Ecbatana

ECBATANA, a city of Media, built by Herodot. l. 1. c. 98.Dejoces King of the Medes, and encompassed with seven walls, of unequal heights, and different colours: the largest of these walls, according to Herodotus, was equal in extent with those of Athens, that is to say, an hundred and seventy eight furlongs, or Thucyd. l. 1.three and twenty thousand three hundred paces, which make near eight leagues. The battlements of these walls were of different colours. The first were white, the second black, the third red, the fourth blue, the fifth a deep red, the sixth done over with silver, the seventh gilded. Herodotus attributes this whole work to¹ Dejoces: but in the first book of Judith, Arphaxad, whom we take to be the same as Phraortes, the successor of Dejoces, is said to have built Ecbatana.

Ecbatana was situated in old Media, and is often made a part of Persia. The Kings of Persia were used to pass the summer there, because of the freshness of the air. It Ezra vi. 2. באחמתאis said in the book of Ezra, that at Ecbatana in Media there was found a copy of Cyrus’s Edict, whereby the Jews were permitted to return into their own country. But several Interpreters translate Achmeta, which is the word in the original, a strong box, a press, a pitcher. This Edict was found in a press, which lay among the old records of Media. The book of Tobit places the city of Rages in the mountains of EcbatanaTob. v. 8. 2 Macc. ix. 3.. Lastly, in the Maccabees it is said, that Antiochus Epiphanes being at Ecbatana, had intelligence there that his armies in Palestine were routed.

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