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Rh his reign in carrying on the preparations, begun by his father, for the reduction of Egypt. He also confirmed to the Jews at Jerusalem ail the privileges granted to them by his father, and particularly that which assigned them the tribute of Samaria, for the supplying of them with victims for the temple of God.

In the second year of his reign he marched against the Egyptians, and having reduced and subdued Egypt, he made the yoke of their subjection more heavy; then giving the government of that province to his brother Achaemenes, he returned about the latter end of the year to Susa.

Xerxes, puffed up with this success against the Egyptians, determined to make war against the Grecians. He did not intend, he said, to buy the figs of Attica, which were very excellent, any longer, because he would eat no more of them till he was master of the country.

The war being resolved upon, Xerxes, that he might omit nothing which might contribute to the success of his undertaking, entered into a confederacy with the Carthaginians, who were at that time the most potent people of the west, and made an agreement with them, that whilst the Persian forces should attack Greece, the Carthaginians should fall upon the Grecian colonies that were settled in Sicily and Italy, in order to hinder them from coming to the aid of the other Grecians. The Carthaginians made Amilcar their general, who did not content himself with raising as many troops as he could in Africa, but with the money that Xerxes had sent him, engaged a great number of soldiers out of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, in his service; so that he collected an army of three hundred thousand men, and a proportionate number of ships, in order to execute the projects and stipulations of the league.

Thus Xerxes, agreeably to the prophet Daniel's prediction, having through his power and his great riches stirred up all the nations of the then known world against the realm of Greece, that is to say, of all the west under the command of Amilcar, and of all the east, that was under his own banner, set out from Susa, in order to enter upon this war, in the fifth year of his reign, which was the tenth after the battle of Marathon, and marched