[342] Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 6; Anabas. vii, 8, 24.

[343] There is a valuable inscription in Boeckh’s collection, No. 3137, containing the convention between the inhabitants of Smyrna and Magnêsia. Palæ-Magnêsia seems to have been a strong and important post.

“Magnêtes a Sipylo,” Tacit. Annal. ii, 47; Pliny, H. N. v, 29; Pausan. iii, 24, 2. πρὸς βόῤῥαν τοῦ Σιπύλου.

Stephan. Byzantinus notices only Magnêsia ad Mæandrum, not Magnêsia ad Sipylum.

[344] Thucyd. ii, 9.

[345] Strabo, ix, p. 402; Thucyd. viii, 100; Pseudo-Herodot. Vit. Homer, i. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἡ πάλαι Αἰολιῶτις Κύμη ἐκτίζετο, συνῆλθοι ἐν ταύτῳ παντοδαπὰ ἔθνεα Ἑλληνικὰ, καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐκ Μαγνησίας, etc. Etymolog. Magn. v, Αἰολεῖς.

[346] Herodot. i, 151; Strabo, xiii, p. 590.

[347] Diodor. xiii, 79; Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Thucyd. iii, 6.

[348] Hymn. ad Apollin. v, 37. Λέσβος τ᾽ ἠγαθέη, Μάκαρος ἕδος Αἰολίωνος. Myrsilus ap. Clemen. Alexandr. Protreptic. p. 19; Diodor. v, 57-82; Dionys. Halik. A. R. i, 18; Stephan. Byz. v. Μυτιλήνη.

Plehn (Lesbiaca, c. 2, pp. 25-37) has collected all the principal fables respecting this Lesbian archæology: compare also Raoul Rochette (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, t. i, c. 5, p. 182 etc.)

[349] Strabo, xiii, pp. 621, 622. Μέγιστον δέ ἐστι τῶν Αἰολικῶν καὶ ἀρίστη Κύμη, καὶ σχεδὸν μητρόπολις αὐτή τε καὶ ἡ Λέσβος τῶν ἄλλων πόλεων τριάκοντά που τὸν ἀριθμὸν, etc.

[350] Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 1, 10. μέχρι τῆς Φαρναβάζου Αἰολίδος—ἡ Αἰολὶς αὕτη ἦν μὲν Φαρναβάζου.

Xenophon includes the whole of the Troad under the denomination of Æolis. Skylax distinguishes the Troad from Æolis: he designates as the Troad the coast towns from Dardanus seemingly down to Lekton: under Æolis he includes Kebrên, Skêpsis, Neandreia, and Pityeia, though how these four towns are to be called ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ it is not easy to see (Skylax, 94-95). Nor does Skylax notice either the Peræa of Tenedos, or Assos and Gargara.

[351] Strabo, xiii, p. 583.

[352] Thucyd. iv, 52; viii, 108; Strabo, xiii, p. 610; Stephan. Byz. Ἄσσος; Pausan. vi, 4, 5.

[353] Pseudo-Herod. Vit. Hom. c. 20:—

Τὰ δὲ Κεβρήνια τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον κτίζειν παρεσκευάζοντο οἱ Κυμαῖοι πρὸς τῇ Ἴδῃ, καὶ γίνεται αὐτόθι σίδηρος.

[354] Herodot. vii, 20.

[355] Kallinus ap. Strabo, xiii, p. 604: compare p. 613, οὓς πρῶτος παρέδωκε Καλλῖνος, etc.

[356] Strabo, xiii, pp. 607-635.

[357] Herodot. v, 122, εἷλε μὲν Αἰολέας πάντας, ὅσοι τὴν Ἰλιάδα νέμονται, εἷλε δὲ Γέργιθας, τοὺς ὑπολειφθέντας τῶν ἀρχαίων Τευκρῶν, etc.

The Teukrians, in the conception of Herodotus, were the Trojans described in the Iliad,—the Τευκρὶς γῆ seems the same as Ἰλιὰς γῆ (ii, 118).

[358] Herodot. v, 94.

[359] Herodot. ix, 115.

[360] Strabo, xiii, 589-616.

[361] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 13.

