[532] Zeph. i. 1. [533] Jerem. i. 1; xxv. 3. [534] Jerem. iv. 6. [535] Jerem. vi. 1. [536] 2 Maccab. xii. 29. Strabo, p. 763; Joseph. "Antiq." 5, 1, 22, etc. Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 16; Steph. Byzant. [Greek: Skuthopolis]. [537] Justin, 1, 2-5. [538] Syncell. "Chron." p. 405, ed. Bonn. [539] Herod. 1, 6, 15, 16. [540] Hippocr. "De aero," c. 22. [541] "Ethic. Nicom." 7, 7 (8). [542] Vol. V., chap. 3. [543] Above, p. 164. [544] Nahum iii. 8. [545] Nahum ii. 13, 14; iii. 1-5, 12-15. [546] Nahum i. 8, 14; iii. 7-12; iii. 7, 13. [547] Zeph. ii. 13-15. [548] In Polyhistor Sardanapalus reigns over the Chaldæans for 21 years after Samuges. [549] In Athenæus, p. 553. [550] Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 37, ed. Schöne. Kiepert, "Monatsb. B. A.," 1873, s. 191. [551] Syncell. "Chron." p. 210, ed. Bonn. [552] Asdahag is the Armenian form in the Armenian Eusebius. [553] As we have the choice between the two eclipses of 610 and 584 B.C. the preference must be given to that of 610 B.C. Where the battle was fought between the Medes and Lydians we do not know; but we do know that in the year 584 B.C. Cyaxares and Nabopolassar were no longer alive. If we replace these names by Astyages and Nebuchadnezzar--although the children of the princes who conclude peace and alliance are expressly named as the parties contracting in marriage--and Astyages had no son, Nineveh had fallen long before 584 B.C., and Babylonia would not have had the least interest in bringing about a peace between Lydia and Media. On the contrary, Nebuchadnezzar, who had erected such enormous fortifications against Media, in order to secure his own weaker kingdom against any attacks of the Median power, would only have been too glad to keep Media engaged in the West by the continuance of the Lydian war. Yet that it was a question of the rescue of Lydia in the interest of Babylonia cannot be supported in the face of the assertion of Herodotus, that the fortune of arms was equal. As the dates given by Herodotus for the reigns of the Lydian kings have to be replaced by those of Eusebius (below, Chapter 17), the dating of the beginning of the war at the year 615 B.C. would allow the first three years to fall in the reign of Sadyattes; but in this there is no difficulty. [554] E. Schrader, "K. A. T.," s. 233. [555] G. Smith, "Disc.," p. 344. [556] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382. [557] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382. [558] Sayce, "Babylon. Litterature," p. 79, _seqq._ [559] "Anab." 3, 4, 7-9. [560] Euseb. "Chron." I., p. 37, ed. Schöne. [561] Syncell, "Chron." p. 396, ed. Bonn. [562] Strabo, p. 737. [563] Ezek. xxxi. 11-16; xxxii. 22, 23. CHAPTER XIII. EGYPT UNDER PSAMMETICHUS AND NECHO.