ince's protection, and
animated by the earnest exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah,
did at last finish the building of the temple, which had been interrupted
for many years by the cabals of their enemies. Artaxerxes was no less
favourable to the Jews than Darius: he first of all sent Ezra to
Jerusalem, who restored the public worship, and the observation of the
law; then Nehemiah, who caused walls to be built round the city, and
fortified it against the attacks of their neighbours, who were jealous of
its reviving greatness. It is thought that Malachi, the last of the
prophets, was contemporary with Nehemiah, or that he prophesied not long
after him.

This interval of the sacred history extends from the reign of Darius I. to
the beginning of the reign of Darius Nothus; that is to say, from the year
of the world 3485, to the year 3581. After which the Scripture is entirely
silent, till the time of the Maccabees.

Epochas of the Roman History.

The first year of Darius I. was the 233d of the building of Rome. Tarquin
the Proud was then on the throne, and about ten years afterwards was
expelled, when the consular government was substituted to that of the
kings. In the succeeding part of this period happened the war against
Porsenna; the creation of the tribunes of the people; Coriolanus's retreat
among the Volsci, and the war that ensued thereupon; the wars of the
Romans against the Latins, the Veientes, the Volsci, and other
neighbouring nations; the death of Virginia under the Decemvirate; the
disputes between the people and senate about marriages and the consulship,
which occasioned the creating of military tribunes instead of consuls.
This period of time terminates in the 323d year from the foundation of
Rome.

The second part, which consists of twenty-seven years, extends from the
43d year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, to the death of Darius Nothus; that is,
from the year of the world 3573, to the year 3600. It contains the first
nineteen years of the Peloponnesian war, which continued twenty-seven, of
which Greece and Sicily were the seat, and wherein the Greeks, who had
before triumphed over the barbarians, turned their arms against each
other. Among the Athenians, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades; among the
Lacedaemonians, Brasidas, Gylippus, and Lysander, distinguished themselves
in the most extraordinary manner.

Rome continues to be agitated by different disputes between the senate and
th