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in the third year of the reign of Ahasuerus, reminds us of the council which Xerxes called at Susa, in the third year of his reign (B.c. 483), to deliberate upon the proposed invasion of Greece. Esther entered the palace in the seventh year, by which time Xerxes had returned to Susa from his ill-fated expedition. The name of India, which occurs in this book alone in the Old Testament, is found among the list of the satrapies in the Greek historian. Many other points referring to the character of the monarch, and to Persian customs, are illustrated by Herodotus and other Greek writers. Since the beginning of this century the cuneiform inscriptions have contributed their share to the elucidation of this book. Grotefend's first discovery showed that the name of the king, in its Hebrew form, was a very close reproduction of the native name of Xerxes. Achashverosh contains all the consonants of Chshyarsha, only they is changed to v. The initial A is the result of the inability of the Semitic races to pronounce two consonants together at the beginning of a word; in the same way the Arabs call Plato "Iflatûn." The vowels. of the name Achashverosh are, of course, to be taken with all reserve; they are those of the Massorah. It is interesting to compare the form of the name of Chshyarsha, or Xerxes, used by the Hebrews, with that employed by the Babylonians, their kinsmen. In the trilingual inscriptions of Persia, the name appears in Babylonian as Chishiyarsha; but in the contracts of Babylonia we meet with the forms, Achshiyarshu, Akkashiyarshi, and a very corrupt form, Akohiakarshu. The cuneiform

inscriptions have thus enabled us finally to reject the identification of the name Achashverosh with Artaxerxes, given by the Septuagint and Josephus. Saint Jerome simply reproduced the Hebrew, as closely as possible, in his form Assuerus; and our translators followed him with Ahasuerus.

Many other Persian words are found in the Book of Esther, in forms closely corresponding with those of the time of Xerxes. The proper names of the Persian nobles and others present difficulties; but M. Oppert has proposed explanations of nearly all of them. With regard to the names of the eunuchs, M. Oppert remarks that perhaps the latter were not Persians; and here he would seem to be right: for we are expressly told that slaves of this sort were sought for in the neighbouring countries.* But, after all, our knowledge of the old Persian language is small. Much more material might be found to elucidate the Book of Esther, and other parts of the Hebrew Canon, if the mounds of Shush were more fully excavated and made to give up all their treasures. We know We know very little even of what the Greeks wrote about Persia in the time of Xerxes, his predecessors and his successors; but we are never likely to recover the lost works of Dinon of Rhodes, Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Aristides of Miletus, Agatharchides of Samos, Balon of Sinope, Chrysermus of Corinth, Ctesiphon, or Pharnuchus of Nisibis-all of whom devoted complete works to the history of Persia.

*Clearchus in Athenæus, xii. 9; Herodotus, iii. 92.

If, however, the tumuli which still conceal part of the famous palace of Shushan were thoroughly searched, we might obtain much more valuable documents in the form of inscriptions in the name of the great king himself, and the very remains of the building in which he lived.

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CHAPTER X.

THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON.

IN a celebrated romance of the second century we read of a certain Chaldæan astrologer named Diophanes, who travelled from place to place in different parts of the Roman Empire, and succeeded in making a considerable fortune by his predictions. He was sought after by youths and maidens who wished to learn which day would be a lucky one for their wedding; he was consulted by merchants anxious to know the propitious moment for striking a bargain; enquiries were regularly made of him as to when the foundations of a house might be laid, or when a ship should sail that she might safely arrive in port, or when a traveller might start upon a journey without fear of thieves.

Unfortunately, however, for his reputation, Diophanes arrived at a certain town in Thessaly. Here he was standing one day in the market-place, surrounded by a circle of enquirers, when a merchant named Cerdo came up, and asked at what hour the stars would be favourable to the undertaking of a journey to a distant region, which his business required him to visit. The Chaldæan solemnly consulted his mysterious documents, and selected a lucky day for the proposed start; accordingly

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the merchant pulled out his purse, and began to extract the customary fee of a hundred denarii, or about £3 10s.* But at that moment a young man made his way through the crowd, approached the astrologer, and affectionately saluted the latter, who was so much surprised at the unexpected arrival of his friend that he forgot the transaction in hand. 'How did you fare," asked the newcomer, "on the way hither from Euboea, where I last saw you?" "Never was there so unlucky a journey," answered the fortune-teller. "It was like the wanderings of Ulysses; I could not desire a worse experience for my greatest enemy. First, we were shipwrecked upon a desolate coast, and then, when some of us had swum to shore through the raging waves, we were attacked by a party of thieves, and my only brother was slain before my eyes. While the astrologer, put off his guard by the unlooked-for meeting, was making these frank admissions of his inability to protect himself from ill-fortune, in spite of all his knowledge of the stars, the merchant who had just consulted him listened with all his ears, and finally, before the Chaldæan could see what his client was doing, gathered up the coins that he had already laid down, and quietly made off through the crowd. Diophanes, discovering the absence of the money, was further aroused to a sense of his own imprudence by the loud laughter of the circle of by

standers.

This story shows at once the repute in which the

* That is to say, if the silver denarius is intended; there was also a copper denarius.

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