h

as far as it was consistent with the government they were under, always invested in him, and sometimes a ratification was obtained of it from the princes that reigned in that country. And it is said, this pageantry is still kept up among them; and chiefly, it seems, that they may be furnished from hence with an answer to give the Christians, when they urge the prophecy of Jacob against them: for, whensoever, from that prophecy, it is pressed upon them, that the Messiah must be come, because the sceptre is now departed from Judah, and there is no more a lawgiver among them from between his feet, we are commonly told of This Head of the captivity; their usual answer being, that the sceptre is still preserved among them in The Head of the captivity; and that they have also in their Nasi, or prince of the Sanhedrim (another pageantry officer of theirs,) a lawgiver from between the feet of Judah (that is of his seed) still remaining in Israel. But if these officers are now ceased from among them, as some of them will acknowledge, then this answer must cease also; and the prophecy returns in its full force upon them; and why do they then any longer resist the power of it?

The same year that Evilmerodach was slain, diedk Astyages, king of Media, and after him succeeded Cyaxares the second, his son, in the civil government of the kingdom, and Cyrus, his grandson, by his daughter Mandana in the military. Cyrus at this time was forty years old, and Cyaxares forty-one. And from this year, those who reckon to Cyrus a reign of thirty years begin that computation. For Neriglissar, on his coming to the crown," making great preparations for a war against the Medes, Cyax

h Vide Jacobi Altingi librum Shilo, lib. 1,. c. 3, 13, 14, &c. Et Seldenum de Synedriis, lib. 2, c. 7. § 5.

i Vide Buxtorfii Lexicon Rabbinicum, p. 1399, and Seldenum de Synedriis, lib. 2, c. 6

k Cyropedia, lib. 1.

1 Cicero, lib. 1. De Divinatione dicit de Cyro-Ad Septuagesimum prevenit cum quadraginta annos natus regnare cœpisset.

in For he was sixty-two when he began to reign in Babylon, after the death of Belshazzar, (Dan. v, 31,) which being nine years before Cyrus' death (who lived seventy years,) it must follow that Cyrus was then sixtyone, and therefore when he was forty, Cyaxares must have been forty-one. n Cyropedi, lib. 1.

251. ares called Cyrus out of Persia to his assistance, and on his arrival with an army of thirty thousand Persians, Cyaxares made him general of the Medes also, and sent him with the joint forces of both nations to make war against the Babylonians. And from this time he was reckoned by all foreigners as king over both these nations; although, in reality the regal pow er was solely in Cyaxares, and Cyrus was no more than general of the confederate army under him. But, after his death, he succeeded him in the kingdom of the Medes, as he did his father a little before in that of Persia; which, with the countries he had conquered, made up the Persian empire, of which he was the founder and first monarch.

He was a very extraordinary person in the age in which he lived, for wisdom, valour, and virtue, and of a name famous in holy writ, not only for being the restorer of the state of Israel, but especially in being there appointed for it? by name many years before he was born; which is an honour therein given to none, save only to him, and Josiah, king of Judah. He was born (as hath been already taken notice of,) on the same year in which Jehoiachin died. It is on all hands agreed, that his mother was Mandana, the.. daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes, and bis father Cambyses a Persian.

But whether this Cambyses was king of that country, or only a private person, is not agreed. Herodotus, and those who follow him, allow him to have been no more than a private nobleman, of the family of Achæmenes, one of the most ancient in that country. But Xenophon's account makes him king of the Persians, but subject to the Medes. And not only in this particular, but also in most things else concerning this great prince, the relations of these two historians are very much different. But Herodotus' account of him containing narratives which are much more strange and surprising, and consequently more diverting and acceptable to the reader, most have chosen rather to follow him, than Xenophon, that have written after. their times, of this matter. Which humour was much p Isa. xliv, 28; & xlv, 1. q 1 Kings xiii, 2.

⚫ Ezra i.

