CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

How Greek History Was Corrupted

It is not generally admitted. But Homer, the famous epic poet of Greece, was mad. His "Iliad" and "Odyssey" -- recording the events surrounding the Greek struggles with Troy -- were written while Homer was demented.
Homer was not merely an insane poet. He was also a mad historian. Through Homer Greek history was altered, with diabolical cleverness. Homer telescoped three Greek wars with Troy into one. Men and events five centuries apart are artificially joined together as if contemporary. Recent archaeological investigation at Troy reveals Homer's lie. There are three wars layers -- the first and last separated by about five centuries' (See C. W. Blegen's "Troy," in the revised edition of the "Cambridge Ancient History".)
Little wonder Paul the apostle wrote of Homer -- and of Hesiod and the other demented poets: "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying ..." (I Timothy 1:4).

Greeks Admit Homer Was Demented

No poet in ancient Greece was ever considered worthy of special honor unless he was demented. Democritus "denies that any one can be a great poet, unless he is mad," wrote Cicero (Cicero, "Divin"., i, 80). Homer was therefore mad.
Plato described the unusual kind of insanity that clutched the minds of Greece's great poet-historians and philosophers. In the "Phaedrus" Plato characterizes "poetic inspiration" as the "state of being possessed by the Muses" -- a kind of "madness, which, on entering a delicate and virgin soul, arouses and excites it to frenzy in odes and other kinds of poetry .... But he that is without the Muses' madness when he knocks at the doors of Poesy, fancying that art alone will make him a competent poet, -- he and his poetry, the poetry of sober sense, will never attain perfection, but will be eclipsed by the poetry of inspired madmen" (245 A). Again, in the "Laws" Plato wrote that "whenever a poet is enthroned on the tripod of the Muse, he is not in his right mind" (719 C). In "Ion" the Greek theory of "inspiration" is most thoroughly expressed: "It is not by art, but by being inspired and possessed, that all good epic poets produce their beautiful poems they are dancing, even so the melic poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains. On the contrary, when they have fallen under the spell of melody and metre, they are like inspired revellers, and on becoming possessed, -- even as the Maenads are possessed and not in their right senses ... the soul of the melic poets acts in like manner, as they themselves admit .... And what they say is true; for the poet ... cannot compose until he becomes inspired and out of his senses, with his mind no longer in him; but, so long as he is in possession of his senses, not one of them is capable of composing, or of uttering his oracular sayings" (533 E-534 D).
In Biblical terms, Homer and all the famous Greek poet-historians were possessed of demons. It was not really the poets or philosophers who uttered the sayings, but the demon, masquerading as God, "who is the speaker, and it is THROUGH them that he is speaking to us," concluded the author of "Ion".
The conclusion is absolutely clear. History has purposely been perverted by the diabolical influence of fallen spirits who seized the minds of poet-historians, such as Homer and Hesiod, and through them twisted the events of antiquity. Jesus Himself declared that Satan, the prince of demons, "deceiveth the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). One of Satan's clever artifices is manifest in the form of corrupted history! This diabolical plot to make God and His Word appear untrue has deceived the whole world.

The Plot Centers on Troy

The final fall of Troy in 677 occurred at the close of the reign of Thuoris (694-677) of Egypt. Eusebius confused this Thuoris with the later queen Twosre and placed the event in her last year of reign. (See the restoration of Egyptian history in this Compendium.) The year 677 marked the rise of Media (according to Herodotus) to power in Asia Minor east of the Halys river.
The third fall of Troy in 677 climaxed a ten-year siege of the city. A Greek victory had once before occurred -- about 504 years before, in 1181. Another war, ending in 1149 -- and to be discussed later -- is generally unreported in Greek annals, for it was a Greek defeat!
Archaeology finds evidence of all three wars. Homer's epics deliberately associate the leaders and events of the third war with those of the first war. By so doing half of the history of ancient Greece was made to appear over five centuries too early. Events that transpired between 1181 and 677 were pushed back to the period 1685-1181.
The same diabolical conspiracy that worked through Homer in Greece also worked through the priesthood of Egypt. Its dynasties were deliberately placed successively so that sections of Egyptian history appeared five centuries earlier. Similar diabolic manipulations occurred in Mesopotamia. When later Greek, Roman, and now modern critics and historians found Homer in apparent agreement with the altered Egyptian and Mesopotamian data, they never thought to question Homer or the Egyptian records. The conspiracy -- the deception -- was so thorough, so far superior to human ingenuity that the whole world has been deceived by it.

