fast and this feast they constantly observe every year on those days even to this time. The fast they call the fast of Esther, and the feast the feast of Purim, from the Persian word Purim, (which signifieth lots,) because it was by the casting of lots that Haman did set out this time for their destruction. This feast is the Bacchanals of the Jews, which they celebrate with all manner of rejoicing, mirth, and jollity; and therein indulge themselves in all manner of luxurious excesses, especially in drinking wine even to drunkenness, which they think part of the duty of the solemnity, because it was by the means of the wine banquet (they say) that Esther made the king's heart merry, and brought him into that good humour which inclined him to grant the request which she made unto him for their deliverance; and therefore they think they ought to make their hearts merry also when they celebrate the commemoration of it. During this festival, the book of Esther is solemnly read in all their synagogues from the beginning to the end, at which they are all to be present, men, women, children, and servants, because all these had their parts in this deliverauce which Esther obtained for them. And as often as the name of Haman occurs in the reading of this book, the usage is for them all to clap with their hands, and stamp with their feet, and cry out, Let his memory perish. This is the last feast of the year among them: for the next that follows, is the passover, which always falls in the middle of the month which begins the Jewish year. The Athenians, having provided themselves with another fleet, after the loss of that in Egypt," sent Cimon with two hundred sail again into Cyprus, there to carry on the war against the Persians; where he took Citium and Malum, and several other cities, and sent sixty sail into Egypt to the assistance of Amyrtæus. At the same time Artabasus was in those seas with a fleet of three hundred sail, and Megabyzus, the other general of king Artaxerxes, had a land army of three hundred thousand men on the coasts of Cilicia; but neither of them had the success in this war which they had in the last. For, An. 450. r Plutarchus in Cimone. Thucydides, lib. 1. Diod. Sic. lib. 11. An. 449. Artax. 16. Cimon, on the return of his ships from Egypt, fell on Artabasus, and having taken an hundred of his ships, and destroyed several others, pursued the remainder to the coasts of Phoenicia; and being flushed with this success, on his return landed upon Megabyzus in Cilicia, and overthrew him also, making a very great slaughter of his numerous army, and then sailed back again to Cyprus with'a double triumph. Artaxerxes, hearing of these great losses sustained both at sea and land, became weary of so destructive a war; and therefore, upon thorough advice taken with his counsellors and ministers, came to a resolution of putting an end to the calamities of it, by coming to an accommodation with the enemy; and accordingly sent to his generals and commanders who had the charge of the Cyprian war, to make peace with the Athenians on the best terms they could. Whereon Megabyzus, and Artabasus sending ambassadors to Athens to make the proposal, plenipotentiaries were appointed on each side to treat of the matter; and they came to an agreement on these terms: 1st. That all the Grecian cities in Asia should have their liberty, and be left free to live according to their own laws; 2dly. That no Persian ship of war should any more appear on any of those seas, which lie from the Cyanean to the Chelidonean islands, that is, from the Euxine sea to the coasts of Pamphylia; 3dly. That no Persian commander bould come with an army by land within three days' journey of those seas; 4thly. That the Athenians should no more invade any of the territories of king Artaxerxes. Which articles being ratified and sworn to on both sides, peace was concluded. And so this war ended, after it had continued, from the time that the Athenians burned Sardis (which was the first beginning of it,) full fifty-one years, to the destruction of a vast number of men on both sides. In the interim Cimon died at Citium, and the Athenians returned with his corpse into Athens, and after this came no more into those seas. An. 448. King Artaxerxes, being continually solicited by his mother to deliver to her Inarus and the Athenians who were taken with him in Egypt, that she might revenge on them the death of her son Achæmenides, after having for five years resisted her unwearied and restless importunities, was at last tired out by them to yield to her request; and the prisoners were delivered to her: whereon the cruel woman, without having any regard to the public faith which had been plighted for their safety, caused Inarus" to be crucified, and the heads of all the rest to be struck off; at which Megabyzus was exceedingly grieved and offended; for it being on his engagement for their safety that they had rendered themselves, he thought it a great dishonour done him that it was thus violated, and therefore retired in discontent into Syria, the province of which he was governour, and, to revenge the wrong, there raised an army, and rebelled against the king. An. 447. To repress this rebellion, Artaxerxes sent Osiris, a prime nobleman of his court, with two hundred thousand men, into