=8.= RETURN OF THE JEWS. It will be remembered that the Jews were now captives in Babylonia, where they had remained seventy years, since the destruction of their Holy City by Nebuchadnez´zar. Cyrus, who, like the Hebrews, was a believer in One God, found their pure religion an agreeable contrast to the corrupt and degrading rites of the Babylonians. He may have been moved by the prophecies of Isaiah, uttered nearly two centuries before, and those of Jeremiah at the time of the Captivity. (Isaiah xliv: 28, and xlv: 1-5; Jeremiah xxv: 12, and xxviii: 11.) He may also have had more selfish motives for favoring the Jews, in his designs upon Egypt, thinking it an advantage to have a friendly people established in the fortresses of Judah. In any case, he fulfilled the prophecies by giving orders for the return of the Israelites to their own land, and for the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem. The 5,400 golden and silver vessels of the House of the Lord were brought forth from the Babylonian treasury and delivered to the prince of Judah, who received the Persian title Sheshbaz´zar, corresponding to the modern Pasha´. Few of the original captives had survived, like Daniel, to witness the return; but a company of fifty thousand, men, women, and children, were soon collected from their settlements on the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, and moving toward their own land. (Read Ezra i, and ii: 1, 64, 65, 68-70.) On their arrival, the altar was immediately set up, the great festivals reëstablished, a grant of cedars from the forests of Lebanon obtained, and preparations made for rebuilding the Temple. =9.= Cyrus never accomplished in person his designs upon Egypt. He extended his conquests westward to the borders of Macedonia, and eastward to the Indus. Some of the conquered countries were left under the control of their native kings; some received Persian rulers. All were made tributary, but the proportion of their tribute was not fixed. The organization of this vast dominion was left to the successors of Cyrus. [Sidenote: B. C. 529.] =10.= His last expedition was against the Massa´getæ, a tribe which dwelt east of the Sea of Aral. The barbarians who roamed over these great northern plains had become formidable foes to the civilized empires of the south, but they were so thoroughly subdued by Cyrus that they troubled Persia no more for two hundred years. The victor, however, lost his life in a battle with Tom´yris, their queen, and the government and extension of his empire were left to the care of his son Camby´ses. =11.= In departing for his Scythian campaign, Cyrus had left his young cousin Dari´us in Persia, the satrapy of his father, Hystas´pes. The night after crossing the Arax´es, he dreamed that he saw Darius with wings on his shoulders, the one overshadowing Asia, and the other Europe. The time and the region were fruitful in dreams, and this had a remarkable fulfillment.