For he that first led the Army was a Mede;
The next, who was his son, finisht the work,
For prudence directed his soul;
The third was Cyrus, a happy man, &c.
The Poet here attributes the founding of the Medo-Persian Empire to the two immediate predecessors of Cyrus, the first of which was a Mede, and the second was his son: the second was Darius the Mede, the immediate predecessor of Cyrus, according to Daniel; and therefore the first was the father of Darius, that is, Achsuerus, Assuerus, Oxyares, Axeres, Prince Axeres, or Cy-Axeres, the word Cy signifying a Prince: for Daniel tells us, that Darius was the son of Achsuerus, or Ahasuerus, as the Masoretes erroneously call him, of the seed of the Medes, that is, of the seed royal: this is that Assuerus who together with Nebuchadnezzar took and destroyed Nineveh, according to Tobit: which action is by the Greeks ascribed to Cyaxeres, and by Eupolemus to Astibares, a name perhaps corruptly written for Assuerus. By this victory over the Assyrians, and subversion of their Empire seated at Nineveh, and the ensuing conquests of Armenia, Cappadocia and Persia, he began to extend the Reign of one man over all Asia; and his son Darius the Mede, by conquering the Kingdoms of Lydia and Babylon, finished the work: and the third King was Cyrus, a happy man for his great successes under and against Darius, and large and peaceable dominion in his own Reign.
Cyrus lived seventy years, according to Cicero, and Reigned nine years over Babylon, according to Ptolemy's Canon, and therefore was 61 years old at the taking of Babylon; at which time Darius the Mede was 62 years old, according to Daniel: and therefore Darius was two Generations younger than Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus: for Astyages, according to both [[401]] Herodotus and Xenophon, gave his daughter Mandane to Cambyses a Prince of Persia, and by them became the grandfather of Cyrus; and Cyaxeres was the son of Astyages, according [[402]] to Xenophon, and gave his Daughter to Cyrus. This daughter, [[403]] saith Xenophon, was reported to be very handsome, and used to play with Cyrus when they were both children, and to say that she would marry him: and therefore they were much of the same age. Xenophon saith that Cyrus married her after the taking of Babylon; but she was then an old woman: it's more probable that he married her while she was young and handsome, and he a young man; and that because he was the brother-in-law of Darius the King, he led the armies of the Kingdom until he revolted: so then Astyages, Cyaxeres and Darius Reigned successively over the Medes; and Cyrus was the grandson of Astyages, and married the sister of Darius, and succeeded him in the Throne.
Herodotus therefore [[404]] hath inverted the order of the Kings Astyages and Cyaxeres, making Cyaxeres to be the son and successor of Phraortes, and the father and predecessor of Astyages the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, and telling us, that this Astyages married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes King of Lydia, and was at length taken prisoner and deprived of his dominion by Cyrus: and Pausanias hath copied after Herodotus, in telling us that Astyages the son of Cyaxeres Reigned in Media in the days of Alyattes King of Lydia. Cyaxeres had a son who married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes; but this son was not the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, but of the same age with Cyrus: and his true name is preserved in the name of the Darics, which upon the conquest of Crœsus by the conduct of his General Cyrus, he coyned out of the gold and silver of the conquered Lydians: his name was therefore Darius, as he is called by Daniel; for Daniel tells us, that this Darius was a Mede, and that his father's name was Assuerus, that is Axeres or Cyaxeres, as above: considering therefore that Cyaxeres Reigned long, and that no author mentions more Kings of Media than one called Astyages, and that Æschylus who lived in those days knew but of two great Monarchs of Media and Persia, the father and the son, older than Cyrus; it seems to me that Astyages, the father of Mandane and grandfather of Cyrus, was the father and predecessor of Cyaxeres; and that the son and successor of Cyaxeres was called Darius. Cyaxeres, [[405]] according to Herodotus, Reigned 40 years, and his successor 35, and Cyrus, according to Xenophon, seven: Cyrus died Anno Nabonass. 219, according to the Canon, and therefore Cyaxeres died Anno Nabonass. 177, and began his Reign Anno Nabonass. 137, and his father Astyages Reigned 26 years, beginning his Reign at the death of Phraortes, who was slain by the Assyrians, Anno Nabonass. 111, as above.
Of all the Kings of the Medes, Cyaxeres was greatest warrior. Herodotus [[406]] saith that he was much more valiant than his ancestors, and that he was the first who divided the Kingdom into provinces, and reduced the irregular and undisciplined forces of the Medes into discipline and order: and therefore by the testimony of Herodotus he was that King of the Medes whom Æschylus makes the first conqueror and founder of the Empire; for Herodotus represents him and his son to have been the two immediate predecessors of Cyrus, erring only in the name of the son. Astyages did nothing glorious: in the beginning of his Reign a great body of Scythians commanded by Madyes, [[407]] invaded Media and Parthia, as above, and Reigned there about 28 years; but at length his son Cyaxeres circumvented and slew them in a feast, and made the rest fly to their brethren in Parthia; and immediately after, in conjunction with Nebuchadnezzar, invaded and subverted the Kingdom of Assyria, and destroyed Nineveh.
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which the Jews reckon to be the first of Nebuchadnezzar, dating his Reign from his being made King by his father, or from the month Nisan preceding, when the victors had newly shared the Empire of the Assyrians, and in prosecuting their victory were invading Syria and Phœnicia, and were ready to invade the nations round about; God [[408]] threatned that he would take all the families of the North, that is, the armies of the Medes, and Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon, and bring them against Judæa and against the nations round about, and utterly destroy those nations, and make them an astonishment and lasting desolations, and cause them all to drink the wine-cup of his fury; and in particular, he names the Kings of Judah and Egypt, and those of Edom, and Moab, and Ammon, and Tyre, and Zidon, and the Isles of the Sea, and Arabia, and Zimri, and all the Kings of Elam, and all the Kings of the Medes, and all the Kings of the North, and the King of Sesac; and that after seventy years, he would also punish the King of Babylon. Here, in numbering the nations which should suffer, he omits the Assyrians as fallen already, and names the Kings of Elam or Persia, and Sesac or Susa, as distinct from those of the Medes and Babylonians; and therefore the Persians were not yet subdued by the Medes, nor the King of Susa by the Chaldæans; and as by the punishment of the King of Babylon he means the conquest of Babylon by the Medes; so by the punishment of the Medes he seems to mean the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus.
After this, in the beginning of the Reign of Zedekiah, that is, in the ninth year of Nebuchadnezzar, God threatned that he would give the Kingdoms of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, and Tyre and Zidon, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and that all the nations should serve him, and his son, and his son's son until the very time of his land should come, and many nations and great Kings should serve themselves of him, Jer. xxvii. And at the same time God thus predicted the approaching conquest of the Persians by the Medes and their confederates: Behold, saith he, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might: and upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them towards all those winds, and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come: for I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life; and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I will send the sword after them 'till I have consumed them; and I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the King and the Princes, saith the Lord: but it shall come to pass in the latter days, viz. in the Reign of Cyrus, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord. Jer. xlix. 35, &c. The Persians were therefore hitherto a free nation under their own King, but soon after this were invaded, subdued, captivated, and dispersed into the nations round about, and continued in servitude until the Reign of Cyrus: and since the Medes and Chaldæans did not conquer the Persians 'till after the ninth year of Nebuchadnezzar, it gives us occasion to enquire what that active warrior Cyaxeres was doing next after the taking of Nineveh.