Homer and the Lydian Kings

To perpetuate this deception -- for the critics and historians cannot admit they have been deceived -- we are told that Homer lived several centuries before 677, in fact, near the time of the first Greek war with Troy.
If Homer lived at that early period, counter the critics, how could Homer have been responsible for a clever twisting of historical events that occurred long after he was dead?
The answer is, Homer's own writings date his life to the time of Gyges, king of Lydia. Homer mentions "'the Gygaean lake,' so called from Gyges, king of Lydia" (J. S. Watson's footnote to Alexander Pope's translation).
Before proceeding further, it is important to inset the kings of Lydia, from which the date of Homer may be determined. Herodotus is absolutely correct in his list of late Lydian kings. Modern historians attempt arbitrarily to shorten the reigns of the Lydian monarchs. Following is a list of the last royal family -- the Mermnadae -- to rule Lydia to the time of Cyrus, king of Persia.

Mermnadae Kings of Lydia	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Gyges	38	716-678
Ardys	49	678-629
Sadyattes	12	629-617
Alyattes	57	617-560
Croesus	14	560-546

In 546 Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was overthrown.
Prior to the Mermnadae, another line of kings governed Lydia -- the Heraclidae. Their rule lasted 22 generations during 505 years -- 1221-716 (Herodotus, I, 7).
The history of the kingdom of Lydia, settled heavily by the children of Lud, son of Shem, has been lost. All that has been preserved are a few fragments of Xanthus' history of his nation.

Restoring Greek History

The modern interpretation of ancient Grecian civilization is a paradox. Strange though it may seem, historians today reject the valid history of Greece as error and take for granted the Homeric fable of the Trojan War!
It is time history students were told why the traditional histories of Athens, of Sparta, Sicyon and Corinth have been rejected -- and why confusion rules the dates of the Trojan War. This kind of twisted thinking took its rise in the German literary criticism of the eighteenth century. In the German schools all antiquity was rejected in total as fabulous. None of the ancients knew how to write, the critics assumed. And oral tradition was at best a weak link. Within a century the historians, trained in this literary atmosphere, began to assume the same rationalist explanations of the past. With no history left by which their speculations could be judged, the historians were free -- so they thought -- to reconstruct the Aegean world. Even the Trojan War was called into question as fabulous. It barely passed muster.
But what the historians never thought to query was the general date of the last Trojan War. The literary critics wanted to believe in the early dating of the war with Troy to make it appear as folklore. Historians, newly entering the critical field, accepted as valid the literary critics' supposition of one early Trojan War. It never occurred to them that the period of the last war over Troy had been confused with the first war and the contemporary kings of Argos and Mycenae. Once the dates of the three major Trojan Wars are determined. the problems in Greek history vanish.