[362] Diogen. Laërt. i, 74; Suidas, v. Κίκις, Πίττακος; Strabo, xiii, p. 617. Two lines of Alkæus are preserved, exulting in the death of Myrsilus (Alkæus, Fragm. 12, ed. Schneidewin). Melanchrus also is named (Fragm. 13), and Pittakus, in a third fragment (73, ed. Schneid.), is brought into connection with Myrsilus.

[363] In regard to the chronology of this war, see a note near the end of my previous chapter on the Solonian legislation. I have there noticed what I believe to be a chronological mistake of Herodotus in regard to the period between 600-560 B. C. Herodotus considers this war between the Mityleneans and Athenians, in which Pittakus and Alkæus were concerned, to have been directed by Peisistratus, whose government did not commence until 560 B. C. (Herod. v, 94, 95).

My suspicion is, that there were two Athenian expeditions to these regions—one in the time of Alkæus and Pittakus; a second, much afterwards, undertaken by order of Peisistratus, whose illegitimate son Hegesistratus became, in consequence, despot of Sigeium. Herodotus appears to me to have merged the two into one.

[364] See the difficult fragment of Alkæus (Fr. 24, ed. Schneidewin), preserved in Strabo, xiii, p. 600; Herodot. v, 94, 95; Archilochus, Eleg. Fr. i, 5, ed. Schneidewin; Horat. Carm. ii, 7, 9; perhaps also Anakreon, but not certainly (see Fr. 81, ed. Schneidewin), is to be regarded as having thrown away his shield.

[365] Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 16, 2, where ἔναγχος marks the date.

[366] Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 5, 6; Dionys. Halik. Ant. Rom. v, 73: Plehn, Lesbiaca, pp. 46-50.

[367] Diogen. Laërt. i, 81.

[368] Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Diogen. Laërt. i, 75; Valer. Maxim. vi, 5, 1.

[369] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9; Rhetoric ii, 27, 2.

A ditty is said to have been sung by the female grinding-slaves in Lesbos, when the mill went heavily: Ἄλει, μύλα, ἄλει· καὶ γὰρ Πιττακὸς ἀλεῖ, Τᾶς μεγάλας Μιτυλάνας βασιλεύων,—“Grind, mill, grind; for Pittakus also grinds, the master of great Mitylênê.” This has the air of a genuine composition of the time, set forth by the enemies of Pittakus, and imputing to him (through a very intelligible metaphor) tyrannical conduct; though both Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv. c. 14, p. 157) and Diogenes Laërt. (i, 81) construe it literally, as if Pittakus had been accustomed to take bodily exercise at the hand-mill.

[370] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9. ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ Πιττακὸς νόμων δημιουργὸς, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πολιτείας.

[371] See the Inscriptions in Boeckh’s collection, 2483-2671: the latter is an Iasian Inscription, reciting a Doric decree by the inhabitants of Kalymnæ; also Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, pp. 15, 553; Diodor. v, 53-54.

[372] Polyb. xvi, 5.

[373] Herodot. i, 144.

[374] For the general geography of Asia Minor, see Albert Forbiger, Handbuch der Alt. Geogr. part ii, sect. 61, and an instructive little treatise, Fünf Inschriften und fünf Städte in Klein Asien, by Franz and Kiepert, Berlin, 1840, with a map of Phrygia annexed. The latter is particularly valuable as showing us how much yet remains to be made out: it is too often the practice with the compilers of geographical manuals to make a show of full knowledge, and to disguise the imperfection of their data. Nor do they always keep in view the necessity of distinguishing between the territorial names and divisions of one age and those of another.

[375] Cicero, Pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 6; Strabo, xii, p. 572; Herodot. v, 32. See the instructive account of the spread and cultivation of the olive-tree, in Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien, b. iii, Abtheilung iii; Abschn. i, s. 50, pp. 522-537.

[376] Herodot. i, 72; Heeren, Ideen über den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part i, abth. i, pp. 142-145. It may be remarked, however, that the Armenians, eastward of the Halys, are treated by Herodotus as colonists from the Phrygians (vii, 73): Stephanus Byz. says the same, v. Ἀρμενία, adding also, καὶ τῇ φωνῇ πολλὰ φρυγίζουσι. The more careful researches of modern linguists after much groundless assertion on the part of those who preceded them, have shown that the Armenian language belongs in its structure to the Indo-Germanic family, and is essentially distinct from the Semitic: see Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien, b. iii, abth. iii; Abschn. i, 5, 36, pp. 577-582. Herodotus rarely takes notice of the language spoken, nor does he on this occasion, when speaking of the river Halys as a boundary.

