til the very time of his land
should come, and many nations and great Kings should serve themselves of
him_, Jer. xxvii. And at the same time God thus predicted the approaching
conquest of the _Persians_ by the _Medes_ and their confederates: _Behold_,
saith he, _I will break the bow of _Elam_, the chief of their might: and
upon _Elam_ will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven,
and will scatter them towards all those winds, and there shall be no nation
whither the outcasts of _Elam_ shall not come: for I will cause _Elam_ to
be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life; and
I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I
will send the sword after them 'till I have consumed them; and I will set
my throne in _Elam_, and will destroy from thence the King and the Princes,
saith the Lord: but it shall come to pass in the latter days, _viz. in the
Reign of _Cyrus_,_ that I will bring again the captivity of _Elam_, saith
the Lord._ Jer. xlix. 35, _&c._ The _Persians_ were therefore hitherto a
free nation under their own King, but soon after this were invaded,
subdued, captivated, and dispersed into the nations round about, and
continued in servitude until the Reign of _Cyrus_: and since the _Medes_
and _Chaldaeans_ did not conquer the _Persians_ 'till after the ninth year
of _Nebuchadnezzar_, it gives us occasion to enquire what that active
warrior _Cyaxeres_ was doing next after the taking of _Nineveh_.

When _Cyaxeres_ expelled the _Scythians_, [409] some of them made their
peace with him, and staid in _Media_, and presented to him daily some of
the venison which they took in hunting: but happening one day to catch
nothing, _Cyaxeres_ in a passion treated them with opprobrious language:
this they resented, and soon after killed one of the children of the
_Medes_, dressed it like venison, and presented it to _Cyaxeres_, and then
fled to _Alyattes_ King of _Lydia_; whence followed a war of five years
between the two Kings _Cyaxeres_ and _Alyattes_: and thence I gather that
the Kingdoms of the _Medes_ and _Lydians_ were now contiguous, and by
consequence that _Cyaxeres_, soon after the conquest of _Nineveh_, seized
the regions belonging to the _Assyrians_, as far as to the river _Halys_.
In the sixth year of this war, in the midst of a battel between the two
Kings, there was a total Eclipse of the Sun, predicted by _Thales_; [410]
and this Eclipse fell upon the