CHRONOLOGY OP THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAfl. 271 



B.C. 



Ctesias. 



Events. 





Years. 



Kings. 



Assur-daii-ilu succeeds. 







Sardanapalus dies 788 B.C. 



791 



28 



1. Arbaces. 



JliClipSc 



Ul OtlU. tolVd,!! l^»JUlJ,Cy. 



763 



Pin 



2. jVIaiidaucas. 









Sosarmus, 30 y. 



X ears. 





713 



OU 



3. Artycas. 



5[9] 



3. Deioces. 



654 



99 





22 



4. Fraortes. 



632 



4U 



ArtsGus, 



40 



5. Cyaxares. 







Artynes, 22 y. 





(28 y. Scythians.) 







Astybaras 40 y. 







592 





6. Aspadae. 



35 



6. Astyages. 









128 + 



28 stated sum. 



557 







29 



7. Cyrus. 



551 









Astyages surrenders. 



528 







7,5 



8. Cambyses. 



521 









9. Darius. 



Herodotus gives only 4 kings before Cyrus and for the first 

 king Deioces 53 years ; but his sum, 128 years, excluding the 

 28 under Scythian rule in the time of Cyaxares, or 156 includ- 

 ing them, requires an addition of 6 years to the reign of 

 Deioces. His number for Cyrus is reckoned from an earlier 

 epoch than the final surrender of Astyages, which as well as the 

 epoch of Darius have fixed historical dates 551 and 521. His 

 list only takes us back to 713. But Darius himself states that 

 he had eight predecessors. There are two wanting. Ctesias 

 supplies five, of whom two are evidently replicas of their 

 predecessors ; Artynes of Arbianes and Astybaras of Artseus ; 

 they reproduce the numbers precisely and are omitted by 

 Herodotus. Taking Sosarmus as the third to be omitted, we get 

 as the date of Artseus' accession 791. If then there be, as I 

 believe, a historical foundation for the story of Sardanapalus, 

 Arbaces conquered him in 788, the 3rd or 4th year of his reign, 

 and ruled over Assyria until 764, the year before the eclipse. 

 That during this foreign reign the institution of eponyms 

 should have been suspended is surely not incredible, and in the 

 " list of governors " there is a line* corresponding with the 



An unexplained line in Htnslowe's Diary of exactly similar nature 

 gave me the first clue to the change of theatrical companies a.d. 1594, 

 and was the foundation stone of my History of the English Stage. 



