Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/319

 CHRONICLE.] is said to have consisted of 700,000 fighting men from his own kingdom, and 300,000 from his allies, also of 1200 ships of war and 3000 transports. Nevertheless he was defeated, and returned a fugitive to his country. Herodotus the historian, and Zeuxis the painter, flourished at this period.

A.M. 3489 [4837]. Artabanus reigned 7 months. Socrates is born.

A.M. 3529 [4877].

Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, or Longhanded, reigned 40 years. In the seventh year of his reign, on the first day of the first month, Esdras the priest, and a scribe of the law of God, went up from Babylon with letters from the king, and on the first day of the fifth month came to Jerusalem with 1700 men. Amonog his other noble acts, he separated the children of the captivity from their strange wives. In the twentieth year of the same reign, Nehemiah the cupbearer came from the city of Susa, and rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem in fifty-two days, and governed the people for twelve years. Hitherto the divine writings afford a continued chronicle. But the subsequent history of the Jews is presented to the reader from the book of the Maccabees, and the writings of Josephus and Africanus, who wrote a universal history from this period down to the times of the Romans. Africanus, in the fifth book of his Chronicles, thus speaks of this period:—The work, therefore, remained unfinished until Nehemiah and the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, which was the 115th of the Persian monarchy, and the 185th of the captivity of Jerusalem. And now for the first time Artaxerxes commanded the walls of Jerusalem to be built. Nehemiah superintended the work, and the street was built, and the walls raised. And from that time, if you reckon, you will find seventy weeks of years unto Christ.