and arrest their progress, till the time of the inundation of the river arrived, they spread over the country, and compelled the enemy to retire to Phenicia. The subjugation of Egypt occupied the attention of Artaxerxes' remaining years; but he ventured no more to invade it. On the contrary, he had to defend Phenicia from an attack by Tachos, who succeeded Nectanebus, to the throne of Egypt. In his absence from his kingdom, a relation also named Nectanebus, seized his throne, in which he was some time maintained by the able direction of Agesilaus, one of the kings of Sparta, who with a number of his subjects had gone to Egypt to strengthen Tachos against the Persians. The latter soon afterwards went to the Persian court, where he found favour, and was appointed to command troops to reduce his rebellious subjects to obedience. Thus the Jews continued many years, if not overrun by an enemy, surrounded by troops, from whose depredations they most probably suffered much, and doubtless longed to be rescued from the tyrannical rule of Persia. It is not therefore surprising if they joined the great revolt, as it is supposed they did, which happened towards the end of the life of Artaxerxes. This memorable event may be traced to the degeneracy of that monarch in his old age. He indulged in sloth and luxury, and left his people to the government of persons who betrayed their trust, and cruelly oppressed the provinces, so that the Persian yoke became insupportable. Universal discontent prevailed; Asia Minor, Syria, Phenicia, and indeed the greatest part of the provinces, nearly at the same time, resorted to arms, to liberate themselves from their oppressors. From want of union, this general insurrection, which brought the empire to the brink of ruin, was speedily suppressed, or dissolved of itself; but it was ominous of the final overthrow of the third great power which upheld the dominion of moral darkness on the earth.

A Persian king had only one wife, but his concubines were numerous, and his children not uncommonly brought his hairs with sorrow to the grave. grey The sanguinary ambition of the sons of Artaxerxes, drenched his court with the blood of his own race, and in grief unspeakable he closed his eyes for ever. He had declared his eldest son Darius his successor, but that unprincipled man was impatient to ascend the throne. Following the counsel of Tiribaus, whom the king had offended, he conspired to assassinate his father. Of one hundred and fifty sons of Artaxerxes by his concubines, not less then fifty consented to be the accomplices of their bro

ther in this dreadful crime. Their scheme was revealed to the king, and he permitted all the conspirators to enter the royal chamber, when they were instantly seized and slain. Arispus and Ochus, the brothers of Darius by the queen, and Arsanes, a son of a concubine, now struggled for the throne. Ochus, by the craft of his emissaries, wrought on the timid nature of his maternal brother, so to terrify him by imaginary or apparent evils that he poisoned himself; and he prevailed on the son of Tiribasus to assassinate the other rival. These things are believed to have hastened the death of the king, and permitted Ochus silently to exercise the sovereign power.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF ARTAXERXES OCHUS.

THE unnatural, treacherous, and cruel actions of this prince rendered him universally hated and hateful; and, conscious of this, to secure the throne he concealed the death of his father ten months, during which period he governed in his name. By a decree in his father's name, he caused himself to be proclaimed king throughout the whole empire. On publicly ascending the throne, he assumed the name of Artaxerxes, and quickly removed by death all the members of his family and court whom he suspected to be his enemies. Eighty of his brothers were murdered by him in one day; he caused his sister Ocha, whose daughter he had married, to be buried alive; and one of his uncles, with a hundred of his sons and grandsons, he put to death by arrows. These rarely paralleled crimes were not calculated to establish his throne; wherever he was known he was hated and feared, and the announcement of the death of the aged and generally esteemed king, B. c. 356, was the signal of revolt in several of the provinces.

In Asia Minor, Artabasus, one of its governors, raised the standard of independence; and, assisted first by the Athenians and next by the Thebans, he thrice defeated the large army sent against him; but these allies having deserted him, he was soon overcome, and fled for refuge to Philip, king of Macedon. The Phenicians avowed their determination to be free; Nectabanus, king of Egypt, gladly supported them, for he hoped by this to arrest the progress of the armies of Persia, destined to reduce his kingdom. He had many Greeks in his service, and of these he sent four thousand under the command of Mentor, a Rhodian, justly deemed one of the ablest warriors and statesmen of the age. Led on by him, the Phenicians overthrew the armies which the governors of Syria and Cilicia brought against them, and expelled the Per

