should be done to the man whom the king delighted to honour? Whereon Haman, thinking this honour was intended for himself, gave advice, that the royal apparel should be brought which the king used to wear, and the horse which was kept for his own riding, and the crown royal which useth to be set upon his head, and that this apparel and horse should be delivered into the hands of one of the king's most noble princes, that he might array therewith the man whom the king delighted to honour, and bring him on horseback through the whole city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Whereon the king commanded him forthwith to take the apparel and horse, and do all this to Mordecai the Jew who sat in the king's gate, in reward for his discovery of the treason of the two eunuchs. All which Haman having been forced to do in obedience to the king's command, he returned with great sorrow to his house, lamenting the disappointment, and great mortification he had met with, in being thus forced to pay so signal an honour to his enemy, whom he intended at the same time to have hanged on the gallows which he had provided for him. And, on his relating of this to his friends, they all told him, that if this Mordecai were of the seed of the Jews, this bad omen foreboded, that he should not prevail against him, but should surely fall before him. While they were thus talking, one of the queen's chamberlains came to Haman's house to hasten him to the banquet, and seeing the gallows which had been set up the night before, fully informed himself of the intent for which it was prepared. On the king and Haman's sitting down to the banquet,h the king asked again of Esther, what was her petition, with like promise, as before, of granting of it to her even to the half of his kingdom. Whereon she humbly prayed the king, that her life might be given her at her petition, and her people at her request; for a design was laid for the destruction of her, and all her kindred and nation; at which the king asking with much anger, who it was that durst do this Esther vii. Josephus Antiq. lib. 11, c. 6. thing, she told him that Haman, then present, was the wicked author of the plot, and laid the whole of it open to the king. Whereon the king rose up in great wrath from the banquet, and walked out into the garden adjoining; which Haman perceiving, fell down before the queen upon the bed on which she was sitting, to supplicate for his life; in which posture the king having found him on his return, spoke out in great passion, What, will he force the queen before me in the house? At which words the servants present immediately covered his face, as was then the usage to condemned persons; and the chamberlain, who had that day called Haman to the banquet, acquainting the king of the gallows which he saw at his house there prepared for Mordecai, who had saved the king's life in detecting the treason of the two eunuchs, the king ordered that he should be forthwith hanged thereon; which was accordingly done; and all his house, goods, and riches, were given to queen Esther, and she appointed Mordecai to be her steward to manage the same. On the same day, the queen acquainted the king of the relation which Mordecai had unto her; whereon the king took him into his favour, and advanced him to great power, riches, and dignity in the empire, and made him the keeper of his signet, in the same manner as Haman had been before. m But still the decree for the destruction of the Jews remaining in its full force, the queen petitioned the king the second time to put away this mischief from them. But, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, nothing being to be reversed which had been decreed and written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's seal, and the decree procured by Haman against the Jews having been thus written and sealed, it could not be recalled. All, therefore, that the king could do, in compliance with her request, was to give the Jews, by a new decree, such a power to defend themselves against all that should assault them, as might render the former decree ineffectual; and for that end i Vide Brissonium de Regno Persarum, k Esther viii. 1 Esther viii. Josephus, lib. 11, c. 6. m Dan. vi, 8, 15. Esther i, 19; viti, '8 he bid Esther and Mordecai draw such a decree in words, as strong as they could devise, that so the former might be hindered from being executed, though it could not be annulled. And therefore the king's scribes being again called, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a new decree was drawn, just two months and ten days after the former; wherein the king granted to the Jews, which were in every city of the Persian empire, full license to gather themselves together, and stand for their lives; and to destroy, slay, and cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that should assault them, with their little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. And this decree being written in the king's name, and sealed with his seal, copies hereof were drawn out, and especial messengers were despatched with them into all the provinces of the empire. In the interim," Megabyzus having reduced the whole kingdom of Egypt, except the fenny part held by Amyrtæus, and there settled all matters again under the dominion of king Artaxerxes, he made Sartamas governour of