The Medes therefore Reigned ’till the taking of Sardes:  and further, according to Xenophon and the Scriptures, they Reigned ’till the taking of Babylon:  for Xenophon [422] tells us, that after the taking of Babylon, Cyrus went to the King of the Medes at Ecbatane and succeeded him in the Kingdom:  and Jerom, [423] that Babylon_ was taken by Darius King of the Medes and his kinsman Cyrus_:  and the Scriptures tell us, that Babylon was destroyed by a nation out of the north, Jerem. l. 3, 9, 41. by the Kingdoms of Ararat Minni, or Armenia_, and Ashchenez, or Phrygia minor___, Jer. li. 27. by the Medes, Isa. xiii. 17, 19. by the Kings of the Medes_ and the captains and rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominion_, Jer. li. 11, 28.  The Kingdom of Babylon was numbred and finished and broken and given to the Medes_ and Persians_, Dan. v. 26. 28. first to the Medes under Darius, and then to the Persians under Cyrus:  for Darius Reigned over Babylon like a conqueror, not observing the laws of the Babylonians, but introducing the immutable laws of the conquering nations, the Medes and Persians, Dan. vi. 8, 12, 15; and the Medes in his Reign are set before the Persians, Dan. ib. & v. 28, & viii. 20. as the Persians were afterwards in the Reign of Cyrus and his successors set before the Medes, Esther i. 3, 14, 18, 19. Dan. x. 1, 20. and xi. 2. which shews that in the Reign of Darius the Medes were uppermost.

You may know also by the great number of provinces in the Kingdom of Darius, that he was King of the Medes and Persians:  for upon the conquest of Babylon, he set over the whole Kingdom an hundred and twenty Princes, Dan. vi. 1. and afterwards when Cambyses and Darius Hystaspis had added some new territories, the whole contained but 127 provinces.

The extent of the Babylonian Empire was much the same with that of Nineveh after the revolt of the Medes. Berosus saith that Nebuchadnezzar held Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia and Arabia:  and Strabo adds Arbela to the territories of Babylon; and saying that Babylon was anciently the metropolis of Assyria, he thus describes the limits of this Assyrian Empire. Contiguous, [424] saith he, to Persia_ and Susiana are the Assyrians:  for so they call Babylonia, and the greatest part of the region about it:  part of which is Arturia, wherein is Ninus [or_ Nineveh;]_ and Apolloniatis, and the Elymaeans, and the Paraetacae, and Chalonitis by the mountain Zagrus,