ii. 305. Cyrus, as well as Darius and all the Elamite great kings, could style themselves kings of Persia, precisely as the Norman William and his dynasty could style themselvas kings of England, it is merely a territorial designation, and does not indicate race. But Dr. Brugsch gives us a translation of another Brugsch, vol. precious tablet which proves beyond ques tion that Darius was the Great Elamite King. This tablet introduces us to a certain Sutenrekh (i.e. king's grandson) named Uza-horen-pi-ris, a high priest of the Goddess Nit; and he tells us: "Now king Darius, may he live for ever! commanded me to go to Egypt, while he was in the land of Elam, for he also was the great Lord of all lands and a great King of Egypt." Hence it follows that Darius, who succeeded Cyrus, was also the great Elamite king. This is confirmed by Herodotus, for he informs us that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was a lineal descendant of Cyrus. When we have discovered that Cyrus did not represent a new race, but was the great King of Elam and the lineal descendant of a long and illustrious line of Elamite kings; Herodotus, Polymnia, xi. 415. it becomes manifest that all history has been garbled and distorted. We can, therefore, only conclude that before the rise of the Elamites under Cyrus, the Cushites under Nabonidus and Psamethik were paramount over the entire Eastern Empire ; consequently the Cushite prisoners taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar on the fall of Jerusalem would all have been liberated. It follows, then, that the captives released by Cyrus must have been the prisoners he had himself taken during his victorious campaign against Nabonidus and Psamethik III. This is practically confirmed, for we find they returned under Zerubbabel, a prince of the Cushite house of David. The seventy years captivity of the Israelites (i.c. Elamites) is obviously pure fiction. I will now give the reader a pause for reflection. CHAPTER XI. I HAVE taken it for granted, thus far, that our precious little tablet, disclosing Cyrus as an Elamite king, is authentic. It is almost impossible to credit that all our historians and the Biblical writers could have been ignorant of a historical fact of such wide-world importance; we are, therefore, led to inquire whether the tablet is genuine. Mr. Albert Löwy, in an article which appeared in the "Scottish Review," April 1887, seems to convincingly prove that the much-talked of "Moabite stone" is a "fraudulent fabrication"; may not the Cyrus tablet be also spurious? We shall naturally turn to the father of history for information. Universelle. Herodotus was a Greek born in Asia Biographie Minor; he had devoted his life to study, and being a man of rank and wealth, he gathered his information by personally visit Herodotus, ing the seats of governments within the Eastern Empire; and on his return compiled his history, which he read before the Athenian Assembly in 444 B.C. Hence the rise of the Elamite power under Cyrus had only taken place some eighty years previously. We must, however, remember that the cylinder discloses that Cyrus was the son of Cambyses, a reigning Elamite emperor, who was descended from a long and glorious line of Elamite monarchs. His dynasty was still ruling from Elam to Thebes. Herodotus, then, must have been intimately acquainted with the whole political situation. It will, therefore, be interesting to study his narratives in connection with the birth and life of Cyrus. He fortunately gives us the minutest details, and tells us that Astyages, a king of Media, had a daughter named Mundane ; and having dreamed that her offspring would acquire dominion in the empire became exceedingly alarmed, and gave his daughter, when arrived at a marriageable age, to no one of the Medes who was worthy of her, through dread of the vision, but to a Persian named Cambyses, whom he found of good family and a peaceful disposition, deeming him far inferior to a Mede of moderate rank. He has another dream which confirms the first, so he sent to Persia for his daughter, who was then near her time of delivery; and upon her arrival he put her under a guard resolving to destroy whatever should be born of her; for the Magian interpreters had signified to him from his vision that the issue of his daughter would reign in his stead. We then have a long rambling account how that the king gave the child, as soon as it was born, to one of his servants with orders to murder it, and bury the body wherever he thought fit. The child, however, is saved by a subterfuge, and appears ten years after, playing in the village in which ox-stalls were, with boys of his own age, in the road The boys who were playing chose this reputed son of the herdsman for their king; and as one of them refused to obey the orders of Cyrus, he scourged the boy very severely. This leads to Astyages recognising Cyrus as his grandson. A long rigmarole follows to which I need |