n_ held out, and the next year was taken, _Jer._ li. 39, 57.
by diverting the river _Euphrates_, and entring the city through the
emptied channel, and by consequence after midsummer: for the river, by the
melting of the snow in _Armenia_, overflows yearly in the beginning of
summer, but in the heat of dimmer grows low. [399] _And that night was the
King of _Babylon_ slain, and _Darius_ the _Mede_, or King of the _Medes_,
took the Kingdom being about threescore and two years old_: so then
_Babylon_ was taken a month or two after the summer solstice, in the year
of _Nabonassar_ 210; as the Canon also represents.

The Kings of the _Medes_ before _Cyrus_ were _Dejoces_, _Phraortes_,
_Astyages_, _Cyaxeres_, or _Cyaxares_, and _Darius_: the three first
Reigned before the Kingdom grew great, the two last were great conquerors,
and erected the Empire; for _AEschylus_, who flourished in the Reigns of
_Darius Hystaspis_, and _Xerxes_, and died in the 76th Olympiad, introduces
_Darius_ thus complaining of those who persuaded his son _Xerxes_ to invade
_Greece_; [400]

[Greek: Toigar sphin ergon estin exeirgasmenon]
[Greek: Megiston, aieimneston hoion oudepo,]
[Greek: To d' asty Souson exekeinosen peson;]
[Greek: Ex houte timen Zeus anax tend' opasen]
[Greek: En andra pases Asiados melotrophou]
[Greek: Tagein, echonta skeptron euthynterion]
[Greek: Medos gar en ho protos hegemon stratou;]
[Greek: Allos d' ekeinou pais tod' ergon enyse;]
[Greek: Phrenes gar autou thymon oiakostrophoun.]
[Greek: Tritos d' ap' autou Kyros, eudaimon aner,] &c.

_They have done a work_
_The greatest, and most memorable, such as never happen'd,_
_For it has emptied the falling _Sufa_:_
_From the time that King_ Jupiter _granted this honour,_
_That one man should Reign over all fruitful _Asia_,_
_Having the imperial Scepter._
_For he that first led the Army was a _Mede_;_
_The next, who was his son, finisht the work,_
_For prudence directed his soul;_
_The third was _Cyrus_, a happy man_, &c.

The Poet here attributes the founding of the _Medo-Persian_ Empire to the
two immediate predecessors of _Cyrus_, the first of which was a _Mede_, and
the second was his son: the second was _Darius_ the _Mede_, the immediate
predecessor of _Cyrus_, according to _Daniel_; and therefore the first was
the father of _Darius_, that is, _Achsuerus_, _Assuerus_, _Oxyares_,
_Axeres_, Prince _Axeres_, or _Cy-Axeres_, the word _C