[377] Herodot. i, 170-171.

[378] Strabo, vii, pp. 295-303; xii, pp. 542, 564, 565, 572; Herodot. i, 28; vii, 74-75; Xenophon. Hellenic. i, 3, 2; Anabasis, vii, 2, 22-32. Mannert, Geographie der Gr. und Römer, b. viii, ch. ii, p. 403.

[379] Dionys. Periegêt. 805: Apollodôrus, i, 9, 20. Theokritus puts the Bebrykians on the coast of the Euxine—Id. xxii, 29; Syncell. p. 340, Bonn. The story in Appian, Bell. Mithridat. init. is a singular specimen of Grecian fancy, and anxiety to connect the antiquities of a nation with the Trojan war: the Greeks whom he followed assigned the origin of the Bithynians to Thracian followers of Rhêsus, who fled from Troy after the latter had been killed by Diomêdes: Dolonkus, eponym of the Thracians in the Chersonesus, is called brother of Bithynus (Steph. Byz. Δόλογκος—Βιθυνία).

The name Μαριαν-δυνοὶ, like Βι-θυνοὶ, may probably be an extension or compound of the primitive Θυνοὶ; perhaps, also, Βέβρυκες stands in the same relation to Βριγὲς, or Φρυγές. Hellanikus wrote Θύμβριον, Δύμβριον (Steph. Byz. in v.).

Kios is Mysian in Herodotus, v, 122: according to Skylax, the coast from the gulf of Astakus to that of Kios is Mysia (c. 93).

[380] Charon of Lampsakus, Fr. 7, ed. Didot. Χάρων δὲ φησὶ καὶ τὴν Λαμψακηνῶν χώραν προτέραν Βεβρυκίαν καλεῖσθαι ἀπὸ τῶν κατοικησάντων αὐτὴν Βεβρύκων· τὸ δὲ γένος αὐτῶν ἠφάνισται διὰ τοὺς γενομένους πολέμους. Strabo, xiii, p. 556; Conon, Narr. 12; Dionys. Hal. i, 54.

[381] Hekatæus, Frag. 204, ed. Didot; Apollodôr. i, 9, 18; Strabo, xii, pp. 564-575.

[382] Xanth. Fragm. 5, ed. Didot.

[383] Herodot. vii, 20-75.

[384] Strabo, vii, p. 295; xii, p. 550; Herodot. vii, 73; Hesych. v. Βρίγα.

[385] Strabo, vii, p. 295; xii, pp. 542, 564, 571, where he cites the geographer Artemidôrus. In the passage of the Iliad (xiii, 5), the Μυσοὶ ἀγχέμαχοι appear to be conceived by the poet in European Thrace; but Apollodôrus does not seem to have so construed the passage. Niebuhr (Kleine Schriften, p. 370) expresses himself more confidently than the evidence warrants.

[386] Strabo, xii, p. 572; Herodot. vii, 74.

[387] Diodor. iii, 59; Arrian, ii, 3, 1; Quint. Curt. iii, 1, 12; Athenæ. x, p. 415. We may also notice the town of Κοτυάειον near Μιδάειον in Phrygia, as connected with the name of the Thracian goddess Kotys (Strabo, x, p. 470; xii, p. 576).

[388] Herodot. viii, 138; Theopompus, Frag. 74, 75, 76, Didot (he introduced a long dialogue between Midas and Silenus,—Dionys. Halik. Vett. Script. Censur. p. 70: Theon. Progymnas. c. 2); Strabo, xiv, p. 680; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 2, 13.

