according to both [401] Herodotus and Xenophon, gave his daughter Mandane to Cambyses a Prince of Persia, and by them became the grandfather of Cyrus; and Cyaxeres was the son of Astyages, according [402] to Xenophon, and gave his Daughter to Cyrus.  This daughter, [403] saith Xenophon, was reported to be very handsome, and used to play with Cyrus when they were both children, and to say that she would marry him:  and therefore they were much of the same age. Xenophon saith that Cyrus married her after the taking of Babylon; but she was then an old woman:  it’s more probable that he married her while she was young and handsome, and he a young man; and that because he was the brother-in-law of Darius the King, he led the armies of the Kingdom until he revolted:  so then Astyages, Cyaxeres and Darius Reigned successively over the Medes; and Cyrus was the grandson of Astyages, and married the sister of Darius, and succeeded him in the Throne.

Herodotus therefore [404] hath inverted the order of the Kings Astyages and Cyaxeres, making Cyaxeres to be the son and successor of Phraortes, and the father and predecessor of Astyages the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, and telling us, that this Astyages married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes King of Lydia, and was at length taken prisoner and deprived of his dominion by Cyrus:  and Pausanias hath copied after Herodotus, in telling us that Astyages the son of Cyaxeres Reigned in Media in the days of Alyattes King of Lydia. Cyaxeres had a son who married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes; but this son was not the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, but of the same age with Cyrus:  and his true name is preserved in the name of the Darics, which upon the conquest of Croesus by the conduct of his General Cyrus, he coyned out of the gold and silver of the conquered Lydians:  his name was therefore Darius, as he is called by Daniel; for Daniel tells us, that this Darius was a Mede, and that his father’s name was Assuerus, that is Axeres or Cyaxeres, as above:  considering therefore that Cyaxeres Reigned long, and that no author mentions more Kings of Media than one called Astyages, and that AEschylus who lived in those days knew but of two great Monarchs of Media and Persia, the father and the son, older than Cyrus; it seems to me that Astyages, the father of Mandane and grandfather of Cyrus, was the father and predecessor of Cyaxeres; and that the son and successor of Cyaxeres was called Darius. Cyaxeres, [405] according