own lips the poisoned chalice which he had prepared for the king. Egyptian captives or allies. (Rosellini.) inhabitants of Jerusalem, may be inferred from the fact that this city was not disturbed. Indeed, the Jews owed some gratitude to Ochus for remitting at his accession the heavy tax* which Bagoses had in the preceding reign imposed. It was in the eighteenth year of Ochus (B. C. 341) that the high-priest Jonathan, whose murder of his brother Jesus had given occasion for the imposition of this tax, died, and was succeeded by Jaddua or Jaddus. Ochus, after having re-established his dominion over all the provinces which had newly or in former times revolted, abandoned himself to luxurious repose, leaving the government in the hands of Bagoas, an Egyptian eunuch, and of his general Memnon, from both of whom he had received important services during the Egyptian war. But Bagoas could not forgive the ruin of his country, although that had been the basis of his own fortunes. He poisoned Ochus and destroyed all his sons, except Arses the youngest. This horrid act was followed by his sending back to Egypt such of the plundered archives as he could collect. Arses, * Jahn estimates that it must have produced 50,000l., perhaps rather too high an estimate. † His grandfather was the brother of Darius Nothus, and his father was the only one of the family who escaped the massacre with which Ochus commenced his reign. He afterward married and had a son, who was this Codomanus. The young man lived in obscurity during most Few kings ever enjoyed greater advanHe tages than Darius at their accession. had no competitors or opponents; his treasures, increased under Ochus by the plunder of many lands, seemed exhaustless; his dominion appeared well established over all the nations which abode from the Indus to the isles of Greece, and from the cataracts of the Nile to the Caucasian mountains; and with all this, the personal bravery of Darius and his acknowledged merits made him universally respected and admired throughout his empire. But bright as appeared his star, another had risen before which his own grew pale and became extinct. Head of Alexander the Great. (On a coin of Lysimachus, King of Thrace.) Alexander, the son of Philip king of Macedon, ascended the throne when he was only twenty years of age, in B. C. 335, of the reign of Ochus, supporting himself as an astanda, or courier, by carrying the royal despatches. He at last had an opportunity of distinguishing his valor by slaying a Cadusian champion, who like another Goliah, defied the whole Persian army. For this gallant exploit he was rewarded by Ochus with the important government of Armenia. being the very same year that Darius Co- | the summer others were subjugated. In the domanus became king of Persia. It is not campaign of the following year (B. C. 333) necessary in a work of this nature to record Alexander subdued Phrygia, Paphlagonia, the exploits of this celebrated hero, unless Pisidia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia. as far as necessary to carry on the history of Palestine and the Jews. In the spring of B. C. 334, Alexander arrived at Sestos on the Hellespont, at the head of little more than thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse, and had them conveyed to Asia by his fleet of one hundred and sixty galleys, besides transports, without any opposition from the enemy on their landing. He had with him only seventy talents, or a month's pay for his army, and before he left home he disposed of almost all the revenues of the crown among his friends. When asked "what he left for himself?" he answered, Hope." Such was the spirit with which Alexander invaded Asia. On the fifth day after the passage of the Hellespont, Alexander met the Persians at the river Granicus in the Lesser Phrygia, Assyrian standards. (From Nineveh marbles.) where the governor of the western provinces had assembled an army of one hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse to oppose his passage. By defeating this great army, Alexander gained possession of the Persian treasury at Sardis, the capital of the western division of the Persian empire; several provinces of Asia Minor then voluntarily submitted to him, and in the course of Darius, meanwhile, was not remiss in making preparations for a vigorous resist ance to the most formidable enemy the empire had ever seen. His admiral, whom he had sent with a fleet to make a diversion by a descent upon Macedonia, died in the midst of the enterprise; and, in an age where so much depended upon individuals, his death spoiled the undertaking. Darius then assembled a vast army, which some accounts make four hundred thousand, others six hundred thousand men,. in Babylonia, and led them in person toward Cilicia to meet Alexander. That hero, on hearing of this movement, hastened forward to seize the passes of Cilicia. In this he succeeded, and stationed himself at Issus, where not more than thirty thousand men could march up to the attack. In this position his flanks were protected, and he could bring his whole army into action, while the Persians could only bring a number of men equal to his own into conflict. Darius saw