[389] Strabo, xii, pp. 575-576; Steph. Byz. Μυγδονíα; Thucyd. ii, 99. The territory Mygdonia and the Mygdonians, in the distant region of Mesopotamia, eastward of the river Chaboras (Plutarch, Lucullus, 32; Polyb. v, 51; Xenophon, Anab. iv, 3, 4), is difficult to understand, since it is surprising to find a branch of these more westerly Asiatics in the midst of the Syro-Arabian population. Strabo (xv, p. 747) supposes it to date only from the times of the Macedonian conquest of Asia, which is disproved by the mention of the name in Xenophon; though this reading in the text of Xenophon is by some called in question. See Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten Geographie, part ii, sect. 98, p. 628.

[390] Iliad, iii, 188; Strabo, xii, p. 551. The town of Otrœa, of which Otreus seems to be the eponymus, was situated in Phrygia, just on the borders of Bithynia (Strabo, xii, p. 566).

[391] Archiloch. Fragm. 28 Schneid., 26 Gaisf.—

The passage is too corrupt to support any inference, except the near approximation in the poet’s mind of Thracians and Phrygians.

[392] Iliad, ii, 873; xiii, 792; Arrian, i, 29; Herodot. vii, 30. The boundary of the Phrygians southward towards the Pisidians, and westward as well as north-westward towards the Lydians and Mysians, could never be distinctly traced (Strabo. xii, pp. 564, 576, 628): the volcanic region called Katakekaumenê is referred in Xenophon’s time to Mysia (Anabas. i, 2, 10): compare the remarks of Kiepert in the treatise above referred to, Fünf Inschriften und fünf Städte, p. 27.

[393] Herodot. i, 72; vii, 30.

[394] Strabo, xiv, p. 678: compare xiii, p. 586. The legend makes Doliôn son of Silênus, who is so much connected with the Phrygian Midas (Alexand. Ætolus ap. Strabo, xiv, p. 681).

[395] Phorônis, Fragm. 5, ed. Düntzer, p. 57—

[396] Ephorus ap. Strabo, xiv, 678; Herodot. v, 49.

[397] See the learned and valuable Dissertation of Boeckh, De Metris Pindari, iii, 8, pp. 235-239.

[398] Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 5, 7, p. 1132; Aristoxenus ap. Athenæ. xiv, p. 624; Alkman, Frag. 104, ed. Bergk.

Aristoxenus seems to have considered the Phrygian Olympus as the great inventive genius who gave the start to Grecian music (Plutarch, ib. pp. 1135-1141): his music was employed almost entirely for hymns to the gods, religious worship, the Mêtrôa, or ceremonies, in honor of the Great Mother (p. 1140). Compare Clemen. Alexand. Strom. i, p. 306.

Μαρσύας may perhaps have its etymology in the Karian or Lydian language. Σούας was in Karian equivalent to τάφος (see Steph. Byz. v. Σουαγέλα): Μᾶ was one of the various names of Rhea (Steph. Byz. v. Μάσταυρα). The word would have been written Μαρσούας by an Æolic Greek.

Marsyas is represented by Telestês the dithyrambist as a satyr, son of a nymph,—νυμφαγενεῖ χειροκτύπῳ φηρὶ Μαρσύᾳ κλέος (Telestês ap. Athenæ xiv. p 617).

[399] Xenoph. Anab. i, 2, 8; Homer, Iliad, ii, 595; Strabo, xii, p. 578: the latter connects Olympus with Kelænæ as well as Marsyas. Justin, xi, 7: “Mida, qui ab Orpheo sacrorum solemnibus initiatus, Phrygiam religionibus implevit.”

The coins of Midaeion, Kadi, and Prymnêssus, in the more northerly portion of Phrygia, bear the impress of the Phrygian hero Midas (Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Vet. iii, pp. 143-168).

[400] Part i, ch. xv, p. 453.

[401] The fragment of Hippônax mentioning an eunuch of Lampsakus, rich and well-fed, reveals to us the Asiatic worship in that place (Fragm. 26, ed. Bergk):—

[402] Strabo, xii, pp. 564-575; Herodot. iv, 76.

[403] Herodot. v, 49. πολυπροβατώτατοι καὶ πολυκαρπότατοι.

[404] Herodot. i, 93-94.

[405] Τάριχος Φρύγιον (Eupolis, Marik. Fr. 23, p. 506, Meineke),—τυρὸς, Athenæ. xii, 516,—ἰσχάδες, Alexis ap. Athenæ. iii, 75: some Phrygians, however, had never seen a fig-tree (Cicero pro Flacco, c. 17).

