C

forced to fortify themselves in the isle of Prosopites, where Megabazus, after eighteen months siege, turning away one part of the river by divers trenches, assaulted the Athenians without impediment of waters, took their galleys, and put all to the sword, save a few that saved themselves by flight into Libya: the same entertainment had fifty other galleys, which they sent to the succour of the first two hundred. For those Athenians, having heard nothing that their fleet and army was consumed, entered by the branch of Nilus called d Mendesium, and fell unawares among the Phoenician galleys and the Persian army, so as the Persians recovered all Egypt, but that part held by Amyrtæus, and Inarus the king of Libya being by them taken and hanged. This was the end of the Athenians six years war in Egypt, and the reward of their vanity and indiscretion to undertake many enterprises at once.

SECT. VI.

Of other wars made by the Athenians, for the most part with good success, about the same time.

NOTWITHSTANDING these overthrows in Egypt, yet the Athenians in their home wars waded through many difficulties, and held the reputation of their forces against the Lacedæmonians, Corinthians, and others, rather to their advantage than otherwise. For as they were beaten near unto Halia by the Corinthians and Epidaurians, so they obtained two great victories soon after; the one over the Peloponnesians, near unto Cecryphalia; the other over the Æginets, near unto Ægina; where they sunk and carried away threescore and ten galleys of their enemies. Furthermore, they landed their forces on the sudden, and besieged Ægina, from whence they could not be moved, notwithstanding that the Corinthians, to divert them, invaded

• Prosopites, an island between the rivers of Taly and Pharmutiacus, two of the outlets of Nilus towards Alexandria.

mouth of Nilus, between the outlet called Busiriticus and Diolcos. But the branch of Nilus called Mendesium runneth into the sea by the city

d Mendesius is an island in the Panaphysis.

Megara; where, after a great fight with equal loss, the Corinthians, when they returned again to set up their trophy, as victors in the former battle, were utterly broken and slaughtered by the Athenian garrisons and Megarians, to their great loss and dishonour.

Again, as the Athenians were discomfited near to Tanagra by the Lacedæmonians, who returned from the succour of the Dorians against the Phocians, (at which time the Thessalian horsemen turned from their allies the Athenians, and fought against them,) so about threescore days after, the Athenians entered Boeotia under the conduct of Myronides, where, beating that nation, they won Phocis on the gulf teus, and evened the walls of Tanagra to the ground. Finally, they enforced Ægina to render upon most base conditions; as, to beat down the walls of their city, and to give them hostages for tribute; the siege whereof they had continued, notwithstanding all their other brabbles and attempts elsewhere. Besides these victories, they sacked and spoiled many places upon the sea-coast of Peloponnesus belonging to the Lacedæmonians, won upon the Corinthians, and overthrew the Sicyonians that came to their succour. These were the undertakings of the Athenians, and their allies, during the time of those six years that a part of their forces made war in Egypt. In the end whereof they attempted Thessaly, persuaded thereunto by Orestes, but were resisted by the king Pharsalus, who had chased Orestes out of his dominions. They also landed in Sicyonia, and had victory over those that resisted; after which they made truce with the Peloponnesians for five years, and sent Cimon into Cyprus with two hundred ships, but they were again allured by Amyrtæus, one of the race of their former kings, who held the marish and woody parts of Egypt from the Persians, to whom they sent sixty of their ships. The rest of their army, failing in their enterprise of Cyprus, and their fortunate and victorious leader Cimon dying there, as they coasted the island, encountered a fleet of the Phoenicians and Cilicians, over both which na

tions they returned victorious into Greece; as also those returned safe which were sent into Egypt.

SECT. VII.

Of Artaxerxes Longimanus, that he was Ahasuerus, the husband of queen Esther.

THESE Egyptian troubles being ended, the reign of Artaxerxes continued peaceable; whereof the length is by some restrained into twenty years, but the more and better authors give him forty; some allow unto him four and forty. He was a prince of much humanity, and noted for many examples of gentleness. His favour was exceeding great to the Jews, as appeareth by the histories of Esdras and Nehemiah, which fell in his time.

To prove that this was the king who gave countenance and aid to that great work of building the temple, it were a needless travail; considering that all the late divines have taken very much pain to shew, that those two prophets were licensed by him, and succoured in that building, in such sort as appears in their writings.