Kings of Corinth

The chronological history of Greece commences later than the Tower of Babel. Hence it is necessary to begin with more recent times and build up the history of early Greece to its beginning. The starting point will be the city-state Corinth, whose dates will be immediately confirmed by those of Athens. The kings of Corinth ruled for 323 years. They were followed by a constitutional oligarchy for 90 years, then by the Tyranny of the Cypselidae. The dates of the Cypselidae are determined from nearly contemporary sources.
It should be noted that late traditional dating in the Greek world was made to conform to the Olympiads, which began at the summer solstice. The following lists may therefore generally be considered June-to-June calendar years.
The rule of the Cypselidae Tyranny lasted 73 and 1/2 years, according to Aristotle ("Politics", 1315b). It dates from 656 (June) to 583 (December). The founder of the tyranny, Cypselus, reigned altogether 30 years -- 656-626. According to Eusebius, however, he associated his son Periander with him in the government in 628, after 28 years. Periander, according to Aristotle, ruled altogether 44 years until his death in 584. The date of the death of the tyrant Periander is given by Diogenes Laertius in "Periandros". Laertius, quoting Sosikrates, places it at the end of Olympiad 48, 4, immediately before Olymplad 49, 1. As the Olympiads commenced in 776, the 48th Olympiad ended at the summer solstice in 584. (Each Olympiad consists of 4 years.)
The last of the Corinthian tyrants was Psammetichus, the brother or nephew of Periander. He ruled three years according to Aristotle -- 586-583 (December to December). Psammetichus came to the government SIX MONTHS AFTER Periander had completed his 40th year (reckoned from the death of Cypselus in 626), or his 42nd year (reckoned from the beginning of his reign in 628). The Armenian version of Eusebius assigns to Periander 43 years, including the calendar year in which Psammetichus came to the government.
The commencement of the Corinthian Tyranny by Cypselus in 656 marked the overthrow of the Constitutional Oligarchy. The Constitution lasted altogether 90 years -- 746-656. In the year 746 the last of the early kings of Corinth was overthrown. The revolt ended 323 years of kingship. The following chart lists the kings of Corinth from the beginning of their rule in 1069 to the revolt of 746. The significance of the year 1069 will be discussed under the history of Athens.

Kings of Corinth	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Aletes	35	1069-1034
Ixion	37	1034- 997
Agelaus	37	997- 960
Prymnus	34	960- 926
	(or 35)	(960- 925)
Bacchis	36	926- 890
	(or 35)	(925- 890)
Agelas	30	890- 860
Eudemus	25	860- 835
Aristomedes	35	835- 800
Agemon	16	800- 784
Alexander	25	784- 759
Telestes	12	759- 747
Automenes	1	747- 746
The Constitution	90	746- 656
The Tyranny	73 1/2	656- 583

The History of Athens

Athens was for centuries, as it is today, the chief city of Greece. Its early history focuses on the year 1069 when an Athenian victory combined with a great earthquake to rekindle the myth of the "fall of Atlantis."
Modern writers reject Athens' early history altogether of course, they have never disproved it. Their only argument is the falacious assumption that the Greeks could not have known their own history!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Asia Minor and the West

The journeys of the apostle Paul have made Asia Minor an important area of New Testament studies. In apostolic times the region was under Roman dominion. The inhabitants were primarily Greek, with a heavy influx of Jews into the cities of the southeastern provinces. Scattered remnants of earlier peoples existed, primarily Armenians.
Today the Turk inhabits Asia Minor. But neither Turk nor Greek were the original peoples of the plains and mountains of Anatolia. Until the advent of archaeology, the history of Asia Minor was almost unknown before the Greek period. Classical writers indeed preserved marvelous tales of the region -- of the Golden Fleece -- of the Trojan War (there were really three wars!) -- of King Midas -- of Amazons -- of the Phrygians who later migrated into Europe.

Modern Mythology

The Greeks turned the facts of Anatolia's history into myths. Unfortunately the archaeologist and the modern historian, discarding both Greek myth and historical fact, have created new and more fabulous myths.
Scholars today would have us believe, for example, that most of Asia Minor and the Greek world went through five long centuries of darkness -- "Dark Ages" is the academic label used. The early civilizations of Crete, of Greece, Cyprus and Asia Minor snuffed out for centuries -- only to suddenly reappear in full bloom 500 years later.
Historians label the early civilization in the Aegean world "Mycenaean" after the site of ancient Mycenae in Greece. This civilization is assumed to have perished during the twelfth century before the birth of Jesus. Not until the seventh century does the curtain of history lift with clarity again -- according to the modern myth:
Such an interpretation of history is absurd. This was long ago admitted in a publication of the Cambridge University Press: "Memphis and Mscenae", by Cecil Torr. Torr wrote on page 69:
"For example, the Greek coins and gems of about 700 to 600 resemble the Mycenaean gems so closely, that any judge of art would be prepared to place the Mycenaean age immediately before 700." Not before 1200 as is done today:
In Asia Minor the same absurdity exists in modern textbooks. A great Anatolian empire -- the Hatti -- is said to have perished shortly after 1200. Its greatest heyday is marked by an utter paucity of monuments. Yet in the five following centuries -- after the Empire (supposedly) perished -- the Hatti kings "left a wealth of monuments, reliefs, steles, rock carvings, most of them covered with the hieroglyphic script, in striking contrast with the relatively few monuments that have survived from Imperial times." ("Hittite Art", by Maurice Vieyra, page 7.)
Of course, the only reason for a 500-year blank is that Asia Minor and Aegean history have been conformed to the misplaced chronology of Egypt. Once the history of Egypt and Mesopotamla is restored in proper historical setting, the gaps in Asia Minor and Greece disappear.