sians from Phenicia. Their example was eagerly followed by all the chiefs or kings of Cyprus; they formed an alliance with Egypt, but they quickly discovered how hopeless it was to contend with the Persian troops. The Persian king appointed Idrieus king of Caria, to command the land army, and Phocian the Athenian accompanied by Evagoras, to be admiral of the fleet, with eight thousand Greeks. Evagoras had perfect knowledge of the island, for it is believed that he was the son of Nicocles, and succeeded him to the throne of Salamis, which, on account of his tyrannical rule, he had been obliged to abdicate. The nine kings of Cyprus submitted on favourable terms, which were the more willingly granted them by Artaxerxes from his extreme solicitude to recover Egypt and Phenicia. He ascribed the failure of his plans to accomplish these most important and desirable objects to the misconduct of his generals, and he therefore purposed to place himself at the head of his army. This idea he had entertained for some time, and had made immense preparations for the campaign, and in particular had strenuously endeavoured to prevail on the States of Greece to unite in the bond of peace, and permit him to raise a large band of Grecians; for he relied more on a small body of Greeks than on a large army of Persians. He conducted to Phenicia three hundred thousand foot and thirty thousand horse, and was afterwards joined by ten thousand Greeks. Mentor, who had defended Egypt and delivered Phenicia, was in Sidon with his Grecian troops when the king reached that city. The Rhodian, on viewing the army, concluded that resistance would be in vain. He secretly corresponded with Artaxerxes, and, apparently with the consent of Tennes, the Sidonian prince, offered to surrender Sidon, and serve him in Egypt. The citizens, thus betrayed by their natural defenders, were worthy of a happier destiny; for on the approach of the enemy they had set fire to their ships, that, hope of escape being cut off, all might resolutely defend their ancient and noble city; and when they found themselves sacrificed-the invaders without the walls-and that there was no possibility of escaping either by sea or land, in the despair of their condition, they shut themselves up in their houses, and set them on fire. Forty thousand men without reckoning women and children, perished in this manner. The fate of Tennes their king was no better. Ochus, seeing himself master of Sidon, and having to further occasion for him, caused him to be put to death,— -a just reward of his treason, and an evident proof that Ochus did not yield to him in perfidy.

At the time this misfortune happened, Sidon was immensely rich; the fire having melted the gold and silver, Ochus sold the cinders for a considerable sum of money. The total ruin of Sidon and the tremendous sufferings of its citizens struck the Phenicians and all the inhabitants of the adjacent provinces with extreme terror, and they were forward to con ciliate the favour of the great monarch. He willingly accepted the submission of the Phenicians, and engaged to remove their grievances. But very different was his conduct to the Jews. It is uncertain whether the high-priest and the other native rulers of the nation had, on this or indeed any occasion, actually cast off the Persian yoke; the probability is that they had not; for at a later period we find them admired and praised for their fidelity to Persia, and they seem to have ever cherished grateful recollection of the singular and numerous favours which they had received from Cyrus and several of his successors. But many of the Jews of all ranks, grieved or indignant on account of the oppressions to which their nation, as well as others, were often subjected by the Persian governors, must have deeply sympathised with their neighbours, when they rose against their tyrants, and nothing was more natural than that they should secretly or openly assist them. This was enough to rouse the spirit of revenge in such a man as Artaxerxes III and he would feel no remorse in punishing the whole nation for what he knew to be the practice of a few, especially when he reflected that their rulers were in reality more disposed to approve than punish them. That the Jews, however, had exceedingly offended him, is scarcely to be doubted, for, with his impatience to advance on Egypt, it is not otherwise probable that he would have remained in Judea, merely to entertain himself by desolating their country. That he did so is certain; for one of the credible historians of these times records, that he had no sooner destroyed Sidon than he proceeded to Judea, and laid siege to Jericho, which he captured. He also seized multitudes of the Jews, carrying a great number of them into Egypt, and sending many more into Hyrcania, appointing them to reside on the shores of the Caspian sea. This slight notice of the Jews suggests that they must have enjoyed a considerable degree of prosperity during the past fifty or sixty years, from the time of Nehemiah, in the reign of Darius Nothus, to that of Artaxerxes III. At the former period, it was with difficulty that a number of Jews could be found sufficient to occupy Jerusalem, so as to protect it from the Samaritans;