Carpets of Sardis (Athenæ. v, 197); φοινικίδες Σαρδιανικαὶ (Plato, Comicus ap. Athenæ. ii, 48); Ἀεὶ φιλόμυρον πᾶν τὸ Σάρδεων γένος (Alexis ap. Athenæ. xv, p. 691, and again ib. p. 690); Πόδας δὲ Ποίκιλος μάσθλης ἐκάλυπτε Λύδιον καλὸν ἔργον (Sappho, Fragm. 54, ed. Schneidewin; Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 1174).

[406] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 6, 7; iii, 2, 23; Memorab. iii, 5, 26. ἀκοντισταὶ Μυσοὶ; Æschyl. Pers. 40. ἁβροδίαιτοι Λύδοι.

[407] Aristeid. Orat. xxvi, p. 346. The λόφος Ἄτυος was very near to this place Laneion, which shows the identity of the religious names throughout Lydia and Mysia (Or. xxv, p. 318). About the Phrygians, Aristeidês, Orat. xlvi, p. 308, Τῶν δὲ πλουσίων ἕνεκα εἰς τὴν ὑπερορίαν ἀπαίρουσιν, ὥσπερ οἱ Φρυγὲς τῶν ἐλαῶν ἕνεκα τῆς συλλογῆς.

The declamatory prolixities of Aristeidês offer little reward to the reader, except these occasional valuable evidences of existing custom.

[408] Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i, p. 27. Ἀνδράποδ᾽ ἐκ Φρυγίας, etc., the saying ascribed to Sokratês in Ælian, V. H. x, 14; Euripid. Alcest. 691; Strabo, vii, p. 304; Polyb. iv. 38. The Thracians sold their children into slavery,—(Herod. v, 6) as the Circassians do at present (Clarke’s Travels, vol. i, p. 378).

Δειλότερος λάγω Φρυγὸς was a Greek proverb (Strabo, i, p. 36: compare Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27).

[409] Philostrat. Vit. Apollon. viii, 7, 12, p. 346. The slave-merchants seem to have visited Thessaly, and to have bought slaves at Pagasæ; these were either Penests sold by their masters out of the country, or perhaps non-Greeks procured from the borderers in the interior (Aristoph. Plutus, 521; Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i, p. 27. Αἱ Παγασαὶ δούλους καὶ στιγματίας παρέχουσι).

[410] Phrygian slaves seem to have been numerous at Milêtus in the time of Hippônax, Frag. 36, ed. Bergk:—

[411] Theocrit. Idyll. xxii, 47-133; Apollon. Rhod. i, 937-954; ii, 5-140; Valer. Flacc. iv, 100; Apollodôr. ii, 5, 9.

[412] Iliad, ii, 138; xii, 97; xx, 219: Virgil, Georgic, iii, 270:—

Klausen (Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i, pp. 52-56, 102-107) has put together with great erudition all the legendary indications respecting these regions.

[413] Arrian, ii, 3; Justin, xi, 7.

According to another tale, Midas was son of the Great Mother herself (Plutarch, Cæsar, 9; Hygin. fab. 191).

[414] Herodot. i, 14, with Wesseling’s note.

[415] Herodot. i, 34.

[416] Pindar. ap. Athenæ. xiv, p. 635: compare Telestês ap. Athenæ. xiv, p. 626; Pausan. ix, 5, 4.

[417] Herodot. i, 84.

[418] Aristot. Mirabil. Auscultat. 52.

[419] Herodot. i, 94.

[420] Herodot. i, 11. αἱρέεται αὐτὸς περιεῖναι,—a phrase to which Gibbon has ascribed an intended irony, which it is difficult to discover in Herodotus.

[421] Herodot. i, 13. τούτου τοῦ ἔπεος ... λόγον οὐδένα ἐποιεῦντο, πρὶν δὴ ἐπετελέσθη.

[422] Plato, Republ. ii, p. 360; Cicero, Offic. iii, 9. Plato (x, p. 612) compares very suitably the ring of Gygês to the helmet of Hadês.

[423] See Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, pp. 34, 110, etc: compare Menke, Lydiaca, ch. 8, 9.