Beginnings of History

Asia Minor first appears in Biblical history in the days of Abram. In Genesis 14:1 "Tidal king of Goiim" is named as ruler of Asia Minor. "Goiim" is the Hebrew word for "Nations." The history of ancient Asia Minor is the story of continuous attempts to unite the warring nations of the region into a loose confederacy. In earliest days Tidal ruled this confederacy.
But the nations of Asia Minor were themselves part of a greater empire composed of kings of Shinar, Elam and Assyria. The Jewish historian Josephus describes this vast empire in "Antiquities", I, ix. "At this time, when the Assyrians had the dominion over Asia, the people of Sodom were in a flourishing condition .... the Assyrians made war upon them; and, dividing their army into four parts, fought against them. Now every part of the army had its own commander; and when the battle was joined, the Assyrians were conquerors; and imposed tribute on the kings of the Sodomites, who submitted to this slavery twelve years ... but on the thirteenth year they rebelled, and then the army of the Assyrians came upon them, under their commanders Amraphel, Arioch, Chodorlaomer, and Tidal. These kings had laid waste all Syria, and overthrown the offspring of the giants ...."
Tidal was therefore an Assyrian king and general ruling over several different nations and peoples. So famous was Tidal that many later kings took the same name in Asia Minor. Historians, transliterating late cuneiform inscriptions, spell the name Tudhaliya(s) -- as, in similar fashion, they spell Tiglathpileser Tukulti-apil-Esarra.
In the three succeeding centuries after the battle of Genesis 14, little is known of Asia Minor. The curtain lifts during the reign of Sargon "the Great" of Akkad. Assyrians from Mesopotamia continually migrated into Asia Minor, where they set up numerous trading posts. The Akkadian kings claim to have conquered the region. A vast collection of cuneiform tablets from this and later periods have been recovered by archaeologists. They exhibit an unusual affiliation between native rulers and Assyrian traders. An affiliation inexplicable apart from Josephus' statement that Assyrians settled and ruled Anatolia in Abram's day. So prominent were the Assyrians in Asia Minor that Sylax, the author of "Periplus" (he lived about 550), wrote of this region: "The coast of the Black Sea ... is called Assyria" (p. 261 of Perrot and Chipiez' "History of Art in Sardinia, Judaea, Syria and Asia Minor", vol. II).
Assyrian kings and traders were only one of the early people to inhabit Asia Minor. Egyptian and Mesopotamian records reveal it was also the land of Meshech and Tubal (spelled Musku and Tabal in Assyrian documents), and of Armenians and Lydians. Along the coasts dwelled outposts of the children of Javan. Greek traditions speak of Amazons and Phrygians. Cappadocia, in eastern Anatolia, was a dwelling place of the children of Togarmah (Tegarma or Tilgarimmu).
But how did the name "Hittite" become associated with this land of many races? Modern historians, remember, use the words "Hittite" or "Hatti" or "Chatti" to designate any or all of the diverse peoples who dwelled in Asia Minor or North Syria.
Even the Bible uses similar expressions. Solomon traded with the "king of the Hittites," who dwelt in the mountainous lands north of the Arameans (I Kings 10:29).
The true "Hittite" people were children of Canaan. Canaan was the father of Heth, the Hittite. The land of the Hittites in the days of Joshua, and of the judges who followed, extended north of Palestine through Syria to the Euphrates (Judges 1:26).
After the Israelite conquest of Palestine, many Hittites migrated northward through Syria into Anatolia. So famous were these people, so different from other races, that they gave their name to the whole wide regions to which they migrated. As late as the Chaldean Empire of Nebuchadnezzar the name Hatti, or Chatti, was applied to the vast area of Syria-Palestine and to part of eastern Asia Minor.
In Egyptian monuments the original Canaanite Hittites were portrayed with singularly striking characteristics. They were depicted with unusually prominent noses, "somewhat broad, with lips full, the cheek-bones high, the eyebrows fairly prominent, the forehead receding like the chin, and the face hairless." "The hair is black, the eyes dark brown." ("The Races of the Old Testament", by A. H Sayce, page 133.) They were a brachycephalic or even hyperbrachycephalic people. The skin color varied from brown to yellowish and reddish. Greek tradition insists the people were a warlike, rude people, known for their frenzied dances and music.
This racial type has become so characteristic a part of the Armenoid racial stock of Anatolia, the Caucasus and Syria, that one must conclude the Hittites heavily intermarried with their Armenian and Aramaic neighbors.

