nd _Sogdian_ seven months; but their reign is not
reckoned apart in summing up the years of the Kings, but is included in the
40 or 41 years reign of _Artaxerxes_: omit these nine months, and the
precise reign of _Artaxerxes_ will be thirty nine years and three months.
And therefore since his reign ended in the beginning of winter _An. J.P._
4289, it began between midsummer and autumn, _An. J.P._ 4250.

The same thing I gather also thus. _Cambyses_ began his reign in spring
_An. J.P._ 4185, and reigned eight years, including the five months of
_Smerdes_; and then _Darius Hystaspis_ began in spring _An. J.P._ 4193, and
reigned thirty six years, by the unanimous consent of all Chronologers. The
reigns of these two Kings are determined by three eclipses of the moon
observed at _Babylon_, and recorded by _Ptolemy_; so that it cannot be
disputed. One was in the seventh year of _Cambyses_, _An. J.P._ 4191,
_Jul._ 16, at 11 at night; another in the 20th year of _Darius_, _An. J.P._
4212, _Nov._ 19, at 11h. 45' at night; a third in the 31st year of
_Darius_, _An. J.P._ 4223, _Apr._ 25, at 11h. 30 at night. By these
eclipses, and the Prophecies of _Haggai_ and _Zechary_ compared together,
it is manifest that his years began after the 24th day of the 11th _Jewish_
month, and before the 25th day of _April_, and by consequence about
_March_. _Xerxes_ therefore began in spring _An. J.P._ 4229: for _Darius_
died in the fifth year after the battle at _Marathon_, as _Herodotus_,
_lib._ 7, and _Plutarch_ mention; and that battle was in _October_ _An.
J.P._ 4224, ten years before the battle at _Salamis_. _Xerxes_ therefore
began within less than a year after _October_ _An. J.P._ 4228, suppose in
the spring following: for he spent his first five years, and something
more, in preparations for his expedition against the _Greeks_; and this
expedition was in the time of the _Olympic_ games, _An._ 1 _Olymp._ 75,
_Calliade Athenis Archonte_, 28 years after the _Regifuge_, and Consulship
of the first Consul _Junius Brutus_, _Anno Urbis conditae_ 273, _Fabio &
Furio Coss._ The passage of _Xerxes_'s army over the _Hellespont_ began in
the end of the fourth year of the 74th _Olympiad_, that is, in _June_ _An.
J.P._ 4234, and took up one month: and in autumn, three months after, on
the full moon, the 16th day of the month _Munychion_, was the battle at
_Salamis_, and a little after that an eclipse of the sun, which by the
calculation fell on _Octob._