ly aoconnted for by the history and the repreaent«» tions of the prophets. The adveisaries ** weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus, even un- til the reign of Darius" (Ezra iv, 4, 5). Besides mo- lesUng the builders in their work, they prevailed by thehr machinations at the court of Cyrus, or of his viceroy, to bring it to a stand-stiU, by interposing offi- cial obstacles, stopping the grants from the royal treas- ury (vi, 4), and the supply of materials frx>m the for- est and the quarry (iii, 7). So the people were dis- couraged : they said, *' The time is not come for tiie house of the Lord to be buUt," and turned to the com- pletion of their own houses and the tilling of their lands (Hagg. i, 3). This is intelligible on the suppo- sition of an interval of fifteen or sixteen years, during which, there having been no decree issued to stop it, the work was nominally in progress, only deferred, as the builders could allege at the time of its resumption, " Since that time (2d of Cyrus), even until now, hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished" (Ezra V, 16). But in no sense could the Temple be said to have *^been in building" through the entire reigns of Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I : there is no testimony to the fact, nor any means of account- ing for it. Again, the persons addressed by Haggai are **the residue of the people" who came fh>m Baby- lon with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, some of whom had seen the first house in its glory (ii, 2, 8), i. e. who might be some 80 years old on the usual view, but on the other must have been 170 at the least. The prophet further admonishes his countrymen that the blights, droughts, and mildews which year by year disappointed their labors in the fields were the chas- tisement of their want of fkith in letting the house of God lie waste, while they dwelt in their ** ceiled houses" (i, 4-17) ; so long as they had been guilty of this negleict, so long had they been visited with this punishment. On the one supposition, this state of things had lasted Arom twelve to fifteen years at most ; on the other, we are required to imagine that the curse had been on the land for three successive generations, an entire century. Lastly, in* the same second year of Darius, Zechiuiah distinctly intimates what length of time had elapsed tiom the destruction of the first Temple — *^ threescore and ten years" Q, 12). So in vii, 5, mention is made of a period of 70 years, during which the people had " fasted and mourned in the fifth and seven^ month." The events commemorated by those fasts were the destruction of the Temple in the fifth, and the murder of Gedaliah in the seventh month of the same year. From that year to the second of Darius I are almost, if not exactly, 70 years. To the corresponding year of Darius II the interval is more than 160 years, and the mention of *' those 70 years" is quite unintelligible, if that be the epoch of Zecha- riah's prophesying. Certainly, if tiie prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, and the first five chapters of Ezra, are worth anything as testimony, ** the second year of Darius" must lie within one generation tram the decree of Cyrus, and not more than 70 years from the destruction of the first Temple.
The reasons alleged on the other side may be thus stated : 1. In Ezra iv, between the edict of Cyrus for the return of the exiles and rebuilding of the Temple, and that of Darius for the completion of the work after its discontinuance, two Persian kings are named, Ac- hash verosh and Artachshashta, '* which the names on the Zendic monuments will not permit us to apply to other kings than Xerxes and his son" (Dr. Mill, «. #. 153, note). The Persian history, as related by the Greeks and the Astronomical Canon, give three names in succession, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, Darius II ; Ezra, in like manner, three, Achashverosb, Artachshashta, and Dareyavesh. By those who hold this last to be Darius, son of Hystaspes, the first two are commonly
DARIUS
678
DAMUS
•apposed to be Cambyses and the impoetor Smerdis, whom Joftin (i, 9) calls Oropasta, Ctesias (de r«6. P«r$, 10) SphendadateSf who leigned under the name of Cambysea's yoonger brother Tany-oxarces (see Ewald, (refcA. de* V. /. \y, 81 and 118). But nowhere on monu- ments is Cambyses called Khshyarsha, or Smerdis Ar- takashasha; the former is constantly Kabnjiya (Pers.), Kambodsiya (Bab.)) Kembath (hierogl.) ; the latter, Bart'iya (Pers.), Bardsija (Bab.). Moreover, as Ai^ tachshashta (or — shasht) elsewhere in Ezra and Keh. is constantly ArtaxerzeSi and it scarcely admits of a doubt that Achashverosh in Esther is Xerxes, it woold be strange if these two names were here applied to other quite diflbrent kings.