According to Joseph us {Ant. XI. i. 3), whose narra- tive rests on clis. 2 and 3 of 1 Es, the goodwill of Darius towards the Jews went back to the time when he was a pri"ate individual, and had vowed that if he became king he would restore the sacred vessels to the temple of Jerusalem. He and Zerubbabel were old friends, and, after the return of the Jewish prince from Jerusalem, Darius made him one of ills bodyguard. In this cai>acity Zerubbabel was called on to amuse the king one night when he was slee))less, in the first year of his reign, by determining the relative strength of 'wine, kings, women, and truth.' His explanation that truth was the stror.gest pleased Darius, who promised to grant whatever he asked. He therefore re- minded the king of bis ])romise to build .lerusaleni and its temple, and Darius thereupon did all he could to further the work, giving fifty talents towards it, and relieving the Jews of all taxation.
2. DAUlUri the Persian (Neh 12--). Which king of Persia is meant is uncertain. Some commen- tators have supposed it to be Darius II. (Nothus) B.C. 423-404, but it was more probably Darius HI. (Codomannus), the last king of Persia, and the contemporary of the high priest Jaddua, who is mentioned in the same veree. Darius III. reigned from B.C. 33() to 330, when he was overthrown by Alexander of Macedon in the decisive battle of Arbela, and the Persian empire destroyed.
3. I)Ai;ii's in 1 Mac 12" AV is a false reading for the Eacedivmonian Areus. See AlilUS.
4. Dai:ii"S the Mede.—See next article. LiTERATrRB.— Si)i<'gel, Uie altpersi/ichen Kt'ilinschrtfUn
(ISHl). A. H. SAVCIi.
Charles Scribrur't Soru
DAEIUS THE MEDE
DARKNESS
559
DARIUS THE MEDE (n^n rin^ Dn 11', Aram. •«;7? '" {Kcthibh), .iK-if 'I (Kere)'& [Eng. 5"]), the son of Aliasuerua ( = Xerxes), ' of the seed of the Medes' (9'), is said (5") to have succeeded to the Bab. kingdom after Belshazzar's violent death, and to have Deen 62 years old when he ' received the kingdom.' His hrst year only is mentioned (5"
9' 11').
^Vho this D. was, is difficult to ascertain with certainty. Besides other proposals, D. the Mede has l>een identilied witli (1) Cyaxares II., the son and successor of Astyages (Jos. Ant. X. xi. 4), but no proof is given to support this theory ; (2) Darius Hystaspis ; (3) Astyages himself ; but all these identitications seem quite untenable. It is true that D. Hystaspis conquered Babylon, but that was some thirty years later. Besides this, he was a Persian, not a Alede ; and he was about thirty-six years old, not sixty-two, when he began to reign.
The passage in Dn 5" where he is described as havine received the kingdom (RV) leads one to ask whether, in spite of the title of king which is given to him (6'-' etc.), he may not have been really governor only. In the Gr. historians and in the Bab. Chronule the name of D. the Mede does not occur, he who preceded Cyrus to Babylon, on the occasion of the siege and capture of that city, being Gobryas, who may thus be regarded as having ' received the kingdom for him.' * Gobryas, like Darius the Mede (6'), appointed governors in Babj'lon, and seems also to have been in the attack which resulted in Belshazzar's death [Bah. Chronicle, Rev. col. i. 1. 22). It will thus be seen that Cyrus gave great power to (iobryas, who was, in fact, his viceroy, t Apparently, therefore, the later Jewish writers looked upon Gobryas as hav- ing as much authority as Belshazzar, whom they regarded likewise as king, though he does not appear ever to have reigned. The confusion of the names of I), the Mede and Gobryas of Gutium (he being governor of that place, which is regarded as having included a part of Media), may have been due to the scribes, who, being more familiar with the Gr. form of the name of D. (the end of which, when carelessly pronounced, bears a certain resemblance to that of Gobrvas in that language) than with the Heb. form Daryawesh, wrote one name for the other ; and there is also the possi- bility that one of Gobryas' names was Darius,t which would account for the mistake. Under these circumstances we must accept, until further proof, the explanation, that D. tiie Mede was no other than Gobryas of Gutium, who, being practi- cally viceroy, may have been regarded as king during the absence of Cyrus from Babylon, and who, under the name of D. the Mede, by which he was known to the Hebrews later on, conquered and entered Babylon on the lOtli Tammuz, called Daniel to the very high dignity of 'one of the three presidents who were placed over the hundred and twenty satraps,' and issued a decree, after Daniel's miraculous deliverance, enjoining ' rever- ence for the God of Daniel ' througliout his dominions. Jose)>huB gets rid of all ditliculties presented by the title of ' king ' which is given to D. the Mede in Daniel, by explaining that he took Daniel the prophet with tiini into Media, and that it was there that he appointed him one of the thrt« presidents whom he set over his ' three hundred and sixty ' provinces. According to this