too late how much wiser it had been for him to await the Greeks in the plains of Damascus. He lost the battle. The vast number of his soldiers was worse than useless; for the retreat was thus so obstructed, that more were crushed to death in the eagerness of flight than had been slain by the weapons of the Greeks. Darius himself escaped with difficulty, leaving his whole camp, with his own rich baggage, and his mother, wife, and sons, in the hands of the victor. These last were treated with tenderness and respect by the generous conqueror. To him this victory opened Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Immediately after the battle he sent to Damascus, and took all the heavy baggage, equipage, and treasures of the Persian army, with their wives and children, which had been left behind in the disastrous expedition to the Syrian straits. For the present, Alexander did not follow Darius, who withdrew beyond the Euphrates; but, according to his original plan of reducing first all the maritime provinces of the empire, he marched in the spring of B. C. 332 into Phoenicia. All the states of that country tendered their submission to him, except Tyre, which, however, was willing to render him barren testimonials of respect, had he been content | that during the siege of Tyre, a written with these. The siege of this place was order of this description came to Jerusalem, one of the most splendid of Alexander's addressed to Jaddua, the high-priest, as the operations, and is even at this day regarded chief magistrate of the nation. Jaddua with admiration by military men. Tyre, replied that he had sworn fealty to Darius, which since the destruction of the ancient and could not violate his oath as long as city by Nebuchadnezzar had been rebuilt that monarch was living. Alexander, upon an island about four hundred fathoms naturally of a furious and impetuous temper, from the shore, relied upon the aid of was highly irritated by this reply, and Carthage (which was promised by the threatened that as soon as he had completed Carthaginian ambassadors there present in the conquest of Tyre, he would, by the the city) and still more upon its situation, punishment of the Jewish high-priest, teach Alexander being destitute of shipping,* all others to whom they were to keep their and on its walls, which were high and oaths. strong, and which were now additionally strengthened. The city was plentifully supplied with provisions, and fresh supplies could be brought by sea without any difficulty. But Alexander, with the rubbish of the ancient city, constructed a causeway from the shore to the island, and in seven months took the place by storm, although the Tyrians defended themselves bravely. Many of them fled to Carthage by sea; but of those who remained, eight thousand were put to the sword, thirty thousand were sold into slavery, and two thousand were crucified, while the city was plundered and laid in ashes. These barbarities were committed under the policy of deterring other places from offering resistance to the conqueror. Thus the prophecy of Zechariah respecting new Tyre was literally accomplished, as the previous prophecy of Ezekiel against the old city had been fulfilled in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Alexander had, however, enlarged views of commercial policy, which induced him to re-people Tyre from the neighboring countries; and, improved in its harbors and basins by the very isthmus which he had made, and by which, consolidated by time, the island has ever since been connected with the shore, this maritime city was not long in recovering much of its former greatness. There is every reason to conclude that Alexander, when he invaded Syria, summoned all the cities to surrender, to pay to him their customary tribute, and to furnish his army with provisions. Josephus affirms * Alexander, after the battle of the Granicus, had discharged and dismissed his fleet, which was too small to cope with that of the Persians (collected from Egypt and Phoenicia), and yet too large for his slender treasury to maintain. He declared that he would render himself master of the Accordingly, on his progress to Egypt, after the destruction of Tyre (B. C. 332) he turned aside from Gaza, which he reduced, to chastise Jerusalem. But he was met at Sapha- an eminence near Jerusalem, which commanded a view of the city and templeby a solemn procession, consisting of the high-priest arrayed in his pontifical robes, attended by the priests in their proper habits, and by a number of the citizens in white raiment. This course Jaddua had been commanded to take, in a vision, the preceding night. When Alexander beheld the highpriest, he instantly advanced to meet him, adored the sacred NAME inscribed on his mitre, and saluted him first. This singular conduct the hero accounted for by observing to those around him I adore not the high-priest, but the God with whose priesthood he is honored. When I was at Dios in Macedonia, and considering in myself how to subdue Asia, I saw in a dream such a person, in his present dress, who encouraged me not to delay, but to pass over with confidence, for that himself would lead my army and give me the