Syria. But Megabyzus, having met him in battle, wounded him, and took him prisoner, and put his' whole army to flight. But Artaxerxes, having sent a messenger to demand him, Megabyzus forthwith released him, and, as soon as his wounds were healed, sent him back again to the king. An. 446. The next year following, the kingy sent another army against him, under the command of Menoshtanes, son to Artarius, governour of Babylon, and one of his brothers. But he had no better fortune this year than the former general had in the last; for, being in the same manner vanquished and put to flight, Megabyzus gained a great victory over him. Whereby Artaxerxes perceiving that he could not prevail against him by force of arms, sent Artarius his brother, and Amytis his sister, who was wife to Megabyzus, with several other persons of quality, to reconcile him unto him, and bring him by fair means to return to his duty: by t Ctesias. a Thucyd. lib. 1. Ctesias. x Ctesias. y Idem. whose interposition the difference being made up, the king granted him his pardon, and he returned again to court. But, while the king was in hunting, a lion having raised himself up upon his hinder legs against him, Megabyzus, who was then present, out of his zeal to extricate the king from this danger, threw a dart at the lion, and slew him. But Artaxerxes, laying hold of this light pretence to express the bitter rancour which he still retained in his mind against him for his late revolt, ordered his head to be struck off, for presuming to strike at the beast before him; and it was with difficulty that Amytis his wife, and Hamestris her mother, with their joint petitions, prevailed so far in his behalf, that his sentence of death was changed into that of banishment: whereon he was sent to Cyrta, a place on the Red Sea, there to lead the rest of his life under confinement. But after he had lived there five years, having made his escape from thence, and, under the habit and disguise of a leper, got safe to his own house at Susa, he was there, by the means of his wife and her mother, again restored to the king's favour, and continued in it ever after to the time of his death, which happened some years after, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and was then very much lamented by the king and all his court; for he was the ablest man, both in council and war, that was in the whole empire, and to him Artaxerxes owed his life, as well as his crown, at his first accession to the government. But it is a dangerous thing for a subject to have too much obliged his prince; and this was the cause of all the misfortunes that happened unto him. Ezra continued in the government of Judea till the end of this year, and, by virtue of the commission he had from the king, and the powers granted him thereby, he reformed the whole state of the Jewish church according to the law of Moses, in which he was excellently learned, and settled it upon that bottom upon which it afterwards stood to the time of our Saviour. The two chief things which he had to do, were to restore the observance of the Jewish law, z Ezra viii; ix; 1. Nch. ii. according to the ancient approved usages which had been in practice before the captivity, under the direction of the prophets, and to collect together and set forth a correct edition of the holy Scriptures; in the performance of both which, the Jews tell us, he had the assistance of what they call the great synagogue, which, they tell us, was a convention, consisting of one hundred and twenty men, who lived all at the same time under the presidency of Ezra, and were assisting to him in both these two works; and, among these, they named Daniel, and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as the first of them, and Simon the Just as the last of them; though, from the last mention which we have of Daniel in the holy Scriptures, to the time of Simon the Just, there had passed no less than two hundred and fifty years. But all this they reconcile by that absurd and wretched account which they give of the history of those times; for they tell us, that the whole Persian empire lasted only fifty-two years, (as hath been afore taken notice of,) and that the Darius whom we call Darius Hystaspes, was the Darius whom Alexander conquered, and that the same was the Artaxerxes (which they will have to be the common name of all the kings of Persia in those times,) who sent Ezra first, and afterwards Nehemiah, to Jerusalem, to restore the state of the Jews; and that Simon the Just was the same with Jaddua the high priest, who received Alexander at Jerusalem. And, according to this account, they might indeed all have lived together in the seventh year of this Darius (or Artaxerxes, as they would call him,) when they say Ezra first went to Jerusalem; for that was in the middle of the said fifty-two years, according to their computation, at which time Jaddua might very well have been of an age capable to assist in those councils; and it is not impossible but Daniel might have lived down to it, for the Scriptures give us no account of his death. The truth of this matter seemeth most likely to have been, that these one hundred and twenty men were such principal elders as lived in a con a Vide Davidem Ganz, aliosque Judæorum Historicos, & Buxtorfii Tiberiadem, c, x. |