p. 11 | The Seventh of Artaxerxes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 7, 1907

The Seventh of Artaxerxes

[The following foot-note in Dr. E. B. Pusey's “Lectures on Daniel the Prophet” may prove to be of some value in determining in what year the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus fell according to our modern chronology.—Ed.]

I HAVE adhered to the authoritative chronology of the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Diodorus (XI. 69) says that Xerxes was murdered by Artabanus, after reigning more than twenty years, when Lysitheus was Archon at Athens. Ol. 78. 4. B. C. 465. [“Ol.” is the abbreviation for “Olympiad,” which was “the period of four years between any two celebrations of the Olympic games,” and the reference should be read, “the fourth year of the seventy-eighth Olympiad, or B. C. 465.” The Olympiads were designated by number, the first being reckoned from the victory of Corebus in the foot-race, B. C. 776.—Ed.] “According to the Canon [of Ptolemy], he died N. E. 283, that is, after Dec. 17, B. C. 466, and before Dec. 17, B. C. 465, which coincides with the year of Lysitheus.”—Clinton. [Fast. Hell. B. C. 465.] Eusebius agrees with this. Manetho also assigns the same length to the reign of Xerxes, 21 years (quoted by Africanus ap. Syncell. p. 75, D. Clinton, F. H. c. 18. II 380, note). This length of reign corresponds with the dates assigned to his father Darius, and to Artaxerxes, to whom forty-one years are given by Manetho (Ib.), forty by Diodorus (Ib. and XI, 69), which agrees with Thucydides (IV, 50), who mentions his death in the Archonship of Stratocles B. C. 425-424. (Clinton, p. 380.) The accession of Artaxerxes after the seven months of the assassin Artabanus would fall in the middle of 464 B. C. [If Artaxerxes ascended the throne B. C. 464, it is plain that “the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king” (Ezra 7: 7) would be B. C. 457.—Ed.]