Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/241

ASSYRIANS AND MEDES. 225 upon Grecian affairs. Those inhabitants of Upper Asia, with whom the early Greeks had relation, were the Medes, and the Assyrians or Chaldseans of Babylon, both originally subject to the Assyrians of Nineveh, both afterwards acquiring independ- ence, and both ultimately embodied in the Persian empire. At what time either of them became first independent, we do not know : l the astronomical canon which gives a list of kings of Here again both Larcher and Mr. Clinton represent the time, at i hich iLt Medes made themselves independent o Assyria, as perfectly ascertained, though Larcher places it in 748 B.C., and Mr. Clinton in 711 B. c. "L'e'po- quo ne me paroit pas douieuse," (Chronologic, 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 tho death of this king, and the miraculous recovery of Hezekiah from sickness, adds iv TOVTU rw ^fpovw owe/377 rijv rH>v 'Aaavpiuv apx?/v vxb Mf/Suv Kara- ?.v&f]va.i. But the death of Sennacherib, as will be shown hereafter, is de- termined to the beginning of 711 B. c. The Median revolt, then, did not occur before B. c. 711 ; which refutes Conringitis, 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 Defokes to be king. But these anni ufiaaifavrot, could not have been prior to the fifty-three years of Defokus, since the revolt is limited by Scripture to B. c. 711." Again, p. 261, he says, respecting the four Median kings men- tioned by Eusebius before Defokes : ' : 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; bat 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 enpire by the Medes. Herodotus represents the Modes as revolting from the, Assyrian empire, and maintaining their independence fur some time (f'.ndefined in extent) before the election of Deiokes as king; but he gives IK no means of determining the date of the Median revolt ; and when Mr. Clinton says (p. 280, Note 0.) : "I suppose Herodotus to place the revolt cf the Medes in Olymp. 17, 2, since he places the accession of Defoke.s 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 greatei than one year between these two events. Diodorus gives the same inter?* R.; lasting "for many generations." (Diod. ii, 32.) VOL. III. 10* 150C.