In the sacred commentary of the Persian rites these words are ascribed to Zoroastres; [484] [Greek:  Ho Theos esti kephalen echon hierakos. houtos estin ho protos, aphthartos, aidios, agenetos, ameres, anomoiotatos, heniochos pantos kalou, adorodoketos, agathon agathotatos, phronimon phronimotatos; esti de kai pater eunomias kai dikaiosynes, autodidaktos, physikos, kai teleios, kai sophos, kai hierou physikou monos heuretes.] Deus est accipitris capite:  hic est primus, incorruptibilis, aeternus, ingenitus, sine partibus, omnibus aliis dissimillimus, moderator omnis boni, donis non capiendus, bonorum optimus, prudentium prudentissimus, legum aequitatis ac justitiae parens, ipse sui doctor, physicus & perfectus & sapiens & sacri physici unicus inventor:  and the same was taught by Ostanes, in his book called Octateuchus.  This was the Antient God of the Persian Magi, and they worshipped him by keeping a perpetual fire for Sacrifices upon an Altar in the center of a round area, compassed with a ditch, without any Temple in the place, and without paying any worship to the dead, or any images.  But in a short time they declined from the worship of this Eternal, Invisible God, to worship the Sun, and the Fire, and dead men, and images, as the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Chaldaeans had done before:  and from these superstitions, and the pretending to prognostications, the words Magi and Magia, which signify the Priests and Religion of the Persians, came to be taken in an ill sense.

Darius, or Darab, began his Reign in spring, in the sixteenth year of the Empire of the Persians, Anno Nabonass. 227, and Reigned 36 years, by the unanimous consent of all Chronologers.  In the second year of his Reign the Jews began to build the Temple, by the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, and finished it in the sixth.  He fought the Greeks at Marathon in October, Anno Nabonass. 258, ten years before the battel at Salamis, and died in the fifth year following, in the end of winter, or beginning of spring, Anno Nabonass. 263.  The years of Cambyses and Darius are determined by three Eclipses of the Moon recorded by Ptolemy, so that they cannot be disputed:  and by those Eclipses, and the Prophesies of Haggai and Zechariah compared together, it is manifest that the years of Darius began after the 24th day of the eleventh Jewish month, and before the 24th day of April, and by consequence in March or April.

Xerxes, Achschirosch, Achsweros, or Oxyares, succeeded his father Darius, and spent the first five years of his Reign, and something more, in preparations for his Expedition against the Greeks:  and this Expedition was in the time of the Olympic Games, in the beginning of the first year of the 75th Olympiad, Callias being Archon at Athens; as all Chronologers agree.  The great number of people which he drew out of Susa to invade Greece, made AEschylus the Poet say [485]: