HKB
so then Astyages, Cyaxeres and Darius Reigned successively over the Medes; and Cyrus was the grandson of Astyages, and married the sister of Darius, and succeeded him in the Throne.
Herodotus therefore [404] hath inverted the order of the Kings Astyages and Cyaxeres, making Cyaxeres to be the son and successor of Phraortes, and the father and predecessor of Astyages the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, and telling us, that this Astyages married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes King of Lydia, and was at length taken prisoner and deprived of his dominion by Cyrus: and Pausanias hath copied after Herodotus, in telling us that Astyages the son of Cyaxeres Reigned in Media in the days of Alyattes King of Lydia. Cyaxeres had a son who married Ariene the daughter of Alyattes; but this son was not the father of Mandane, and grandfather of Cyrus, but of the same age with Cyrus: and his true name is preserved in the name of the Darics, which upon the conquest of Croesus by the conduct of his General Cyrus, he coyned out of the gold and silver of the conquered Lydians: his name was therefore Darius, as he is called by Daniel; for Daniel tells us, that this Darius was a Mede, and that his father's name was Assuerus, that is Axeres or Cyaxeres, as above: considering therefore that Cyaxeres Reigned long, and that no author mentions more Kings of Media than one called Astyages, and that Æschylus who lived in those days knew but of two great Monarchs of Media and Persia, the father and the son, older than Cyrus; it seems to me that Astyages, the father of Mandane and grandfather of Cyrus, was the father and predecessor of Cyaxeres; and that the son and successor of Cyaxeres was called Darius. Cyaxeres, [405] according to Herodotus, Reigned 40 years, and his successor 35, and Cyrus, according to Xenophon, seven: Cyrus died Anno Nabonass. 219, according to the Canon, and therefore Cyaxeres died Anno Nabonass. 177, and began his Reign Anno Nabonass. 137, and his father Astyages Reigned 26 years, beginning his Reign at the death of Phraortes, who was slain by the Assyrians, Anno Nabonass. 111, as above.
Of all the Kings of the Medes, Cyaxeres was greatest warrior. Herodotus [406] saith that he was much more valiant than his ancestors, and that he was the first who divided the Kingdom into provinces, and reduced the irregular and undisciplined forces of the Medes into discipline and order: and therefore by the testimony of Herodotus he was that King of the Medes whom Æschylus makes the first conqueror and founder of the Empire; for Herodotus represents him and his son to have been the two immediate predecessors of Cyrus, erring only in the name of the son. Astyages did nothing glorious: in the beginning of his Reign a great body of Scythians commanded by Madyes, [407] invaded Media and Parthia, as above, and Reigned there about 28 years; but at length his son Cyaxeres circumvented and slew them in a feast, and made the rest fly to their brethren in Parthia; and immediately after, in conjunction with Nebuchadnezzar, invaded and subverted the Kingdom of Assyria, and destroyed Nineveh.