banquet before the expedition against Greece, he issued his decree for the gathering together of maidens from the different parts of the empire, from whom he might choose a wife. Among these was Esther, who was chosen to be queen. “So Esther was taken unto King Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti.” F166 15. In 470 Athens sent out a fleet of two hundred ships, under the command of Cimon, to invade the coasts of Asia. He was joined by a hundred ships of the Asiatic Greeks, and with this combined fleet “he took in all the maritime parts of Caria and Lydia, driving all the Persians out of all the cities they were possessed of in those parts; and then, hearing that they had a great fleet on the coasts of Pamphylia, and were also drawing down thither as great an army by land for some expedition, he hastened thither with two hundred and fifty of his best ships in quest of them; and finding their fleet, consisting of three hundred and fifty sail, at anchor in the mouth of the river Eurymedon, and their land army encamped on the shore near by, he first assaulted their fleet, which, being soon put to the rout, and having no other way to fly except up the river, was all taken, every ship of them, and twenty thousand men in them, the rest having either escaped to land or been slain in the fight. After this, while his forces were thus flushed with success, he put them ashore and fell upon the land army, and
overthrew them also with a great slaughter; whereby he got two great victories in the same day, of which one was equal to that of Salamis, and the other to that of Plataea.”
16. “The next year [469] Cimon sailed to the Hellespont; and falling on the Persians who had taken possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, drove them out thence, and subjected their country again to the Athenians ...
After this he subdued the Thasians,... and then, landing his army on the opposite shore of Thrace, he seized all the gold mines on those coasts, and brought under him all that country as far as Macedon.” — Prideaux. F167 17. “From this time no more of Xerxes’s ships were seen in the AEgean Sea, nor any of his forces on the coast adjoining it, all the remainder of his reign,” which, however, continued but four years longer. In 465, about the
time of his twentieth year, Xerxes was murdered as the result of a conspiracy led by Artabanus, chief of the guard.
CHAPTER 12.
EMPIRE OF PERSIA AND MEDIA — ARTAXERXES TO DARIUS CODOMANUS.
ARTAXERXES, surnamed Longimanus (the long-armed f171), the son of Xerxes, out of much trouble, plot, counterplot, and murder,succeeded Xerxes in the throne of Persia, B.C. 464.
2. In B.C. 460 Egypt revolted, and Athens, to take further vengeance on Persia, joined the Egyptians. But, though the Persians were defeated and their army almost destroyed in the first battle, a greater army was sent into Egypt, and the allied forces were defeated in a great battle, and the whole fleet of the Athenians fell into the hands of the Persians. Egypt was again completely subjected to the Persian power, B.C. 455.
3. In 449 the Athenians again sent out a fleet of two hundred ships, under the command of Cimon. The fleet sailed to Cyprus, and first laid siege to Citium, on that island. There Cimon died; and for want of provisions, the Athenians were forced to raise the siege, and seek some place where their efforts would bring quicker returns. Having departed from Citium, as the fleet was “sailing past Salamis [in Cyprus], it found there a Cilician and Phenician fleet, consisting of three hundred vessels, which it immediately attacked and defeated, notwithstanding the disparity of number. Besides the ships which were sunk, a hundred triremes were taken and the sailors then landed and gained a victory over a Persian army upon the shore.” — Rawlinson. F172
4. “Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest he should lose Cyprus altogether, and thinking that, if Athens became mistress of this important island, she would always be fomenting insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace to the generals who were now in command. His propositions were favorably received. Peace was made on the following terms: Athens agreed to relinquish Cyprus, and recall her squadron from Egypt; while the king consented to grant freedom to all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and not to menace them either by land or water. The sea was divided between the two powers. Persian ships of war were not to sail to the west of Phaselis in the Levant, or of the Cyanean Islands in the Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we may assume, were not to show themselves east of
those limits. On these conditions there was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and the Persians, and neither nation was to undertake any expeditions against the territories of the other. Thus terminated the first period of hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly half a century, commencing B.C. 499 and ending B.C. 449, in the seventeenth year of Artaxerxes.” F173 The peace at this time concluded was called the
“Peace of Callias.”
5. In his seventh year, 457 B.C., Artaxerxes issued to Ezra the decree found in <150701>
Ezra 7, for the finishing of the temple and the complete establishment of the government of the Jews in Palestine.
6. Nehemiah was cup-bearer to this Artaxerxes; and in the twentieth year