and took Jehoiakim prifoner m. Enriched with the spoils of the conquered nations, they divided their forces, Nebuchadnezzar pursuing his conquefts in the weft; and Cyaxares falling upon the Affyrian provinces of Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, which he fubdued, with great flaughter of the inhabitants. After this, they united their forces once more; and, by the reduction of Perfis (C) and Sufiana, accomplished the conqueft of the Allyrian empire. THE prophet Ezekiel " enumerates the chief nations that were fubdued and flaughtered by the two conquerors Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar : Afhur 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 flain, fallen by the fword, which caused their terror in the land of the living. There is Elam, and all her multitude round about her grave: all of them flain, fallen by the fword, which are gone down uncircumcifed into the nether parts of the earth, which caufed their terror in the land of the living: yet have they borne their fhame with them that go down into the pit.---There is Melhech, Tubal, and all her multitude (viz. the Scythians); her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcifed, flain by the fword, though they caused their terror 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 flain by the fword.---There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which, with their terror, are gone 2 Kings xxiv. 12. Dan. i. 1. & 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6. " Ezek. xxxii. 22, & feqq. 1753. 595. down with the flain. By the princes of the north are meant fuch as were on the north of Judea, namely the princes of Armenia and Cappadocia, who fell in the wars which Cyaxares waged in reducing those provinces, after the deftruction of Nineveh. CYAXARES, having thus erected the kingdom of Media into a powerful empite, and fhared the new acquifitions with his Babylonian ally, died in the fortieth year of his reign; and was fucceeded by his fon Aftyages. ASTYAGES, who in Scripture is called Abafuerus P. This Year of prince had by Aryenis, the daughter of Halyattes king of the flood Lydia, Cyaxares II. called, in Scripture, Darius the Mede, and who was fixty-two years old, when Belshazzar Bef. Chr. was flain at the taking of Babylon 9. The fame year that Cyaxares was born, Aftyages gave his daughter Mandane, whom he had by a former wife, to Cambyfes a Perfian; from which marriage fprung Cyrus, the founder of the Perfian monarchy, and the reftorer of the Jews to their country, to their temple, and former condition. He was born but one year after the birth of his uncle Cyaxares, and confequently was in the fixty-first year of his age, when Babylon was taken. Whether his father Cambyfes was king of Perfia, as Xenophon would have it, or only a nobleman of that country, as we read in Herodotus, is what we fhall examine hereafter. Though the reign of Aftyages was very long, having lafted thirty-five years t, yet we find no particulars of it recorded in hiftory, except his repulfing the Babylonians, who, under the conduct of Evil-merodach, the fon of Nebuchadnezzar, had made an inroad into his country, as we have related in the history of Babylon. The victory, which he gained on this occafion, was, in great part, owing to the valour and conduct of Cyrus, who attended his grandfather in this expedition, and, though at that time but fixteen years of age, figna, lized himself in a very particular manner ", purfuing the Babylonian, with great flaughter, quite home to his own borders. This rafh, and feemingly unjuft, undertaking of Evil-merodach laid the foundation of that animofity between the Medes and Babylonians, which ended at laft in the ruin of Babylon. From hence we may infer, that Evil-merodach was not the fon of Nebuchadnezzar by Amyite, the daughter of Cyaxares, or, as others will have HERODOT. 1. 1. c. 107. P Dan. ix. 1. q Dan. v. ver. ult. Idem, 1. i. c. 130 it, of Aftyages, but by fome other wife; it not being likely, that they would have thus engaged in war against each other, had they been fo nearly related. It is still more improbable, that Evil-merodach fhould undertake fuch hoftilities while he was on the point of marrying Nitocris, as is commonly reported, who was by birth a Mede. 560. ASTYAGES, after a reign of thirty-five years, was fuc- Cyaxares ceeded by his fon Cyaxares, uncle to Cyrus. This prince II. was fcarce feated on his throne, when he found himself Year of engaged in a bloody war with Nerigliffar, who had mur- the flood dered Evil-merodach, and ufurped the crown of Babylon. 1788. This war was carried on with great flaughter on both fides Bef. Chr. by Cyaxares and Cyrus, during the reigns of the ufurper Nerigliffar, of his fon Laborofoarchod, and of Nabonadius the fon of Evil-merodach, and grandfon of Nebuchadnezzar, in whofe time Babylon was taken, and the Babylonian empire utterly ruined. But as this war, which lafted twenty years, was intirely managed by Cyrus, we shall defer the relating of thefe important events till the reign of that great and glorious prince, which, as he was the founder of the Perfian monarchy, we shall reserve to the hiftory of that empire. As for Cyaxares, he is faid, in Scripture, to have taken the kingdom, after the reduction of Babylon, and death. of Belshazzar; for Cyrus, as long as his uncle lived, held the empire only in partnership with him, though he had intirely acquired it by his own valour; nay, so far did he carry his complaifance, that he let him enjoy the first rank: but the command of the army, and the whole management of affairs, being vefted in Cyrus, he alone was looked upon as the fupreme governor of the empire; and hence it is, that, in Ptolemy's canon, no notice is