This was likewise that king Ahasuerus who married Esther; whereof if it be needful to give proof, it may suffice, that Ahasuerus lived in Susa, reigning from India to Ethiopia, and therefore must have been a Persian; that he lived in peace, as appears by the circumstances of the history, and used the counsel of the seven princes, the authority of which princes began under Darius the son of Hystaspes; wherefore he could be neither Cyrus nor Cambyses.

The continual wars which exercised king Darius the son of Hystaspes, together with the certainty of his marriages with sundry wives, from none of whom he was divorced, but left his first wife Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, alive in great honour, she being mother to Xerxes the succeeding king, do manifestly prove that Esther was not his, Whereunto is added by Philo the Jew, that at the persuasion of Mardochæus, Joiakim the high priest, the son of

Jesua, caused the feast of Purim to be instituted in memory of that deliverance. Now the time of Joiakim was in the reign of Artaxerxes, at the coming of Esdras and Nehemiah, Jesua his father dying about the end of Darius.

The same continuance of wars, with other his furious and tragical loves wherewith Xerxes did consume such little time as he had free from war, are enough to prove that the story of Esther pertained not unto the time of Xerxes, who lived but one and twenty years, whereas the two and thirtieth of Ahasuerus, or Artasastha, is expressed by Nehemiah. Again, it is well known that Xerxes in the seventh year of his reign (wherein this marriage must have been celebrated) came not near to Susa. Of the princes that succeeded Artaxerxes Longimanus, to prove that none of them could be Ahasuerus, it is enough to say, that Mardochæus, having been carried from Jerusalem captive with Jechonia by Nebuchadnezzar, was unlikely to have lived unto their times.

But of this Artaxerxes, it is true that he lived in Susa, reigned from India to Ethiopia, lived in peace, was contemporary with Joiakim the high priest; and further, he had happily by his lieutenants reclaimed the rebellious Egyptians in that seventh year of his reign; which good fortune might well give occasion to such a royal feast as is described in the beginning of the book of Esther. This is the sum of the arguments brought to prove the age of Esther's story by the learned and diligent Krentzhemius, who adds the authorities of Josephus, affirming the same, and of Philo, giving to Mardochæus eighteen years more than Isaac the patriarch lived; namely, one hundred fourscore and eighteen years in all, which expire in the five and thirtieth year of this Artaxerxes, if we suppose him to have been carried away captive, being a boy of ten years old.

SECT. VIII.

Of the troubles in Greece foregoing the Peloponnesian war. BUT it is fit that we now return to the affairs of the Greeks, who from this time forward, more vehemently pro

secuting their civil wars, suffered the Persians for many ages to rest in peace, this Egyptian expedition being come to nought. Soon after this, the Lacedæmonians undertook the war, called sacred, recovered the temple and isle of Delphos, and delivered both to the inhabitants; but the Athenians regained the same, and gave it in charge to the Phocians. In the mean while the banished Boeotians reentered their own land, and mastered two of their own towns, possessed by the Athenians, which they soon recovered again from them; but in their return towards Athens, the Boeotians, Euboeans, and Locrians (nations oppressed by the Athenians) set upon them with such resolution, as the Athenians were in that fight all slain or taken, whereby the Boeotians recovered their former liberty, restoring to the Athenians their prisoners. The islanders of Eubœa took such courage upon this, that they revolted wholly from the Athenians, whom when Pericles intended to reconquer, he was advertised that the Megarians, (who first left the Lacedæmonians, and submitted themselves to Athens,) being now weary of their yoke, had slain the Athenian garrisons, and joined themselves with the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians. These news hastened Pericles homeward with all possible speed, but ere he could recover Attica, the Peloponnesians, led by Plistoanax the son of Pausanias, had invaded it, pillaged, and burnt many parts thereof; after whose return Pericles went on with his first intent, and recovered Eubœa. Finally, the Athenians began to treat of peace with the Peloponnesians, and yielded to deliver up all the places which they held in the country of Peloponnesus; and this truce was made for thirty years. After six of these years were expired, the Athenians (favouring the Milesians against the Samians) invaded Samos by Pericles, and after many repulses, and some great losses, both by sea and land, the citizens were forced to yield themselves upon most lamentable conditions; namely, to deliver up all their ships, to break down their own walls, to pay the charge of the war, and to restore whatsoever had been taken by themselves or by their practice from the Athenians.