Copy 1, Volume 2
Library of useful knowledge.
- Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
- Date:
- 1827-1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Library of useful knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
23/496 page 17
![Chapter VII. § ]. Lydia.—§ 2. Scythians ; Massa- getce ; Cimmerians.—§ 3. Assyri¬ ans ; Era of Nabonassar; Destruc¬ tion of the Kingdom of Israel; Egypt. —§ 4. Medes and Babylonians; De¬ struction of the Assyrian Kingdom.—• $ 5. Medes and Lydians.—§ 6. Baby- lonians ; Destruction of the Kingdom of Judah ; Capture of Tyre.—§ 7. Persians; Cyrus; Destruction of the Kingdoms of the Medes, Lydians, and Babylonians ; Restoration of the Jews.—§ 8. Cambyses ; Conquest of Egypt.—§ 9. Darius ; Scythian War; Conquests of Darius. § 1. The Lydians possibly belonged to the same national family with the Pelasgians. But their first monarch is said to have been Lydus, the son of Atys, of Assyrian blood. The princes of this race were succeeded by a family descended from Hercules; and these again about the year b. c., 718*, by the Mermnadse, of whom the first was Gyges. Their country bordered upon the districts on the coast of which the PEolian and Ionian colonies had been planted; and they were early distin¬ guished as an active, intelligent, and com¬ mercial people. Under the Mermnadse, the kingdom was gradually extended over the western part of Asia Minor ; and some of the Greek colonies were subdued. In the reign of Ardys, the son of Gyges, the Scythians are first heard of in history. § 2. Scythia is the country which extends from the mouth of the Ister, (Danube), and the north coast of the Euxine Sea, far northward and eastward into Europe and Asia. Its inhabitants were divided into several tribes, the man¬ ners of which, though differing in many particulars, still exhibited the same general character. They led a roving and savage life; and the traces of their cus¬ toms, and even of their habits of think¬ ing, may be still found plainly marked among their successors, the Tartars. It is said that, in very early times, being pressed in war by the tribes of the Mas- sagetse, their neighbours on the east, and probably of the same bloodf, they had forced their way across the Araxes, driving before them the Cimmerians $. * Clinton, Fas. Hel., p. 6. App., ch. xvii. Herodotus says, some persons say the tribe is a Scythian one. (I. 201.) Arrian and Diodorus assert the same. X This is the account selected by Herodotus, as the most probable, iv. 11. These last, probably differing little either in descent or character from the Mas- sagetse or Scythians, settled on the Cim¬ merian Bosporus and Tauric Cherso- nesus, now called Crim Tartary. There is ground for suspecting that the Cim¬ merians had made an incursion into Southern Asia, before the siege of Troy *. But, in the reign of Ardys, they were attacked by the Nomadic Scythians, and fled before them by the north of the Euxine Sea, over Mount Caucasus, and westward into Lydia. Here they made themselves masters of Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Their pursuers followed as far as Mount Caucasus; but this se¬ cond wave, instead of keeping the course of the preceding one, burst upon the empires more to the Eastf. §3. We have already intimated our doubts as to the accounts attributing to Nimrod the foundation of the ancient kingdom of Assyria, of which Nineveh was the capital. According to them, this kingdom continued from thence to the reign of Sardanapalus, under whom it was destroyed by the revolt of Belesis and Arbaces, and divided into the Ba¬ bylonian and Median empires, Sarda¬ napalus destroying himself. After this, it is said that Pul made himself master of the countries belonging to both Ba¬ bylonia and Media. The history given in the Scriptures seems to be nearly conclusive against this account; for it is very difficult to believe that, in the time of Sesac, any great Assyrian em¬ pire existed, or, indeed, much before the period at which we first hear of it in the Bible. Sir Isaac Newton therefore considers Pul as the first founder of this great empire, and places its origin at 790, b. c. There can be little doubt, however, but that a kingdom of some importance had long existed in this part of the world; but Pul may, perhaps, have been the first who gave any great extension to its boundaries %. Pui is said to have also founded Babylon. He attacked Israel in the reign of Menahem, who purchased peace at the price of * See Larcher’s note on Herodotus, I. 6. •{■ This is, at all events, a strange story. Sir W. Raleigh (Hist. W. xxviii., § 2., div. 2,) considers the Cimmerians to have been a colony seeking a set¬ tlement in Asia, assisted by an army of Scythians. % Different clvronologists probably dated the origin of the Assyrian empire from various points of its history, each considering some particular epoch of the importance of the nation as its real commence¬ ment. This would go far towai'ds accounting for the inconsistency of the dates, independently of the great quantity of fable which has gradually become incov porated with early oriental history. For the dif¬ ferent accounts see Larcher, Chron., Herod., ch. iii.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29324853_0002_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