The Proof of Language

The true Armenians are sons of Hul, son of Aram (compare Genesis 10:23 with Josephus).
Armenian is an Indo-European language. Indo-European languages are divided into two groups by scholars. It had long been assumed that the Armenian belonged to the Eastern or satem group, primarily because of vocabulary. Then the ancient language of the Hittites was discovered.
It proved to belong to the Western or centum group, to which the German, Celtic, Latin and Greek belonged. Then scholars began to recognize that this ancient language, rediscovered after 2000 years, bears a striking resemblance to Armenian.
The Armenian language has been found to share so many grammatical and lexical elements with the ancient language of the Hittites that scholars have been forced to the conclusion that Armenian developed from the Hittite-Luwian dialects of Lesser Armenia west of the Upper Euphrates. (See W. M. Austin's "Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?" in "Language", 18 (1942), 22 ff.)
Hittite and Armenian, for instance, are characterized by lack of grammatical gender. So many other phenomena were found to be exhibited by both groups that scholars now wonder why they did not see the relationship before. The Hittite language, a member of the "centum" group of Indo-European languages, lives on today in Armenian.
Over the centuries the Armenian, of course, has acquired a very large number of its vocabulary words from neighboring languages. So many, in fact, that its original relationship with the Western or "centum" group of Indo-European languages has been obscured. An excellent summary of the relationship of Armenian and Hittite is found in the revised edition of Cambridge Ancient History, vol. I, chapter iv, part iii "The Indo-Hittite Family," by Albright and Lambdin.

