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of this new race, which cut asunder the line of Ninus, there were only five kings:

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But forasmuch as the last year of Salamanassar was also the first of Sennacherib his son, we reckon the time wherein the house of Pul held the Assyrian kingdom, to have been an hundred and one years; of which the last five and twenty were spent with Hezekiah, under Salmanassar, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon.

SECT. IV.

The kings that were in Media during the reign of Hezekiah. Of the difference found between sundry authors, in rehearsing the Median kings. Other contemporaries of Hezekiah. Of Candaules, Gyges, and the kings descended from Hercules.

In the time of Hezekiah, Medidus, and after him Cardiceas, reigned in Media. Whether it were so, that variety of names, by which these kings were called in several histories, hath caused them to seem more than indeed they were; or whether the sons reigning with the fathers have caused not only the names of kings, but the length of time, wherein they governed Media, to exceed the due proportion; or whether the copies themselves, of Ctesias and Annius's Metasthenes, have been faulty, as neither of these two authors is over-highly commended of trustiness; so it is, that the names, number, and length of reign, are all very diversely reported of these Median kings that follow Arbaces: Therefore it need not seem strange, that I reckon Medidus and Cardi VOL. III.

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ceas as contemporaries with Hezekiah. For to reconcile so great a difference, as is found in those writers that vary from Eusebius, is more than I dare undertake. I will only here set down the roll of kings that reigned in Media accordingly as sundry authors have delivered it.

Annius's Metasthenes orders them and their reigns thus:

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Diodorus Siculus following Ctesias, (as perhaps Annius made his Metasthenes follow Diodorus, with some little variation, that he might not seem a bor. rower,) placeth them thus:

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Astyabara,The continuance of these two he
Astyages, S doth not mention.

Mercator hath laboured with much diligence to reconcile these catalogues, and to make them also

agree with Eusebius. But forasmuch as it seems to me an impossible matter, to attain unto the truth of these forgotten times, by conjectures, founded upon Ctesias and Metasthenes, I will lay the burden upon Eusebius, who lived in an age better furnished than ours with books of this argument. Let it therefore suffice, that these two kings, (whom I have reckoned as contemporaries with Hezekiah,) Medidus and Cardiceas, are found in Eusebius; for whether Cardiceas were Diodorus's Arbianes I will not stay to search. The kings of Media, according to Eusebius, reigned in this order:

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These names, and this course of succession, I retain; but add unto these Cyaxares, the son of Astyages, according to Xenophon, and sometimes follow Herodotus, in setting down the length of a king's reign, otherwise than Eusebius hath it; of which variations I will render my reasons in due place.

The twenty-nine years of Hezekiah were concurrent in part, with the rule of the four first that were chosen governors of Athens for ten years; that is, of Charops, Æsimedes, Elidicus, and Hippones. Touching the first of these I hear nothing, save that Rome was built in his first year, of which, perhaps, himself did not hear: of the second and third I find only the names. The fourth made himself known by a strange example of justice, or rather_of cruelty, that he shewed upon his own daughter: For

he, finding that she had offended in unchastity, caused her to be locked up with an horse, giving to neither of them any food; so that the horse, constrained by hunger, devoured the unhappy woman.

In Rome, the first king and founder of that city, Romulus, did reign both before and somewhat after Hezekiah.

In Lydia, Caudaules, the last king, ruled in the same age. This region was first called Mæonia. Lydus the son of Atys reigning in it, gave the name of Lydia, if we believe such authority as we find. This kingdom was afterwards, by the appointment of an oracle, conferred upon Argon, who came of Alcæus, the son of Hercules, by Jardana, a bond-woman. The race of these Heraclidæ continued reigning fifty-five years, (in which two and twenty generations passed,) the son continually succeeding the father. Candaules, the son of Myrsus, was the last of his race, who doated so much upon the beauty of his own wife, that he could not be content to enjoy her, but would needs enforce one Gyges, the son of Dascylus, to behold her naked body, and placed the unwilling man secretly in her chamber, where he might see her preparing to bedward. This was not so closely carried, but that the queen perceived Gyges at his going forth, and understanding the matter, took it in such high disdain, that she forced him the next day to requite the king's folly with treason. So Gyges, being brought again into the same chamber by the queen, slew Candaules, and was rewarded, not only with his wife, but with the kingdom of Lydia; he reigned thirty-eight years, beginning in the last of Hezekiah, one year before the death of Romulus.

After Gyges, his son Ardys reigned nine and forty years; then Sadyattes, twelve; Halyattes, fifty-seven; and finally Croesus, the son of Halyattes, fourteen years, who lost the kingdom, and was taken by Cyrus of Persia.

And here by the way we may note, that as the Lydian kings, whom Croesus, his progenitor dispos sessed, are deduced from Hercules, so of the same Hercules there sprang many other kings, which governed several countries very long as in Asia, the Mysians; in Greece, the Lacedemonians, Messenians, Rhodians, Corinthians, and Argives; and from the Argives, the Macedonians; as likewise from the Corinthians, the Syracusans; besides many great and famous, though private families.

But of the Heraclidæ, that reigned in Lydia, I have not troubled myself to take notice in the time of their several reigns, for little is found of them besides the bare names, and the folly of this last king Candaules.

CHAP. XXVI.

OF THE KINGS THAT REIGNED IN EGYPT, BETWEEN THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL FROM THENCE, AND THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH IN JUDAH, WHEN EGYPT AND JUDAH MADE A LEAGUE AGAINST THE ASSYRIANS.

SECT. I.

That many names of Egyptian kings, found in history, are like to have belonged only to viceroys. An example proving this out of William of Tyre's history of the Holy War.

HE emulation and quarrels arising in these times, between the mighty kingdoms of Egypt and Assyria, do require our pains, in collecting

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