[424] See the article of O. Müller in the Rheinisch. Museum für Philologie Jahrgang, iii, pp. 22-38; also Movers, Die Phönizier, ch. xii, pp. 452-470.

[425] Diodor. ii, 2. Niebuhr also conceives that Lydia was in early days a portion of the Assyrian empire (Kleine Schriften, p. 371).

[426] Xanthi Fragment. 10, 12, 19, ed. Didot; Athenæ. x, p. 415; Nikolaus Damasc. p. 36, Orelli.

[427] Xanthi Fragm. 1, 2; Dionys. Halik. A. R. i, 28; Stephan. Byz. v. Τόῤῥηβος. The whole genealogy given by Dionysius is probably borrowed from Xanthus,—Zeus, Manês, Kotys, Asiês and Atys, Lydus and Torrhêbus.

[428] Herod, i, 14; Pausan. ix, 29, 2.

[429] Nikolaus Damasc. p. 52, ed. Orelli.

[430] Strabo, xiii, p. 590.

[431] Herodot. i, 15.

[432] Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 4, 7; 10, 11.

[433] Herodot. i, 95; Ktêsias, Fragm. Assyr. xiii, p. 419, ed. Bahr; Diodor. ii, 21. Ktêsias gives thirty generations of Assyrian kings from Ninyas to Sardanapalus: Velleius, 33; Eusebius, 35; Syncellus, 40; Castor, 27; Cephalion, 23. See Bahr ad Ctesiam, p. 428. The Babylonian chronology of Berosus (a priest of Belus, about 280 B. C.) gave 86 kings and 34,000 years from the Deluge to the Median occupation of Babylon; then 1,453 years down to the reign of Phul king of Assyria (Berosi Fragmenta, p. 8, ed. Richter).

Mr. Clinton sets forth the chief statements and discrepancies respecting Assyrian chronology in his Appendix, c. 4. But the suppositions to which he resorts, in order to bring them into harmony, appear to me uncertified and gratuitous.

Compare the different, but not more successful, track followed by Larcher (Chronologie, c. 3, pp. 145-157).

[434] Here again both Larcher and Mr. Clinton represent the time, at which the Medes made themselves independent of Assyria, as perfectly ascertained, though Larcher places it in 748 B. C., and Mr. Clinton in 711 B. C. “L’époque ne me paroit pas douteuse,” (Chronologie, c. iv, p. 157,) says Larcher. Mr. Clinton treats the epoch of 711 B. C. for the same event, as fixed upon “the authority of Scripture” and reasons upon it in more than one place as a fact altogether indisputable (Appendix, c. iii, p. 259): “We may collect from Scripture that the Medes did not become independent till after the death of Sennacherib; and accordingly Josephus (Ant. x, 2), having related the death of this king, and the miraculous recovery of Hezekiah from sickness, adds—ἐν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ συνέβη τὴν τῶν Ἀσσυρίων ἀρχὴν ὑπὸ Μήδων καταλυθῆναι. But the death of Sennacherib, as will be shown hereafter, is determined to the beginning of 711 B. C. The Median revolt, then, did not occur before B. C. 711; which refutes Conringius, who raises it to B. C. 715, and Valckenaer, who raises it to B. C. 741. Herodotus, indeed, implies an interval of some space between the revolt of the Medes and the election of Dêïokês to be king. But these anni ἀβασίλευτοι could not have been prior to the fifty-three years of Dêïokês, since the revolt is limited by Scripture to B. C. 711.” Again, p. 261, he says, respecting the four Median kings mentioned by Eusebius before Dêïokês: “If they existed at all, they governed Media during the empire of the Assyrians, as we know from Scripture.” And again, p. 280: “The precise date of the termination (of the Assyrian empire) in B. C. 711 is given by Scripture, with which Herodotus agrees,” etc.

