Artaba (Anrafttj), a dry measure used by the Babylonians (Herod, i, 192), containing seventy-two sextarii according to Epiphanius (de Pondcrib. et Mens.) and Isidore of Seville (lib. xvi, Origen) ; or, according to Dr. Arbuthnot's tables, one bushel, one gallon, and one pint, allowing, with him, four pecks I and six pints to the medimnus, and one pint to the choenix (for it was equal to 1 medininus + 2 choe- nices). It is found only in the apocryphal Daniel, or Dan. xiv, 3,Vulg. (Au'tb. Vers, "measure," Bel, ver. 3). See Measure.
Artaxer'xes, the Greek form (Apratfr,£j;c) of the name, or rather title, of several Persian kings (on each of which see fully in Smith's Diet, of Class. Biop. s. v.), and applied in the Auth. Vers, to several of them occurring in the 0. T. The Hebrew form (Ar- tachshast', XPprnn-iX, Ezra vii, 1, 7; or Artach- shasht', Xrir'w'nniX, Ezra iv, 8, 11, 2G; vi, 14; once Artachshash'tu', XtT^'rHP-lX, Ezraiv, 7 ; Sept. 'AnSa- oarjSa) is a slight corruption of irrnr-X, which letters De Sacy has deciphered in the inscriptions of Nakshi Rustam, and which he vocalizes Artahshetr (An'io. d. I. Perse, p. 100). C.esenius pronounces them Artackshdtr; and, by assuming the easy change of r into ,t, and the transposition of the s, makes Artach- sbast very closely represent its prototype (Tkes. Heb. p. 155). The word is a compound, the tir?t element of which, urta— found in several Persian names— is gen- erallv admitted to mean great; the latter part being
ARTAXERXES
440
ARTAXERXES
the Zend Ihshethro, Jang (Lassen, in the Zeitseh. zur\A); but Bertholdt (Einhit. iii, 1014) shows that ttie age Kvnde d. Morgenl. vi, 161 sqA Thus the sense of I of Eliashib (q. v.) will not allow this (eomp. Neh. iii, (jruil warrior (juyag apr)iov), which Herodotus (vi, 98) , 1, with xii, 1, 10); for Eliashib, Avho was high-priest assigned to the Greek form Artaxerxes, accords with j when Nehemiah reached Jerusalem (Neh. iii, ]), i. c. that which etymology (see Lassen, Keilschrift, p. 30) j on this last supposition, B.C. 365, was grandson of discovers in the original Persian title (particularly Jeshua (Neh. xii, 10), high-priest in the time of Zerub- whcn we consider that as the king could only be ! babel (Ezra iii, 2), B.C. 535. We cannot think that the chosen from the soldier-caste — from the Kshatriyas — ' grandfather and grandson were separated by an inter- warrior and king are so far cognate terms) ; although j val of 150 years. Besides, as Ezra and Nehemiah Pott, according to his etymology of Xirxes, takes Ar- were contemporaries (Neh. viii, 9), this theory trans- taxerxes to be more than equivalent to Artachshatr — fers the whole history contained in Ezra vii, ad fin., to be "magnus regum rex" (Etym. Forsik. i, p. lxvii). j and Nehemiah to this date, and it is hard to believe See Cuneiform Inscriptions; Hieroglyphics. \ that in this critical period of Jewish annals there are
no events recorded between the reigns of Darius Hys-
Cuneiform.
Hieroglyphic.
^^^Kdir^Tn^
Ancient Assyrian and Egyptian furn
1. The Persian king who, at the instigation of the
taspis (Ezra vi) and Artaxerxes Mnemon. As already observed, there are again some who maintain that as Darius Hystaspis is the king in the sixth chapter of Ezra, the king mentioned next after him, at the be- ginning of the seventh, must be Xerxes, and thus they distinguish three Persian kings called Artaxerxes in d sh sh s , the old Testament, (1) Smerdis in Ezra iv, (2) Xerxes
! of the name Artaxerxes. ;„ Ezra v;i) an(j ($) Artaxerxes Longimanus in Nehe- miah. But (in addition to the arguments above) it is adversaries of the Jews,'obstr"ucted the"rebunding"of almost demonstrable that Xerxes is the Ahasuerus of the Temple, from his time to that of Darius, king of the ' ook of Estllcr [>ee Ahasuerus], and it is hard Persia (Ezra iv, 7-24). The monarch here referred to i to SUPP0SC that l,esldes .his ordl»ary name he would is probablv (see Ahasuerus) not Cambyses (as Jose- , h:,ve been called Loth Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes in phus says, Ant. xi, 2, 1), but the immediate predecessor i the °- T; Jt seems» ^ ^ probable that the policy of Darius Hvstaspis, and can be no other than the Ma- °f ^eh-.» was a continuation and renewal ot that of dan impostor Smerdis (Voftc), who ssized on the F*? "$ . * "T^ king was the author of throne B.C. 522, and was murdered after a usurpation ! ,!0tn- ^ow jtT ls n0* Possible for Xerxes to be the Ar- of less than eight months (Herod, iii, 61-78). Profane | taxerxes of Nehemiah, as Josephus asserts (Ant xi, historians, indeed, have not mentioned him under the 5- fl), for Xerxes only reigned 21 years whereas Ne- title of Artaxerxes; but neither do Herodotus and hemiah (xni, 6) speaks of the 32d year of Artaxerxes. Justin (the latter of whom calls him Oropastes, i, 9) N<,r ? * necessary to believe that the book of Ezra is agree in his name (see Bertheau, Gesch, d. Jsr. p. 397). a stnctly continuous history. It is evident from the
first words of eh. vn that there is a pause at the end of ch. vi. Indeed, as ch. vi concludes in the Gth year
See Smerdis.
2. As to the second Artaxerxes, in the seventh year of whose reign Ezra led a second colon}- of the Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem (Ezra vii, 1 ?q. ), the opinions are divided 1 etween Xerxes (with Michaelis in loc. ; Jahn, Einl. II, i, 270; Arckuol. II, i, 259; De Wette, Einl. § 195, and others) and his son Artaxerxes Lnnrji- mcmw (so II. Michaelis; Offerhaus; Eichhorn, Einl. iii, 697; Bertholdt, Einl. iii, 989; Gesenius, Thesanr. p. 150: Kleinert, in the Dorpat. Beitr. i, 1; Keil, Chron. p. 103; Archinard, Chronology, p. 128, and many others). Josephus (Ant. xi, 5, 6) calls him Xerxes; but, from various considerations (chiefly that because the first portion of the book of Ezra relates to Darius Hystaspis, it does not follow that the next king spoken of must be his successor Xerxes; that Nehemiah's a! - sence of twelve years is ample to allow the confusion in the infant colony under the merely moral sway of Ezra ; and that Josephus likewise confounds the Ar- taxerxes of Nehemiah with Xerxes, while the author of the apocryphal version of Esdras [1 Esdr. ii, 17; vii, 4 ; viii, 8] correctly calls both these kings Arta name, moreov