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of Ahab was exterminated, and had well A. M. B. C. nigh drawn that of the kings of Judah into destruction with it. King Ahaziah, son of Jehoram king of Judah, and of Athaliah, was slain in Samaria with his brethren, as a kinsman and friend to the children of Ahab. As soon as this news was brought to Jerusalem, Athaliah resolved to dispatch all that remained of the royal family, without sparing her own children, and to reign by the destruction of all her relations. Only Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah, a child yet in the cradle, was stolen from the fury of its grandmother. Jehoshieba sister of Ahaziah, and wife of Jehoiada the high-priest, hid him in the house of God, and saved that precious remnant of the house of David. Athaliah, who believed him murdered with the rest, lived without fear. Lycurgus now gave laws to Lacedemon*. He is blamed for having calculated them all for war, after the example of Minos, whose institutions he followed, and for not having provided for the modesty of the women, while he obliged the men to so laborious and temperate a life for the sake of making soldiers. Nothing was now stirring in Judea against Athaliah; she thought herself secured by a reign of six years. But God was bringing her up an avenger in the sacred sanctuary of his temple. When he had attained the age of seven years, Jehoiada made him known to some of the chief captains of the

*Plato de Rep. 1. viii. de leg. lib. i. Arist. Polit. lib. xi.

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A. M. B. C. royal army, whom he had carefully prepared; and with the assistance of the Levites, he crowned the young king in the temple. All the people readily acknowledged the heir of David and of Jehoshaphat. Athaliah, upon hearing the noise, came up to quell the conspiracy, and was dragged out of the temple, and received the treatment which her crimes deserved. long as Jehoiada lived, Jehoash caused the law of Moses to be kept. But after the death of that good priest, being corrupted by the flatteries of his courtiers, he gave himself up with them to idolatry. The 40 priest Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, made bold to reprove him; and Jehoash, unmindful of what he owed to his father, commanded him to be stoned. Vengeance quickly overtook him. The year following Jehoash, defeated by the Syrians, and fallen into contempt, was assassinated by his own servants; and Amaziah his son, a better man than he, was placed upon the throne. The kingdom of Israel, brought low by the victories of the kings of Syria, and by civil wars, recovered its strength under Jeroboam the II. more pious than his predecessors. Uzziah, otherwise called Azariah, the son of Amaziah, governed the kingdom of Judah with no less glory. This is that famous Uzziah, who was smitten with leprosy, and so many times reproved in Scripture, for having, in his latter days, presumed to take upon him the office of priest; and for having, contrary to the prohibition of the law, offered incense himself on the altar of per

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fumes. He was obliged to be separated A. M. B. C. from the people, notwithstanding he was king, according to the law of Moses; and Jotham his son, who was afterward his successor, governed the kingdom wisely. Under the reign of Uzziah, the holy prophets, the chief of whom at that time were Hosea and Isaiah, begun to publish their prophecies in writing, and in particular books, the originals whereof they deposited in the temple, to serve for a monument to posterity. The prophecies of lesser extent, and orally delivered, were registered, according to custom, in the archives of the temple, with the history of the times. The Olympic games, instituted by Hercules, and long discontinued, were renewed. From their revival are dated the Olympiads, by which the Grecians reckoned their years. At this period end the

times, which Varro calls fabulous, because till this date profane history is full of confusion and fables; and the historical times begin, in which the affairs of the world were related by more faithful and exact narratives. The first Olympiad is distinguished by the victory of Chorebus. They returned every fifth year, that is, after the revolution of four. Then, in an assembly of all Greece, first at Pisa, and afterward at Elis, were celebrated those famous combats, in which the victors were crowned with incredible applauses. Thus these exercises were held in honour, and Greece became daily more strong and more polished. Italy was still almost entirely sa

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A. M. B. C. vage. The Latin kings of the posterity of 776 Æneas reigned at Alba. Phul was king of Assyria. He is thought to be the father of Sardanapalus, called, according to the Eastern custom, Sardan Pul; that is, Sardan, the son of Pul. Some too are of opinion, that this Phul or Pul, was the king of Nineveh, who repented with all his 771 people at the preaching of Jonah. This prince, attracted by the troubles of the kingdom of Israel, marched to invade it; but being pacified by Menahem, he confirmed him in the throne he had just usurped by violence, and received, by way of acknowledgment, a tribute of a thousand talents. Under his son Sardanapalus, and after Alcmeon, the last perpetual Archon of the Athenians, that people, whose humour insensibly led them to a popular government, diminished the power of their magistrates, and reduced the administration of the Archons to ten years. The first of this kind was Charops. Romulus and Remus, descended of the ancient kings of Alba by their mother Ilia, restored to their grandfather Numitor the kingdom of Alba, which his brother Amulius had dispossessed him of; and immediately after they founded Rome, while Jotham reigned in Judea.

VII. Epoch. Romulus, or Rome founded.

THIS city, which was to be the mistress of the world, and afterward the principal seat of religion, was founded towards the

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end of the third year of the sixth Olympiad; A. M. B. C. about four hundred and thirty years after "3250 the taking of Troy, from which the Romans believed their ancestors sprang; and seven hundred and fifty-three years before Jesus Christ. Romulus brought up hardily among shepherds, and continually employed in warlike exercises, dedicated this city to the God of war, whom he called his father. Years of About the time when Rome was in its in- Rome fancy, happened the fall of the first Assyrian empire, through the effeminacy of Sardanapalus. The Medes, a warlike people, animated by the harangues of Arbaces their governor, set all the subjects of that effeminate prince the example of despising him. They all revolted against him; and he perished at last in his capital city, where he was forced to burn himself alive with his women, his eunuchs, and his riches. From the ruins of that empire we behold three great kingdoms arise. Arbaces, or Orbaces, by some called Pharnaces, gave liberty to the Medes, who, after a long anarchy, had some very powerful kings. Beside this, immediately after Sardanapalus, we see a second kingdom of the Assyrians appear, of which Nineveh continued to be the capital, and also a kingdom of Babylon. These two last kingdoms were not unknown to profane authors, and are celebrated in sacred history. The second kingdom of Nineveh was founded by Tilgath, or Tiglath, son of Pilezer, called for that reason, Tiglath-pileser, to whom some give also the name of Ninus the younger. Baladan, by the Greeks

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