Persian empire. Since therefore I have seen no other person in such a dress as I now see, and recollect the vision and the exhortation in my dream, I think that having undertaken this expedition by a divine mission, I shall conquer Darius, overthrow the Persian empire, and succeed in all my designs." Having thus spoken (to Parmenio) he gave his right hand to the high-priest, and going into the temple, he offered sacrifice according to the high-priest's directions, and sea by conquering on land that is, by getting treated the pontiff and the priests with dis- | privileges which had been conceded to them; tinguished honors. The book of Daniel was for, as Josephus (with some asperity) rethen shown to him, in which it was foretold marks, the Samaritans were always ready to that one of the Greeks should overthrow the Persian empire, pleased at which, and believing himself to be the person intended, he dismissed the multitude. The day after, he caused the people to be assembled, and desired them to ask what favors they desired; on which, at the suggestion of the high-priest, they asked and obtained the free enjoyment of their national laws, and an exemption from tribute every seventh year. He also, by a bold anticipation of his fortunes, promised that the Jews in Babylon and Media should enjoy their own laws; and he offered to take with him in his expedition any of the people who chose to share his prospects. (Joseph. Antiq. xi. 8, 4, 5.) This story has been much questioned by many writers, as they were at perfect liberty to do. Nevertheless, as these questioners are of the same class as those who doubt on the unusual or supernatural details of the sacred history itself, it is impossible not to see that the animus of objection is essentially the same. We are therefore disposed to declare our belief in this statement, 1. Because Alexander had been a clear and conspicuous object of prophecy; and that an operation upon his mind by dream or vision, was as natural and necessary as in the cases of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. 2. Because it was as necessary that the God of the Hebrews should be made known to him as the bestower of empires, as to the other great conquerors all of whom had been brought to avow it. 3. Because an operation upon the mind of Alexander was, a natural and necessary sequel to the operations upon the minds of those former conquerors. 4. Because the impression described as being made by this dream upon Alexander, and the conduct which resulted from it, are perfectly in unison with his character and conduct as described by other historians. 5. Because the Jews actually did enjoy the privileges which are described as the result of this transaction, and which it would not otherwise be easy to account for, or to refer to any other origin. profess themselves to be Jews, when the sons of Abraham were in prosperous circumstances, and equally ready to disavow the connection when the Jews were in distress or difficulty. They also met Alexander in solemn procession, and as they were graciously received, they also requested exemption from tribute on the sabbatical year, since they, as well as the Jews, then left their lands uncultivated. But as, when pressed, they could not give a direct and satisfactory answer to the question whether they were Jews, Alexander told them he would take time to consider the matter, and let them know his decision when he returned from Egypt. It was not his policy to encourage such applications, as others, under the same or other pretences, might make similar claims of exemption, to the great injury of the public revenues. The eight thousand Samaritans who had assisted him at the siege of Tyre he took with him to Egypt, and assigned them lands in the Thebaid. When Alexander reached Egypt, he met with no opposition. The Persian garrisons were too weak to resist him, and the natives everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from the Persian bondage. In fact the Egyptians abhorred the Persians, and liked the Greeks as much as any foreigners could be liked by them. And the reason is very obvious. The Persians hated and despised image and animal worship as thoroughly as it was possible for the Jews to do, and the power of their arms gave them much opportunity for the exercise of the iconoclastic zeal by which they were actuated. They lost no opportunity of throwing contempt and ignominy upon the idols and idolaters of Egypt. But the pliable Greek regarded the same objects with reverence, and had no difficulty of so adopting them into his own system, or of identifying them with his own idols, as it enabled him to participate in the worship which the Egyptians rendered to them. From Egypt, Alexander went to visit the temple of Ammon, in an oasis of the western desert; and at this celebrated temple got himself recognized as the son of the god (commonly known as Jupiter Ammon)* wor The Samaritans had early submitted to Alexander, and sent him auxiliaries at the siege of Tyre; and now seeing the favor with which the Jews had been treated, they * This god was worshipped under the form were not at all backward to claim the same of a ram: hence the ram's horns which appear |