Although Josephus in his “Antiquities” has generally reckoned the 70 years of the Captivity from the Destruction of the Temple to the 1st year of Cyrus, which is contrary to the true chronology and to the Canon of Ptolemy, yet we have evidence in his “Jewish War” that he was perfectly acquainted with the correct period of 52 years, which we have shown in our _first Part_, at pp. 80, 81, to be the true interval. Thus, in Book vi. 4, 8, of the latter work, when speaking of the Destruction of the Temple, he says, “and from the _first_ foundation which King Solomon laid, till the present destruction, which happened in the 2d year of the Emperor Vespasian, are reckoned 1130 years 7 months and 15 days; but from the _second_, which Haggai effected in the 2d year of Cyrus the king, till the destruction under Vespasian, 639 years and 45 days.”[116] Not to dwell on the glaring anachronism of referring the _foundation_ of the temple in the 2nd year of Cyrus (Ezra iii. 8), to the _renewal_ of the work of building it in the 2nd year of Darius (Ezra iv. 24, and v. 1), it is plain that the difference between the two periods mentioned in this passage, viz. 491½ years, is the true interval from the destruction of Solomon’s temple to the foundation of the second Temple in the 2nd year of Cyrus; for omitting the half-year, as the 2nd year had just commenced at the latter epoch (Ezra iii. 8), and subtracting the 52 years above mentioned, from 491 years, we have the remainder 439 years, for the true Extent of the _Fifth age_ as before. The proof, however, that he was acquainted with the true interval, at least within a year or two, is manifest from a passage which occurs in his 1st Book _against Apion_, sect. 21; where he says, “For it is written in them [the Hebrew Scriptures] that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed our temple in the 18th year [the 19th year, 2 Kings xxv. 8] of his reign, and it was in ruins for 50 years; but in the 2nd year of the reign of Cyrus, the foundations were laid, and in the 2nd again of the reign of Darius they were finished.”[117] The difference of 2 years is easily accounted for by supposing that he took the reign of Cyrus in Babylon at 9 years, according to some copies of the Canon of Ptolemy, instead of 7 years, according to Scripture, that is, by supposing his reign to have begun 2 years earlier than the true period. He appears, however, to have tacked these two years to the true interval in question, in another chapter of the same book, viz. “Jewish War,” vi. 10; where, speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, he says “David, King of the Jews, having expelled the people of the Canaanites, made his own inhabit it; and 477 years 6 months afterwards, it was destroyed by the Babylonians.”[118] Now as David reigned 33 years in Jerusalem, and the temple was founded in the 4th year of Solomon, if we subtract 36 years from the preceding number, we obtain 441½ years for the period