II. ARPHAXAD, King of the Medes, of whom there is mention in the book of Judith. We take him to be the same with Phraortes, the Son and Successor of Dejoces King of the Medes1. See Herodotus’s Book the 1st, 97 and following Chapters. He says Phraortes first subdued the Persians, and afterwards made himself master of almost all Asia, passing successively from one Nation to another, with victory continually attending him; but that at last coming to attack Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire, he was overcome and killed, in the twenty second year of his reign. The book of Judith informs us, that he built Ecbatane, and was defeated in the great plains of Ragau, those probably which are about the City of Rages in Media. See Tobit i. 16. iii. 7. iv. 11. and our Comment upon Judith; see likewise F. Montfaucon concerning the Truth of Judith’s History.
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Footnotes
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Translators’ note. Herein our Author differs in opinion from the learned Prideaux, who thinks Arphaxad to be Dejoces and not Phraortes his Successor. For, as he observes, Arphaxad is said to be that King of Media, who was the founder of Ecbatane, which all other Writers agree to have been Dejoces. And the beginning of the twelfth year of Saosduchinus exactly agreeth with the last year of Dejoces, when this battel of Ragau is said to have been fought, &c. Prid. Connect. &c. Part 1. B. 1. ↩