The Proof of Race

The Armenians are the only people who have preserved the well-known "Armenoid" form of the ancient Hittite crania. Admittedly continuity of physical type and language is not necessarily related. But if both language and racial characteristics are found among two peoples who still live in almost the same geographic region, but separated by centuries of time, the proof becomes striking. Especially when it is considered that no other group of people in ancient times had the same racial strains.
The original cradle of the Armenian nationality and culture is precisely that area characterized by the greatest use of hieroglyphic script. In fact the latest Hittite inscriptions can be proved to overlap the known presence of Armenians in the same region (in the inscriptions of Darius Hystaspes) by a number of centuries, once the ancient history of the Hittites is properly restored.
The use of the modern Armenian alphabet begins where ancient Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions cease!
Because of early predominance of population and war-like characteristics, the fame of the ancient Hittite name spread. The rulers of Asia Minor, once known as "kings of nations" (in Abraham's day), because of the many different peoples who populated the region, came to be called "kings of the Hittites" by Solomon's time. The Armenians ceased to be referred to under their national name and were included among the Hittites (spelled also Kheta, Chatti, or Hatti) by distant nations.
In Syria and Asia Minor, as time passed, the Arameans and Armenians gradually gained predominance over their Hittite neighbors and absorbed them. The Hittites disappeared as a separate racial stock and their name was totally lost. The names Aramean and Armenian replaced that of Hittite.
The Hebrew root "heth" (from whence Hittite is derived) signifies "warrior." The Canaanite Hittites were famous warriors. As the Assyrians were a war-making nation, the world also attached the name "Chatti" -- meaning "warrior" or "men of war" -- to them when they anciently migrated to the Halys River basin in Asia Minor. Thus Assyrians, like Armenians, in Anatolia also came to bear the name "Chatti."
Ninevite kings marched their armies through Anatolia to aid Troy in the First Trojan War shortly before the rise of the Canaanite Hittites to power. Assyrian colonists continued to live in Asia Minor for centuries thereafter. Sardanapallus, king of Assyria, "sent his three sons and two daughters together with much of his treasure to Paphlagonia (Asia Minor) to the governor Cotta ..." (Diodorus II, 26,8). It was an Assyrian district. For the same reason Assyrians were "removed to the land between Paphlagonia and Pontus" after the collapse of Nineveh (Diodorus II, 43,6).
After the fall of Troy in 677 the Assyrians commenced migration out of Anatolia northwest up the Danube into Europe. Roman annals within a few centuries were filled with the name Chatti, or Hatti, which later became changed to Hesse. (See "Encyclopaedia Britannica" article "Germany".)
The warlike proclivity of the Hessians through the Roman period and the Middle Ages, is undoubtedly due to some absorption of Hittite stock.
The history of the Hittites of Asia Minor may now be restored in proper setting. First, it should be remembered that modern textbook writers are in utter confusion chronologically. They speak of an "Old Kingdom" and a "New Empire," sometimes of a "Middle Kingdom." Rulers of the "Old Kingdom" were about 750 years too early, the latter about 600! The reason for this preposterous restoration of central Anatolian history is this. "Old Kingdom" rulers are known to parallel the close of the Hammurabi Dynasty of Babylon. As Hammurabi is often placed about 750 years too early in history, these kings of Hatti are likewise misplaced by that figure. The late kings of the supposed "New Empire" are known to be contemporary with Ramesses the Great of Dynasty XIX of Egypt. Since this period of Egyptian history is misplaced about 600 years. the kings of the "New Empire" are likewise placed six centuries too early.
Babylonian and Egyptian archives prove there was only one Empire period in Central Anatolia. That more than one king at a time was on occasion ruling Hatti is confirmed by the documents: "Formerly Labarnas was king: and then his sons, his brothers, his connections by marriage and his blood-relations were united." ("The Hittites", by O. R. Gurney, page 21.) Most of these were set over major cities in the realm -- such as Carchemish.
For the Great Kings of Hatti king lists exist, but no date lists. A restoration can provide only synchronisms with other nations. In the following chart parallel rulers in other lands are listed and dated to indicate synchronisms.
The chart begins with kings of the so-called "Old" and "Middle Kingdom" and continues with the "New Empire" rulers who are known through correspondence as contemporary with the kings of Dynasty XIII and XIX of Thebes. (In spelling the following names of Hatti kings, the final "s" is used, though in numerous documents the letter is often dropped or sounded as an "sh.")

