recovered the Assyrian provinces of Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, and then they went eastward against the provinces of Persia and Parthia.  Whether the Pischdadians, whom the Persians reckon to have been their oldest Kings, were Kings of the Kingdom of Elam, or of that of the Assyrians, and whether Elam was conquered by the Assyrians at the same time with Babylonia and Susiana in the Reign of Asserhadon, and soon after revolted, I leave to be examined.

* * * * *

CHAP.  IV.

Of the two Contemporary Empires of the Babylonians_ and Medes._

By the fall of the Assyrian Empire the Kingdoms of the Babylonians and Medes grew great and potent.  The Reigns of the Kings of Babylon are stated in Ptolemy’s Canon:  for understanding of which you are to note that every King’s Reign in that Canon began with the last Thoth of his predecessor’s Reign, as I gather by comparing the Reigns of the Roman Emperors in that Canon with their Reigns recorded in years, months, and days, by other Authors:  whence it appears from that Canon that Asserhadon died in the year of Nabonassar 81, Saosduchinus his successor in the year 101, Chyniladon in the year 123, Nabopolassar in the year 144, and Nebuchadnezzar in the year 187.  All these Kings, and some others mentioned in the Canon, Reigned successively over Babylon, and this last King died in the 37th year of Jechoniah’s captivity, 2 Kings xxv. 27. and therefore Jechoniah was captivated in the 150th year of Nabonassar.

This captivity was in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign, 2 Kings xxiv. 12. and eleventh of Jehoiakim’s:  for the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign was the fourth of Jehoiakim’s, Jer. xxv. i. and Jehoiakim Reigned eleven years before this captivity, 2 Kings xxiii. 36. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5, and Jechoniah three months, ending with the captivity; and the tenth year of Jechoniah’s captivity, was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign, Jer. xxxii. 1. and the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in which Jerusalem was taken, was the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. lii. 5, 12. and therefore Nebuchadnezzar began his Reign in the year of Nabonassar 142, that is, two years before the death of his father Nabopolassar, he being then made King by his father; and Jehoiakim succeeded his father Josiah in the year of Nabonassar 139; and Jerusalem was taken and the Temple burnt in the year of Nabonassar 160, about twenty years after the destruction of Nineveh.