Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/318

 246 In the seconnd vear of Darius, the seventieth year of the captivity of Jerusalem is completed, according to Eusebius, who cites the prophet Zechariah, where in the second year of Darius the angel says, O Lord of Hosts, how long will thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years? Again, in the fourth year of King Darius, it is written in the same prophet, When ye fasted and mourned these seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me? In the sixth year of Darius, the building of the temple is completed, on the third day of the month Adar, which is the forty-sixth year from that in which its foundations were laid under Cyrus. Hence the Jews say in the Gospel, Forty and six years was this temple in building. Now they began to build in the second year of Darius, in the sixth month, on the twenty-fourth day of the month; and, as has been said, in the sixth year, in the twelfth month, on the third day of the month, they completed it. From which it appears that the work had advanced in no small degree before that period, and that 70 years are to be computed from its destruction until full liberty was given for its restoration. The kings being expelled from the city, after it had been subject to their rule for 243 years, Rome with difficulty retained its dominion within a limit of 19 miles. The kings were succeeded first by consuls, beginning with Brutus, and then by tribunes of the people and dictators, and again by consuls, who governed the commonwealth for nearly 404 years, until Julius Caesar, who first grasped the sole authority in the 183rd [184th] Olympiad.

Xerxes, son of Darius, reigned 20 years. He recovers Egypt, which had revolted from Darius, and makes an expedition against Greece, in which his