alike held the opinion that Artaxerxes ascended the throne some 
nine years earlier than the date (B.C. 4G5) commonly assigned 
to that event, according to Ptolemy’s canon, for which they had 
the following evidence. Thucydides, who was born B.C. 471, 
and who may therefore be regarded as a contemporary writer, 
states that when Themistocles fled from Greece to Asia “ in the 
company of a certain Persian, he sent letters to Artaxerxes, 
newly come to the kingdom,” in which he referred to his own 
duty as ruler of the Athenians “ in resisting thy father, Xerxes, 
who invaded me,” &c.* Plutarch, in his “ Life of Themistocles,” 
relates that Charon, of Lampsacus, affirms the same thing, and 
that “ the opinion of Thucydides seems most agreeable to 
chronology.” Now, it would require a very prolonged investi- 
gation of the internal evidence of the history of Thucydides, 
who gives no dates, to discover the exact year for the flight of 
Themistocles ; we must, therefore, be content with the statement 
of Eusebius, who states in his “Chronicon”t that it took place 
in the fourth year of the 76th Olympiad = B.C. 473, i.e. eight 
or nine years earlier than the date of Artaxerxes’ accession 
according to Ptolemy’s canon. 
18. Now, this conclusion has been confirmed in a remarkable 
manner by some Egyptian monuments, which are very clearly 
represented in Burton’s “Excerpta Ilieroglyphica.” I believe 
the late Dr. Hincks, so distinguished for his skill in deciphering 
the cuneiform inscriptions, was the first to call attention to the 
importance of the monuments at Hammamat, on the Cosseir 
road, or highway from Persia to Egypt, near the lied Sea. 
They were erected by a Persian official named Artemis, who 
records that he “ held office in Egypt during five years of 
Cambyses, thirty-six years of Darius, and twelve years of 
Xerxes .” Although this is no proof that twelve years, in place 
of the twenty years assigned to him in Ptolemy’s canon, was 
the full extent of Xerxes’ reign, it appears to support the view 
that according to some twelve years was the extent of his sole 
reign, as is fully confirmed by another monument at the same 
place, which speaks of the sixteenth year of Xerxes and the fifth 
year of his son Artaxerxes as connumerary years. I think this 
certainly proves the truth of Whiston’s theory, who says, 
“ about the twelfth year of Xerxes he made his youngest son 
Artaxerxes king-regent, under the direction of his prime minister 
* Thucydides, Hist, of Grcc. War , i. § 137. 
t Olymp. LXXYI. iv. Themistocles in Fersas fugit ( Euscb . Pamphili 
Cccsaricnsis Chronicon. Divo Ilicronpmo Interpret, Basil, anno 1535.) 
