The histories of the Persians now extant in the East, represent that the oldest Dynasties of the Kings of Persia, were those whom they call Pischdadians and Kaianides, and that the Dynasty of the Kaianides immediately succeeded that of the Pischdadians. They derive the name Kaianides from the word Kai, which, they say, in the old Persian language signified a Giant or great King; and they call the first four Kings of this Dynasty, Kai-Cobad, Kai-Caus, Kai-Cosroes, and Lohorasp, and by Lohorasp mean Kai-Axeres, or Cyaxeres: for they say that Lohorasp was the first of their Kings who reduced their armies to good order and discipline, and Herodotus affirms the same thing of Cyaxeres: and they say further, that Lohorasp went eastward, and conquered many Provinces of Persia, and that one of his Generals, whom the Hebrews call Nebuchadnezzar, the Arabians Bocktanassar, and others Raham and Gudars, went westward, and conquered all Syria and Judæa, and took the city of Jerusalem and destroyed it: they seem to call Nebuchadnezzar the General of Lohorasp, because he assisted him in some of his wars. The fifth King of this Dynasty, they call Kischtasp, and by this name mean sometimes Darius Medus, and sometimes Darius Hystaspis: for they say that he was contemporary to Ozair or Ezra, and to Zaradust or Zoroastres, the Legislator of the Ghebers or fire-worshippers, and established his doctrines throughout all Persia; and here they take him for Darius Hystaspis: they say also that he was contemporary to Jeremiah, and to Daniel, and that he was the son and successor of Lohorasp, and here they take him for Darius the Mede. The sixth King of the Kaianides, they call Bahaman, and tell us that Bahaman was Ardschir Diraz, that is Artaxerxes Longimanus, so called from the great extent of his power: and yet they say that Bahaman went westward into Mesopotamia and Syria, and conquered Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and gave the Kingdom to Cyrus his Lieutenant-General over Media: and here they take Bahaman for Darius Medus. Next after Ardschir Diraz, they place Homai a Queen, the mother of Darius Nothus, tho' really she did not Reign: and the two next and last Kings of the Kaianides, they call Darab the bastard son of Ardschir Diraz, and Darab who was conquered by Ascander Roumi, that is Darius Nothus, and Darius who was conquered by Alexander the Greek: and the Kings between these two Darius's they omit, as they do also Cyrus, Cambyses, and Xerxes. The Dynasty of the Kaianides, was therefore that of the Medes and Persians, beginning with the defection of the Medes from the Assyrians, in the end of the Reign of Sennacherib, and ending with the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. But their account of this Dynasty is very imperfect, some Kings being omitted, and others being confounded with one another: and their Chronology of this Dynasty is still worse; for to the first King they assign a Reign of 120 years, to the second a Reign of 150 years, to the third a Reign of 60 years, to the fourth a Reign of 120 years, to the fifth as much, and to the sixth a Reign of 112 years.
This Dynasty being the Monarchy of the Medes, and Persians; the Dynasty of the Pischdadians which immediately preceded it, must be that of the Assyrians: and according to the oriental historians this was the oldest Kingdom in the world, some of its Kings living a thousand years a-piece, and one of them Reigning five hundred years, another seven hundred years, and another a thousand years.
We need not then wonder, that the Egyptians have made the Kings in the first Dynasty of their Monarchy, that which was seated at Thebes in the days of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam, so very ancient and so long lived; since the Persians have done the like to their Kings, who began to Reign in Assyria two hundred years after the death of Solomon; and the Syrians of Damascus have done the like to their Kings Adar and Hazael, who Reigned an hundred years after the death of Solomon, worshipping them as Gods, and boasting their antiquity, and not knowing, saith Josephus, that they were but modern.
And whilst all these nations have magnified their Antiquities so exceedingly, we need not wonder that the Greeks and Latines have made their first Kings a little older than the truth.
FINIS.
Notes.
[1] In the life of Lycurgus.
[2] In the life of Solon.