The same diversity among chronologers has existed with reference to the identification of this Ahasuerus as with the preceding, with whom he has usually been confounded. But the circumstances under which he is mentioned do not well comport with those under which any other of the Persian kings are introduced to us in Scripture. Now from the extent assigned to the Per- sian empire (Esth. i, 1), "from India even unto Ethi- opia," it is proved that Darius Hystaspis is the earli- est possible king to whom this history can apply, and it is hardly worth while to consider the claims of any after Artaxerxes Longimanus. But Ahasuerus can- not be identical with Darius, whose wives were the
daughters of Cyrus and Otanes, and who in name and chai-acter equally differs from that foolish tyrant. Josephus (Ant. xi, 6, 1) makes him to be Artaxerxes Longimanus ; but as his twelfth year (Esth. iii, 7) would fall in B.C. 454, or 144 years after the deporta- tion by Nebuchadnezzar, in B.C. 598 (Jer. Iii, 28), Mordecai, who was among those captives (Esth. ii, 6), could not possibly have survived to this time. Be- sides, in Ezra vii, 1-7, 11-2G, Artaxerxes, in the sev- enth year of his reign, issues a decree very favorable to the Jews, and it is unlikely, therefore, that in the twelfth (Esth. iii, 7) Haman could speak to him of them as if he knew nothing about them, and persuade him to sentence them to an indiscriminate massacre. Nor is the disposition of Artaxerxes Longimanus, as given by Plutarch and Diodorus (xi, 71), at all like that of this weak Ahasuerus. It therefore seems nec- essary to identify him with Xerxes (q. v.), whose regal state and affairs tally with all that is here said of Ahasuerus (the names being, as we have seen, iden- tical) ; and this conclusion is fortified by the resem- blance of character, and by certain chronological in- dications (see Rawlinson's Hist. Evidences, p. 150 sq.). As Xerxes scourged the sea, and put to death the en- gineers of his bridge because their work was injured by a storm, so Ahasuerus repudiated his queen, Vashti, because she would not violate the decorum of her sex, and ordered the massacre of the whole Jewish people to gratif}- the malice of Haman. In the third year of the reign of Xerxes was held an assembly to arrange the Grecian war (Herod, vii, 7sq.); in the third year of Ahasuerus was held a great feast and assembly in Shushan the palace (Esth. i, 3). In the seventh year of his reign Xerxes returned defeated from Greece, and consoled himself by the pleasures of the harem (Herod, ix, 108) ; in the seventh year of his reign "fair young virgins were sought" for Ahasuerus, and he replaced Vashti by marrying Esther. The tribute he "laid upon the land and upon the isles of the sea" (Esth. x, 1) may well have been the result of the. expenditure and ruin of the Grecian expedition. Throughout the book of Esther in the Sept. Artaxerxes is written for Ahasuerus, but on this no argument of any weight can be founded. See Esther,
Xerxes was the second son of Darius Hystaspis, whom he succeeded on the throne about B.C. 486, and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes Longimanus about B.C. 4G6 (omitting the seven months' reign of the usurper Artabanus). He is famous in history from his memorable invasion of Greece at the head of an army of more than three millions, who were repulsed by the little band of Spartans at Thermopylas, and, after burning the city of Athens, were broken to pieces, and the remnant, with the king, compelled to return with disgrace to Persia (Baumgarten, De fide Esth. p. 141 sq. ; De Wette, Einleit. i, 274 ; Petavius, Doctrina Temp, xv, 27 ; Kelle, Vindic. Esth. Freib. 1820; Eambach, Annotat. ii, 1046; Bertholdt, Einleit. v, 2422 ; Scaliger, Emend. Temp. 1. vi ; Justi, Ntue Abhandl. i, 38 sq. ; Gesenius, Thes. Heb. i, 75).
4. The fourth Ahasuerus ('Awo/u-por) is mentioned (Tobit xiv, 15), in connection with Nabuchodonosor (i. e. Nabopolassar), as the destroyer of Nineveh (Herod, i, 106) ; a circumstance that points to Cya- xares (q. v.) I (Polyhistor ap. Syncell. p. 210}, a Me- dian king, son of Phraortes, and father of Astyages (Ilgen, Comment, in loc).
Aha'va (Heb. Ahava', N1!~!X, prob. water ; Sept. 'Aove in Ezra viii, 21, 31, but 'Evei v. r. 'Evi in verse 15), the " river" ("iHD) by which the Jewish exiles assembled their second caravan under Ezra, in re- turning from Babylon to Jerusalem ; or, rather, as appears from verse 15 ("the river that runneth to Ahava"), the name of some spot (according to Mi- chaelis, a city ; comp. De Wette, Einhit. ii. i, 289; but more probably the river Euphrates itself, which
AHAZ
118
AHAZIAH
is still called " the river" by way of eminence, Gese- nius, Heb. Lex. s. v.), in the direction of which the stream where the}' encamped ran. Some have infer- red from the mention of Casiphia (q. v.), apparently in the same neighborhood (ver. 17), that the place in question was situated near the Caspian Sea, or, at least, in Media ; but this would be entirely out of the required direction, and no corresponding name has been found in that vicinity. Others have sought the Ahava in the Lycus or Little Zab, finding that this river was anciently called Adiaba or Diaba (i. e. of Adiabene, Ammian. Marcel, xxiii, 6; comp. Mannert, v, 429). But these names would, in Hebrew, have no resemblance to SO SIX ; and it is exceedingly un- likely that the rendezvous for a Palestine caravan should have been in the north-eastern part of Assyria, with the Tigris and Euphrates between them and the plains they were to traverse (Le Clerc, in loc). Ros- enmuller, on the other hand, supposes (Bibl. Geogr. I, ii, 93) that it lay to the south-west of Babylonia, be- cause that icas in the direction of Palestine ; but cara- van routes seldom run straight between two places. In this case a straight line would have taken the car- avan through the whole breadth of a desert seldom traversed but by the Arabs ; and to avoid this the usual route for large caravans lay, and still lies, north- west through Mesopotamia, much above Babylonia; and then, the Euphrates being crossed, the direction is south-west to Palestine. The greater probability, therefore, is that the "river" in question (whether the Ahava itself or a branch running into it) was one of the streams or canals of Mesopotamia communicat- ing with the Euphrates, somewhere in the north-west of Babylonia. The name, however, may be the des- ignation of a place, and the latest researches are in fa- vor of its being the modern Hit, on the Euphrates, due east of Damascus, the name of which is known to have been in the post-biblical times lh;, or Jehe de-kera (Talm. SOPp? SOfT), " the spring of bitumen" (Raw- linson's Herodotus, i, :M6, note). But this is rather the Ava (q. v.) or Ivah of 2 Kings xvii, 24, 30. In the parallel passage of the Apocrypha (1 Esdr. viii, 41, GO) the name is given Theras (0£p«e). Josephus (Ant. xi, 5, 2) merely says " beyond the Euphrates" («i'c to Ttipav Toil Eutpparou).