that country, and returned to Susa, carrying with him Inarus and his Grecian prisoners. And having given the king an account of the articles he had granted them of life and safety, he obtained of him a ratification of the same, although with difficulty, because of the king's anger against them for the death of Achæmenides his brother, who was slain in battle against them. But Hamestris, the mother of both these brothers, was so eagerly set for the revenging of the death of her son, that she not only demanded, that Inarus and his Greeks should be delivered up to her to be put to death for it, contrary to the articles given them, but also required that Megabyzus himself, though her son-in-law, should undergo the same punishment, for granting them such articles as should exempt them from that just revenge, which in this case she ought to execute upon them. them. And it was with difficulty that she was for this time put off with a denial. * Ctesias. An. 452. Artax 15. The thirteenth day of Adar drawing near, when the decree obtained by Haman for the destruction of the Jews was to be put in execution, their adversaries every where prepared to act against them according to the contents of it. And the Jews, on the other hand, by virtue of the second decree abovementioned, which was obtained in their favour by Esther and Mordecai, gathered themselves together in every city where they dwelt, throughout all the provinces of king Artaxerxes, to provide for their defence; so that, on the said thirteenth of Adar, through the means of these two different and discordant decrees, a war was commenced between the Jews and their enemies throughout the whole Persian empire. But the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, the deputies, and other officers of the king, knowing in what power Esther and Mordecai were then with him, through fear of them, so favoured the Jews, that they prevailed every where against all that rose up against them; and, on that day, throughout the whole empire, slew of their enemies seventy-five thousand persons, and in the city of Shushan, on that day and the next, eight hundred more, among which were the ten sons of Haman, whom, by a special order from the king, they caused all to be hanged, perchance upon the same gallows, on which Haman their father had been hanged before. The Jews being thus delivered from this dangerous design, which threatened them with no less than utter extirpation, they made great rejoicings for it on the two days following, that is, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the said month of Adar. And, by the order of Esther and Mordecai, these two days, with the thirteenth that preceded them, were set apart and consecrated to be annually observed for ever after in commemoration hereof; the thirteenth as a fast, because of the destruction on that day intended to have been brought upon them, and the other two as a feast, because of their deliverance from it. And both this o Esther ix. Josephus Antiq. lib. 11, c. 6. p Esther ix, 20-22. Josephus Antiq. lib. 11, c. 6. q Talmud in Megillah. Maimonides in Megillah. Buxtorfii Synagoge Judaica, c, 29. fast and this feast they constantly observe every year on those days even to this time. The fast they call the fast of Esther, and the feast the feast of Purim, from the Persian word Purim, (which signifieth lots,) because it was by the casting of lots that Haman did set out this time for their destruction. This feast is the Bacchanals of the Jews, which they celebrate with all manner of rejoicing, mirth, and jollity; and therein indulge themselves in all manner of luxurious excesses, especially in drinking wine even to drunkenness, which they think part of the duty of the solemnity, because it was by the means of the wine banquet (they say) that Esther made the king's heart merry, and brought him into that good humour which inclined him to grant the request which she made unto him for their deliverance; and therefore they think they ought to make their hearts merry also when they celebrate the commemoration of it. During this festival, the book of Esther is solemnly read in all their synagogues from the beginning to the end, at which they are all to be present, men, women, children, and servants, because all these had their parts in this deliverauce which Esther obtained for them. And as often as the name of Haman occurs in the reading of this book, the usage is for them all to clap with their hands, and stamp with their feet, and cry out, Let his memory perish. This is the last feast of the year among them: for the next that follows, is the passover, which always falls in the middle of the month which begins the Jewish year. The Athenians, having provided themselves with another fleet, after the loss of that in Egypt," sent Cimon with two hundred sail again into An. 450. Cyprus, there to carry on the war against the Persians; where he took Citium and Malum, and seva eral other cities, and sent sixty sail into Egypt to the assistance of Amyrtæus. At the same time Artabasus was in those seas with a fleet of three hundred sail, and Megabyzus, the other general of king Artaxerxes, had a land army of three hundred thousand men on the coasts of Cilicia; but neither of them had the success in this war which they had in the last. For, r Plutarchus in Cimone. Thucydides, lib. 1. Diod. Sic. lib. 11. |