The chronological difiiculties which have been aasei (Rawlinson, Herodotus, i, 881) against the identificati« of Darius with Astyages on the assumption tiiat tlv events in Dan. v relate to the taking of Bsdijka W Cyrus (B.C. 688), in which case he would have asned- ed the throne at seven years of age, are indeed wt aside by the view of Niebuhr; but it is clogged vtt other objections (in addition to those already aBade^ to), which render it as untenable as it is ingemoas ssi intricate, to say nothing of the &ct that it is made ip of a series of assumptions throngliont. In the im place, the supposition that Belshazzar was £vil<4Hr»> dach is inadmissible; for it is now pretty well dibs-
DAMUS
677
DARIUS
lined that he was the son of Nabonnecl, the actually i8t king of the Babylonian line. See Belshazzak. econdly, this hypothesis sets ap a Medo- Persian rince at Babylon during the very time assigned by ell-approved history to a native sovereign, and even len leaves a blank of eighteen years between him Qd Cyrus, whom Daniel's history and prophecies evi- ently make immediately contiguous. See Asttaoes. 8. There remains, therefore, but one other view, hich was adopted by Josephus (Ant, x, 11, 4), and as been supported by many recent critics (Bertholdt, 'on Lengerke, H&vernick, Hengstenberg, Auberlen, nd others). According to this, the ** Darius" in uestion was Ct/axares II, the son and successor of istyages, who is commonly regarded as the last king f Media. It is supposed that the reign of this Cyax- res has been neglected by hbtorians from the foct bat through his indolence and luxury he yielded the eal exercise of power to his nephew Cyrus, who mar- led his daughter, and so after his death received the rown by direct succession (Xen. Cyrop. i, 6, 2 ; iv, 6, ; viii, 5, 19). It is true that the only direct evidence or the existence of a second Cyaxares is that of Xen- phon's psedagogic romance. The title *' Cyrus [iili- is] Cyaxaris," which has been quoted from an biscrip- ion (Auberlen, Daniel u, d. OfferUHzrung^ p. 18), is either i false reading or certainly a false translation (Nie- luhr, Gesch. Ass. u, Bab, p. 214, n. 4) ; and the passage if i£8chylu3 (jPera, p. 766) is not very consistent with he character assigned to Cyaxares II. On the other land, Herodotus expressly states that '^Astyages" ras the last king of the Modes, that he was conquered ry Cyrus, and that he died without leaving any male ssue (Herod, i, 73, 109, 127 sq.) ; and Cyrus appears IS the immediate successor of "Astyages" in the Chronicle of Eusebius (^Ckron, ad 01. 54 ; Syncell. p. 188; comp. Bel and Dragon, i). These objections, lowover, are not insuperable, and must give way be- *ore the manifest exigencies of the case (see Bertholdt's ible excursus on the subject in his CommeiUar zu Dan.), We may add that an important chronological lifficulty is best adjusted by assuming the existence ind reign of this Cyaxares (Clinton's Fasti Helkmd, p. 301 sq.). See Cyaxares.
2. " Darius, king of Persia," in whose second year the building of the Temple was resumed, and com- pleted in his sixth (Ezra iv, 5, 24 ; vi, 15), under the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, is understood by most writers, ancient and modem, to be Darius Bon of Hystaspes, whose reign in the Canon extends from B.C. 521 to 485. ScaUger, however, makes him Darius Nothus (B.C. 424r405), and this view has been advocated by the late Dr. Mill (The Evangelical Ac- counts of the Birth and Parentage of our Saviour , etc., 1842, p. 153-165), who refers for further arguments to Hottinger {Pentas Dissertationum^ p. 107-114). Be- fore we examine the grounds on which this conclusion rests, it will be convenient to consider the difficulties with which it is attended.
Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, as prince of the house of David, and Jeshua, son of Jozadak, as high-priest, headed the first colony of exiles from Babylon in the first year of Cyrus (Ezra iii, 2), at which time neither can have been less than twenty years old. By these same two persons the work of rebuilding the Temple was resumed and completed after its suspension. Now from the first year of Cyrus, in the Biblical reckoning (B.C. 536), to the second of Darius Nothus (B.C. 428X are 113 years ; so that, if he be the Darius of this his- tory, both Zerubbabel and Jeshua must then have reached the age of 130 years at least. This is incred- ible, if not in itself, certainly under the entire silence of the history and the contemporary prophets as to a fact so extraordinary. Moreover, that the work of rebuilding the Temple should have been abandoned for a century and more is scarcely conceivable. Its suspension during fifteen or sixteen years is sufficient-