affinity, they conspired against the Assyrians; and Nabopolasser being now grown old, and Astyages being dead, their sons Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxeres led the armies of the two nations against Nineveh, slew Sarac, destroyed the city, and shared the Kingdom of the Assyrians.  This victory the Jews refer to the Chaldaeans; the Greeks to the Medes; Tobit, Polyhistor, Josephus, and Ctesias to both.  It gave a beginning to the great successes of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxeres, and laid the foundation of the two collateral Empires of the Babylonians and Medes; these being branches of the Assyrian Empire:  and thence the time of the fall of the Assyrian Empire is determined, the conquerors being then in their youth.  In the Reign of Josiah, when Zephaniah prophesied, Nineveh and the Kingdom of Assyria were standing, and their fall was predicted by that Prophet, Zeph. i. 1, and ii. 13. and in the end of his Reign Pharaoh Nechoh King of Egypt, the successor of Psammitichus, went up against the King of Assyria to the river Euphrates, to fight against Carchemish or Circutium, and in his way thither slew Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 29. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. and therefore the last King of Assyria was not yet slain.  But in the third and fourth year of Jehoiakim the successor of Josiah, the two conquerors having taken Nineveh and finished their war in Assyria, prosecuted their conquests westward, and leading their forces against the King of Egypt, as an invader of their right of conquest, they beat him at Carchemish, and [377] took from him whatever he had newly taken from the Assyrians:  and therefore we cannot err above a year or two, if we refer the destruction of Nineveh, and fall of the Assyrian Empire, to the second year of Jehoiakim, Anno Nabonass. 140.  The name of the last King Sarac might perhaps be contracted from Sarchedon, as this name was from Asserhadon, Asserhadon-Pul, or Sardanapalus.

While the Assyrians Reigned at Nineveh, Persia was divided into several Kingdoms; and amongst others there was a Kingdom of Elam, which flourished in the days of Hezekiah, Manasseh, Josiah, and Jehoiakim Kings of Judah, and fell in the days of Zedekiah, Jer. xxv. 25, and xlix. 34, and Ezek. xxxii. 24.  This Kingdom seems to have been potent, and to have had wars with the King of Touran or Scythia beyond the river Oxus with various success, and at length to have been subdued by the Medes and Babylonians, or one of them.  For while Nebuchadnezzar warred in the west, Cyaxeres