366 Lhe Samaritans and the 
Jews appealed to the Persian Court, for the ministers, 
bribed by the Samaritans, prevented the petitions from 
reaching the king. No change took place until the death 
of Cyrus, 529 B.c. Cambyses succeeded his father. He 
is called in Scripture, Ahasuerus, but he is not the same 
sovereign mentioned in the Book of Esther, who could 
have been none other than the silly Xerxes, the invader of 
early Greece. It was well known that Cambyses had been 
opposed to the policy pursued by his father towards the 
Jews ; and the Samaritans were not slow to take advantage 
of the opportunity afforded by a change of rulers. They 
memorialised the Persian Court, asserting that the Jews 
had been fortifying Jerusalem, as a preliminary step to 
throwing off their allegiance and declaring their indepen- 
dence. The ruse was completely successful. A firman 
was issued, suspending all further operations in Judea 
until a full and searching inquiry should be made, and the 
Samaritans, emboldened by this edict, compelled the Jews 
to desist from their purpose. 
No progress is made by the Hebrews until the death of 
the usurper, Smerdis, 521 B.C. when Darius ascends the 
throne. In the following year, the prophets Haggai and 
Zachariah urge the Jews to action and promise them help 
from above. They now apply themselves with great zeal; 
but the Samaritans, always on the alert, appeal to the™ 
Governor Tatnai, who calls upon the Jews to produce an 
authorization for the works they are constructing. They 
bring forward a copy of the edict of Cyrus and Tatnai 
applies for instructions to the Home Government. The 
original firman is discovered amongst the archives at 
Ecbatana and the Jews are permitted to rebuild the temple 
which is inaugurated about March, 516 B.c., in time for the 
solemnisation within its walls of the important festival of 
Passover. : 
Of the condition of the Jewish colony from this date 
until the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (458 B.C.) 
we know nothing. Ezra sets out from Babylon at the 
head of a second Hebrew colony, and finds affairs in a 
deplorable condition on his arrival in Palestine. He is a 
man of the highest moral worth but no statesman; and 
little or nothing is effected for the new colony during the 
thirteen years of his administration. A very important 
personage now appears upon the scene. Nehemiah, a man 
of considerable influence in the councils of Artaxerxes, 
solicits and obtains the appointment of Pacha of Judea; 
