sackcloth, and put ashes on their heads, and cried unto the God of Israel_ that he would not give their wives and their children and cities for a prey, and the Temple for a profanation:  and the High-priest, and all the Priests put on sackcloth and ashes, and offered daily burnt offerings with vows and free gifts of the people_, Judith iv. and then began Josiah to seek after the God of his father David:  and after Judith had slain Holofernes, and the Assyrians were fled, and the Jews who pursued them were returned to Jerusalem, they worshipped the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and gifts, and continued feasting before the sanctuary for the space of three months, Judith xvi. 18, and then did Josiah purge Judah and Jerusalem from Idolatry.  Whence it seems to me that the eighth year of Josiah fell in with the fourteenth or fifteenth of Nabuchodonosor, and that the twelfth year of Nabuchodonosor, in which Phraortes was slain, was the fifth or sixth of Josiah. Phraortes Reigned 22 years according to Herodotus, and therefore succeeded his father Dejoces about the 40th year of Manasseh, Anno Nabonass. 89, and was slain by the Assyrians, and succeeded by Astyages, Anno Nabonass. 111. Dejoces Reigned 53 years according to Herodotus, and these years began in the 16th year of Hezekiah; which makes it probable that the Medes dated them from the time of their revolt:  and according to all this reckoning, the Reign of Nabuchodonosor fell in with that of Chyniladon; which makes it probable that they were but two names of one and the same King.

Soon after the death of Phraortes [375] the Scythians under Madyes or Medus invaded Media, and beat the Medes in battle, Anno Nabonass. 113, and went thence towards Egypt, but were met in Phoenicia by Psammitichus and bought off, and returning Reigned over a great part of Asia:  but in the end of about 28 years were expelled; many of their Princes and commanders being slain in a feast by the Medes under the conduct of Cyaxeres, the successor of Astyages, just before the destruction of Nineveh, and the rest being soon after forced to retire.

In the year of Nabonassar 123, [376] Nabopolassar the commander of the forces of Chyniladon the King of Assyria in Chaldaea revolted from him, and became King of Babylon; and Chyniladon was either then, or soon after, succeeded at Nineveh by the last King of Assyria, called Sarac by Polyhistor:  and at length Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, married Amyite the daughter of Astyages and sister of Cyaxeres; and by this marriage the two families having contracted