taken of Cyaxares; but, immediately after the death of Nabonadius, Cyrus is placed there, as the next fucceffor. But that a Mede reigned at Babylon, after the death of Nabonadius, or, as Herodotus calls him, Labynetus, the last Babylonian king in the canon, is plain both from Xenophon Y and Scripture. The former tells us, that, after the takeing of Babylon, Cyrus went to the king of the Medes at Ecbatan, and fucceeded him in the kingdom: and we read in Scripture, that Babylon was deftroyed by the Medes by the kings of the Medes, and the captains and rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominion ; that the x Dan. V. 31. xiii. 17, 19. Y XENOPH. Cyropæd, 1. viii. a Jer. li. 11, 28. a z Ifa. kingdom of Babylon was numbered, and finished, and broken, and given to the Medes and Perfians; firft to the Medes under Darius, and then to the Perfians under Cyrus: for Darius reigned over Babylon like a conqueror, not obferying the laws of the Babylonians, but introducing the immutable laws of the conquering nations the Medes and Perfians. In his reign, the Medes, as we have obferved elsewhere, are conftantly placed before the Perfians, as the Perfians, in the reign of Cyrus and his fucceffors, are placed before the Medes; which fhews, that, according to Scripture, a Mede reigned at Babylon between the laft Babylonifh king in Ptolemy's canon and Cyrus. This king can be no other than Cyaxares, as Xenophon calls him f, or Darius the Mede, as he is ftiled by Daniel. The Scripture afcribes the deftruction of Babylon chiefly to Cyaxares, whereof St. Hierom alleges three reafons: 1. because Darius or Cyaxares was the elder of the two; 2. in regard the Medes were at that time more famous than the Perfians; and, laftly, because the uncle ought to be preferred to the nephew. On the other hand, that few of the Greek writers take any notice of Cyaxares, may eafily be accounted for the Perfians, defirous to magnify and extol Cyrus their countryman, gave him all the glory of that great conqueft; and from them the Greeks borrowed their relations: befides, Cyrus alone was employed in the fiege of Babylon, Darius being then abfent; and the confederate army under his conduct stormed the town, and put an end to the empire of Babylon. We may add, that, as Darius did not reign at Babylon full two years before the fame of this great conqueft was fpread abroad in diftant countries, Cyrus was in the intire poffeffion of the Babylonian empire; whence they looked upon him as the great hero, who had alone performed fuch extraordinary feats. But Jofephus, who was better informed, tells us h, that Darius, with his ally Cyrus, deftroyed the kingdom of Babylon. The fame author adds, that this Darius was the fon of Aftyages; and that he was known to the Greeks by another name. Now, if we afk, the Greeks the name of Aftyages's fon, Xenophon will tell us, that he was called Cyaxares. As for the name of Darius, it was preferved in the daries or fateres darici, thofe famous pieces of gold, which, for e Dan. vi. 8, 12, 15. a Idem, Efth. i. 3. 14, 18, 19. Dan, x, 1, 20. 8 Comment, in Dan. v. XENOPH. ubi fupra. b Dan. v. 26, 28. ibid. & 28. viii. 20,1 f XENOPH. Cyropæd. 1. i. c. 19. h JOSEPH. antiq. 1. xii. c, 13. in feveral feveral ages, were preferred by the eastern nations to any other coin; for we are told *, that these were coined, not by the father of Xerxes, but by an earlier Darius, the first king of the Medes and Perfians that coined gold. But no Darius, more antient than the father of Xerxes, is anywhere faid to have reigned, except this Darius, whom the Scripture calls Darius the Mede. AFTER the reduction of Babylon, Cyaxares, in concert with Cyrus, fettled the affairs of their new empire, dividing it into an hundred and twenty provinces, which were governed by those, who had diftinguished themselves during the war. Over these governors were appointed three presidents, who were conftantly to refide at court, and, receiving accounts of what happened in the feveral provinces, dispatch the king's orders to the immediate officers; so that these three principal minifters had the superintendency over, and the chief administration of, the most weighty affairs of the whole kingdom. Of these Daniel was appointed the chief, an honour which he highly deferved, not only on account of his great wifdom, but likewife of his age, and confummate experience; for he had now served the kings of Babylon full fixty-five years in the quality of prime minifter. As this employment advanced him to be the next person to the king, it raised no small jealoufy in the other courtiers, who, confpiring against him, would have compaffed his ruin, had he not been miraculously preferved by that Providence, which is ever watching over the fafety of the juft. As the only thing they could lay hold of to difgrace him at court, and make him incur the king's displeasure, was the law of his GOD, to which they knew him inviolably attached, they prevailed with Darius to iffue out a proclamation, forbidding all perfons to put up any petition whatsoever to GOD or man, except to the king, for the space of thirty days, upon pain of being caft into the lions den. Now, as Daniel was faying his ufual prayers, with his face turned towards Jerufalem, he was furprised, accused, and, as the laws of the Medes were unalterable, condemned to be devoured by the lions; but, being miraculoufly delivered from their jaws, this malicious contrivance ended in the deftruction of its authors, and greatly raised, as we may well imagine, Daniel's reputation both with Darius and Cyrus ". This Dan. vi. i, 2. * SUIDAS fub Voce Aaperxos. HARPOCRATION. Scholiaft. in Ariftoph. ecclef. p. 741, 742. Idem ibid. ver. 4, 5, 6, &c. ad finem. probably |