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that city, I have thought it not superfluous here in this place to shew by what means it was possible that some error might have crept into the history of those times, and thereby have brought us to a needless trouble of searching out the truth, as it were by candle-light, in the uncertain fragments of lost authors, which we might have found by day-light, had we adhered only to the scriptures. First, therefore, I observe, that the time which Berosus divides betwixt Evilmerodach and the two next kings, agrees with the years in which Nebuchadnezzar lived wild among brute beasts in the open field. Secondly, that the suddenness of this accident, which came in one hour, could not but work much perturbation in that state, wherein, doubtless, the honour of so noble a prince was highly regarded, his calamity pitied, and his restitution hoped: the prediction of Daniel finding reputation in that clause which promised his recovery, as being verified in that which had been more incredible. Now, if we do in common reason judge what course was like to be taken by the great ones of the kingdom for settling the government whilst the king was thus distracted, we shall find it most likely that his son and heir did occupy the royal throne, with condition to restore it to his father when God should enable him to repossess it. In this his rule, Evilmerodach being to supply the utter want of understanding in his father, as protectors' do the unripeness of it in young but reasonable kings, might easily either commit the insolencies, or fall into the troubles incident to such an office. That he had in him very small ability of government, it appears by his ill maintaining the empire, when he held it in his own right. That his sister Nitocris, (if Nitocris were his sister,) was a woman of an high spirit, it appears by that which Herodotus reports of her, saying, that

1 Herodotus, lib. i.

Other

she was more cunning than Semiramis, as appeared in her magnificent and useful works about the river Euphrates, and her fortification of Babylon against the Medes, who had gotten many towns from the Assyrians, and amongst them Nineveh. Wherefore, it were not unreasonable to think, that such a woman, seeing how the empire went to decay through her brother's misgovernment, used practices to get the rule into her own hands, and afterwards, as a mother, to leave it unto her ungracious son. time than this, wherein Nitocris could have reigned, we do not find; but we find in Berosus, (as Josephus hath cited him,) that Niglisar, who got the kingdom from Evilmerodach, was his sister's husband; which argues this to have been the same woman. As for Labosardach, the son of Niglisar, if, at the end of nine months reign, he were for his lewd conditions slain by the nobility, as the same Berosus reporteth, it seems that God prepared here the way for Nebuchadnezzar's restitution, (whose term of punishment was then expired,) by raising such troubles as should make him the more desired both of the princes and the people. I will not here use many words to confute that which Berosus hath further set down of Evilmerodach, telling us, that he was slain by his sister's husband; for the plain words of scripture, naming the year wherein he gave liberty to Jechoniah, do plainly testify, that he outlived the three or four and fortieth year of his father's reign, which was the last of his life.

This may suffice to shew, that they who are said to have succeeded Evilmerodach in the kingdom, might indeed have so done, though not when he held it in his own right. Of Balthasar, who was his son and heir, we find, that he had such conditions as God permitted to be in a king for the ruin of the people. He was from his young years of a mischievous nature; having, in his father's time, slain a

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noble young man that should have married his sis ter, only for spite and envy to see him kill two wild beasts in hunting, at which himself having thrown his javelin had missed them. Another great lord he had gelded, because a gentlewoman, commending his beauty, said, it were a happy woman that should be his wife. Such barbarous villanies caused many who had loved his father, (as a good and gracious, though unfortunate prince,) to revolt from him unto the enemy as soon as he was king. Neither do I find that he performed any thing worthy of record, but as a coward and a fool he lost all; sitting still, and not once daring to give battle to them that daily took somewhat from him; yet carelessly feasting when danger had hemmed him in on every side, and when death arrested him by the hands of those whom he had wronged in his father's life. So the end of him was base and miserable; for he died as a fool, taken in unexcusable security; yet had not that happiness, (such as it was,) of a death free from apprehension of fear, but was terrified with a dreadful vision, which had shewed his ruin not many hours before, even whilst he was drinking in that wine, which the swords of his insulting enemies drew out of him, together with his latest blood. It is therefore, in this place, enough to say of him, that, after a dishonourable reign of seventeen years, he perished as a beast, and was slain as he deserved. The rest that concerneth him, in question of his time, hath been spoken heretofore; in matter of his affairs, shall be handled among the acts of Cyrus, to whose story that of Balthasar is but an appendix.

CHAP. II.

OF THE ORIGINAL AND FIRST GREATNESS OF THE PERSIANS.

SECT. I.

That the Medes were chief actors in the subversion of the Babylonian empire.

TH

HE line of Belochus being now extinguished in Balthasar, the empire of Babylon and of Assyria was joined first to that of Media, which then was governed by Cyaxares, or Darius Medus, after whom Cyrus became lord and monarch both of Assyria and of Media itself.

Of the race of Phul Belochus there were ten kings besides himself, and of Arbaces as many are found by Metasthenes. These two principal governors, having cut down the last branch of Ninus in Sardanapalus, divided between them the eastern empire. Cyaxares, (whom the scriptures call Darius Medus,) the last of the race of Arbaces, dying about two years after that the line of Belochus was ended in Balthasar, the dominions, as well of the conqueror as of the conquered, fell to a third family, namely, to Cyrus, of the house of Achemenes; the princes of which blood, reigning in Persia, had formerly been

dependents on the Medes, and were of as little power at home as of fame abroad in the world.

Of the family of Achemenes, and line of the Persian kings, we shall hereafter find occasion in due place to entreat.

The nation of the Medes descended from Madai, the third son of Japhet. That they had kings soon after the flood, Lactantius and Diodorus have found record; for Lactantius remembereth an ancient king of the Medes called Hydaspes; and Diodorus speaketh of Pharnus, with his seven sons, slain by the Assyrians, in the beginning of their empire.

But of those who succeeded Arbaces the first, that freed his nation from the Assyrians, I take the list and number from Eusebius, adding Darius Medus; of whom I have spoken in their proper places here tofore, and they are these :

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And though the Greeks ascribe the conquest of Babylon to Cyrus alone, yet the scriptures teach us that Darius was not only king of Media, and had the Persians his followers, but that the army victorious over Balthasar was his; as the Assyrian and Babylonian empire also was during his own life. For we find in Daniel, that Darius of the Medes took the kingdom, being threescore and two years old; and further, what officers it pleased him to set over the kingdom. And so was it prophesied by Isaiah long before, Behold I will stir up the Medes against.

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