Mr. Clinton here treats, more than once, the revolt of the Medes as fixed to the year 711 B. C. by Scripture; but he produces no passage of Scripture to justify his allegation: and the passage which he cites from Josephus alludes, not to the Median revolt, but to the destruction of the Assyrian empire by the Medes. Herodotus represents the Medes as revolting from the Assyrian empire, and maintaining their independence for some time (undefined in extent) before the election of Dêïokês as king; but he gives us no means of determining the date of the Median revolt; and when Mr. Clinton says (p. 280, Note O.): “I suppose Herodotus to place the revolt of the Medes in Olymp. 17, 2, since he places the accession of Dêïokês in Olymp. 17, 3,”—this is a conjecture of his own: and the narrative of Herodotus seems plainly to imply that he conceived an interval far greater than one year between these two events. Diodorus gives the same interval as lasting “for many generations.” (Diod. ii, 32.)

We know—both from Scripture and from the Phœnician annals, as cited by Josephus—that the Assyrians of Nineveh were powerful conquerors in Syria, Judæa, and Phœnicia, during the reigns of Salmaneser and Sennacherib: the statement of Josephus farther implies that Media was subject to Salmaneser, who took the Israelites from their country into Media and Persis, and brought the Cuthæans out of Media and Persis into the lands of the Israelites (Joseph. ix, 14, 1; x, 9, 7). We know farther, that after Sennacherib, the Assyrians of Nineveh are no more mentioned as invaders or disturbers of Syria or Judæa; the Chaldæans or Babylonians become then the enemies whom those countries have to dread. Josephus tells us, that at this epoch the Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes,—or, as he says in another place, by the Medes and Babylonians (x, 2, 2; x, 5, 1). This is good evidence for believing that the Assyrian empire of Nineveh sustained at this time a great shock and diminution of power; but as to the nature of this diminution, and the way in which it was brought about, it appears to me that there is a discrepancy of authorities which we have no means of reconciling,—Josephus follows the same view as Ktêsias, of the destruction of the empire of Nineveh by the Medes and Babylonians united, while Herodotus conceives successive revolts of the territories dependent upon Nineveh, beginning with that of the Medes, and still leaving Nineveh flourishing and powerful in its own territory: he farther conceives Nineveh as taken by Kyaxarês the Mede, about the year 600 B. C., without any mention of Babylonians,—on the contrary, in his representation, Nitokris the queen of Babylon is afraid of the Medes (i, 185), partly from the general increase of their power, but especially from their having taken Nineveh (though Mr. Clinton tells us, p. 275, that “Nineveh was destroyed B. C. 606, as we have seen from the united testimonies of the Scripture and Herodotus, by the Medes and Babylonians.”)

Construing fairly the text of Herodotus, it will appear that he conceived the relations of these Oriental kingdoms between 800 and 560 B. C. differently on many material points from Ktêsias, or Berosus, or Josephus: and he himself expressly tells us, that he heard “four different tales” even respecting Cyrus (i, 95); much more, respecting events anterior to Cyrus by more than a century.

The chronology of the Medes, Babylonians, Lydians, and Greeks in Asia, when we come to the seventh century B. C., acquires some fixed points which give us assurance of correctness within certain limits; but above the year 700 B. C. no such fixed points can be detected. We cannot discriminate the historical from the mythical in our authorities,—we cannot reconcile them with each other, except by violent changes and conjectures,—nor can we determine which of them ought to be set aside in favor of the other. The names and dates of the Babylonian kings down from Nabonassar, in the Canon of Ptolemy, are doubtless authentic, but they are names and dates only: when we come to apply them to illustrate real or supposed matters of fact, drawn from other sources, they only create a new embarrassment, for even the names of the kings as reported by different authors do not agree and Mr. Clinton informs us (p. 277): “In tracing the identity of Eastern kings, the times and the transactions are better guides than the names; for these, from many well-known causes (as the changes which they undergo in passing through the Greek language, and the substitution of a title or an epithet for the name), are variously reported, so that the same king frequently appears under many different appellations.” Here, then, is a new problem: we are to employ “the times and transactions” to identify the kings: but unfortunately the times are marked only by the succession of kings, and the transactions are known only by statements always scanty and often irreconcilable with each other. So that our means of identifying the kings are altogether insufficient, and whoever will examine the process of identification as it appears in Mr. Clinton’s chapters, will see that it is in a high degree arbitrary; more arbitrary still are the processes which he employs for bringing about a forced harmony between discrepant authorities. Nor is Volney (Chronologie d’Hérodote, vol. i, pp. 383-429) more satisfactory in his chronological results.