forwarded by Plato, in his giving a character of Xenophon's history of Cyrus (in which he was also followed by Tully,) as if therein, under the name of Cyrus, he rather drew a description of what a worthy and just prince ought to be, than gave us a true history of what that prince really was. It must be acknowledged, that Xenophon being a great commander, as well as a great philosopher, did graft many of his maxims of war and policy into that history, and to make it a vehicle for this, perchance was his whole design in writing that book. But it doth not follow from hence, but that still the whole foundation and ground-plot of the work may be all true history. That he intended it for such, is plain; and that it was so, its agreeableness with the holy writ doth abundantly verify. And the true reason why he chose the life of Cyrus, before all others, for the purpose abovementioned, seemeth to be no other, but that he found the true history of that excellent and gallant prince to be above all others the fittest for those maxims of right policy and true princely virtue to correspond with, which he grafted upon it. And therefore, bating the military and political reflections, the descants, discourses, and speeches interspersed in that work, which must be acknowledged to have been all of Xenophon's addition, the remaining bare matters of fact I take to have been related by that author as the true history of Cyrus. And thus far I think him to have been an historian of much better credit in this matter than Herodotus. For Herodotus having travelled through Egypt, Syria, and several other countries, in order to the writing of his history, did, as travellers use to do, that is, put down all relations upon trust, as he met with them, and no doubt he was imposed on in many of them. But Xenophon was a man of another character, who wrote all things with great judgment, and due consideration; and, having lived in the court of Cyrus the younger, a descendant of the Cyrus whom we now speak of, had opportunities of being better informed of what he wrote of this De Legibus, lib. 3. s Ep. 1, ad Quintum fratrem.

Diog. Laertius in vita Xenophontis.

great prince, than Herodotus was; and confining himself to this argument only, no doubt, he examined all matters relating to it more thoroughly, and gave a more accurate and exact account of them, than could be expected from the other, who wrote of all things at large, as they came in his way. And for these reasons, in all things relating to this prince, I have chosen to follow Xenophon, rather than any of those who differ from him.

For the first twelve years of his life, Cyrus lived in Persia with his father, and was there educated, after the Persian manner, in hardship, and toil, and all such exercises as would best tend to fit him for the fatigues of war, in which he exceeded all his contemporaries. But here it must be taken notice of, that the name of. Persia did then extend only to one province of that large country, which hath been since so called: for then the whole nation of the Persians could number no more than one hundred and twenty thousand men. But afterwards, when, by the wisdom and valour of Cyrus, they had obtained the empire of the East, the name of Persia became enlarged with their fortunes; and it thenceforth took in all that vast tract, which is extended east and west from the river Indus to the Tigris, and north and south from the Caspian sea to the ocean; and so much that name comprehends even to this day. After Cyrus was twelve years old, he was sent for into Media by Astyages, his grandfather, with whom he continued five years: and there, by the sweetness of his temper, his generous behaviour, and his constant endeavour to do good offices with his grandfather for all he could, he did so win the hearts of the Medes to him, and gained such an interest among them, as did afterwards turn very much to his advantage, for the winning of that empire which he erected. In the sixteenth year of his age, Evilmerodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and Assyria, being abroad on an hunting expedition, a little before his marriage, for a shew of his bravery, made an inroad into the territories of the Medes, which x Cyropedia, lib. 1.

drew out y Astyages with his forces to oppose him. On which occasion, Cyrus, accompanying his grandfather, then first entered the school of war; in which he behaved himself so well, that the victory which was at that time gained over the Assyrians was chiefly owing to his valour. The next year after, he went home to his father into Persia, and there continued till the fortieth year of his life; at which time he was called forth to the assistance of his uncle Cyaxares, on the occasion which I have mentioned. Hereon he marched out of Persia with his army, and behaved himself so wisely, that, from this small beginning, in twenty years time, he made himself master of the greatest empire that had ever been erected in the East to that time, and established it with such wisdom, that, upon the strength of this foundation only, it stood above two hundred years, notwithstanding what was done by his successors (the worst race of men that ever governed an empire) through all that time to overthrow it. Neriglissar, upon intelligence that Cyrus was come with so great an army to the assistance of An. 588. the Medes, farther to strengthen himself against them, sent ambassadors to the Lydians, Phrygians, Carians, Cappadocians, Cilicians, Paphlagonians, and other neighbouring nations, to call them to his aid; and by representing to them the strength of the enemy, and the necessity of maintaining the balance of power against them, for the common good of Asia, drew them all into confederacy with him for the ensuing war. Whereon the Neriglissar 3. king of Armenia, who had hitherto lived in subjection to the Medes, looking on them as ready to be swallowed up by so formidable a confederacy against them, thought this a fit time for the recovering of his liberty, and therefore a refused any longer to pay his tribute, or send his quota of auxiliaries for the war, on their being required of him; which being a matter that might be of dangerous con

Ner glissar 2.

An. 557.

y From hence it may be inferred, that Evilmerodach was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar by Amyitis, the daughter of Astyages, but by some other wife, it not being likely that the grandfather and grandson would thus engage in war against each other.

z Cyropedia, lib. 1.

a Cyropedia, lib. 2.