The chronicle was first made known by Assemani's abridged Latin version (_B. O._ i. 260-283) and was edited in 1876 by the abbé Martin and (with an English translation) by W. Wright in 1882. After an elaborate dedication to a friend--the "priest and abbot" Sergius--a brief recapitulation of events from the death of Julian in 363 and a fuller account of the reigns of the Persian kings Peroz (457-484) and Balash (484-488), the writer enters upon his main theme--the history of the disturbed relations between the Persian and Greek Empires from the beginning of the reign of Kawad I. (489-531), which culminated in the great war of 502-506. From October 494 to the conclusion of peace near the end of 506, the author gives an annalistic account, with careful specification of dates, of the main events in Mesopotamia, the theatre of conflict--such as the siege and capture of Amid by the Persians (502-503), their unsuccessful siege of Edessa (503), and the abortive attempt of the Greeks to recover Amid (504-505). The work was probably written a few years after the conclusion of the war. The style is graphic and straightforward, and the author was evidently a man of good education and of a simple, honest mind. (N. M.) JOSIAH (Heb. _yo' shiyyahu_, perhaps "Yah[weh] supports"), in the Bible, the grandson of Manasseh, and king of Judah. He came to the throne at the age of eight, after the murder of his predecessor Amon. The circumstances of his minority are not recorded, nor is anything related of the Scythian inroads which occurred in the latter half of the 7th century B.C., although some passages in the books of Jeremiah and Zephaniah are supposed to refer to the events. The storm which shook the external states was favourable to the peace of Judah; the Assyrian power was practically broken, and that of the Chaldeans had scarcely developed into an aggressive form. Samaria thus lay within the grasp of Josiah, who may have entertained hopes of forming an independent power of his own. Otherwise, it is not clear why we find him opposing himself to the Egyptian king Necho, since the assumption that he fought as an Assyrian vassal scarcely agrees with the profound reforming policy ascribed to him. At all events, at the battle of Megiddo[1] he lost both his kingdom and his life (608 B.C.), and for a few years Judah was in the hands of Egypt (2 Kings xxiii. 29 seq.). The chronicler gives a rather different account of the battle, and his allusion to the dirge uttered by Jeremiah over his death (2 Chron. xxxv. 20-25; 1 Esd. i. 32) represents the tradition which makes this prophet the author of the book of Lamentations.