Contemporary Kings of Egypt	Great Kings of Hatti	History from Contemporary Documents
Thutmose III	Labarnas (I), founder of new dynasty	Contemporary of Solomon
Amenhotpe II	Hattusilis (I), son
Thutmose IV	Mursilis I, adopted son	Attacks and destroys Aleppo. Conquers Babylon at end of Samsu-ditana's **
Amenhotpe III		reign (905-879). After returning home is assassinated.
Akhenaten	Hantilis (I), brother-in-law	Arameans attack Hittite realm in south. Numerous disasters. Hurrians and Mitanni in Mesopotamia.
	Zidantas (I)
Ay	Ammunas, son	Rise of Medes (Mitanni)
	Huzziyas (I)
	Telipinus, brother-in-law of Huzziyas	Hittites slowly revive and expand (see "Journal of Cuneiform Stud.", xi, 3, p. 73)
	Alluwamnas, son in-law
	Hantilis (II)
Piankhi	Zidantas (II)	Hittite fortunes continue to rise
	Huzziyas II
	Tudhaliyas (II)
	Arnuwandas (I), a brother	Expansion of Hittites as Assyrians decline and Troy falls; long struggle with Medes
Taharka	Suppiluliumas (I)
Seti I	Arnuwandas (II), son	Arnuwandas dies of plague after reigning a few months
	Mursilis (II), brother	Plague and wide spread rebellions
	Muwatallis, son	Fought with Nebuchadnezzar against **
Ramesses the Great	Urhi-Teshub, son	Ramesses at battle of "Kadesh" in his tenth year.
	Hattusilis (III), uncle	Reigned jointly with brother and nephew. Signed treaty with Ramesses in latter's year 21.
	Tudhaliyas (III). son	West in rebellion -- struggle with Lydia
	Arnuwandas (III). son	East in rebellion -- expansion of Medo-Persians
	Suppiluliumas (II), brother	Collapse of Hittite Empire as Persians conquer Asia Minor in 546

Notice the parallel between the events in column three and the Biblical history of the rise and fall of the Arameans. During the reign of Amenhotpe III and Mursilis I -- about 890 -- the Arameans rebelled and expanded under general Naaman. In their wars against Israel they feared the possibility that Israel would hire Egyptians and Hittites, to attack them. In II Kings 7:6 the Arameans, after hearing a noise of supernatural origin. are quoted as saying: "Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians. to come upon us."
There are two known areas of contact from documents between these Hittite kings and Egypt and Babylon. Suppiluliumas, Mursilis, Muwatallis and Hattusilis are the known contemporaries of Ramesses the Great and his father Seti. This documented contact, including the account of the battle of Kadesh (Carchemish), determines the general dating of the late Hittite rulers. Muwatallis came to power about 616 since the first battle of Kadesh was fought in his tenth year. This was in the year 607-606, the date of the initial Egyptian struggle against Babylon and its allies. Egypt was momentarily victorious (see the restoration of Egyptian history for the period of Ramesses the Great).
An earlier area of contact is established by documentary evidence for the reign of Mursilis I, conqueror of Aleppo and Babylon at the close of the reign of Ammisaduga. Since the Babylonian king can be accurately dated, the overthrow of Babylon by the Hittite king dates the period of the early Hittite rulers. It is then merely a matter of placing the generations in between. The known number of generations of Hittite rulers and the time between Ammisaduga and his Egyptian contemporary to the reign of Ramesses the Great agrees perfectly.
The only question is the supposed parallelism between Suppiluliumas and Akhenaten and Tutankhamen. This parallelism is impossible. It arose from a false assumption. The Hittite documents of Suppiluliumas and his son mention two Egyptian rulers by name. But the names are not specific. Scholars have merely assumed that the Hittite names may refer to Akhenaten and his son. The names could just as well belong to other Egyptian kings -- in this instance to the period of the close of Dynasty XXV This is the only possible period to which the events could apply. The eighteenth dynasty, archaeologists assume, died out with the widow of Tutankhamen. This is untrue. The line of Akhenaten continued to rule to the time of Piankhi the Ethiopian. The only dynasty to cease to reign through the male line in Egypt was that of the Ethiopians at the end of Dynasty XXV. The Ethiopians were killed in battle or fled from the Assyrians. The successor dynasty was Saite, of the line of Necho, an Egyptian family appointed by the Assyrians. This line intermarried into the Ethiopian line to legitimize its reign in Egypt. It is this family that must have plotted the death of the son of Suppiluliumas who was on his way to Egypt to become heir to the Ethiopian line in Egypt.

The Kingdom of Mitanni and the Hurrians

In Mesopotamia, on the upper reaches of the Euphrates river, is a kingdom known as Mitanni in hieroglyphic and cuneiform records. This was the region in which the Median revolt occurred in 816. The history of the kingdom of Mitanni is, in fact, the history of the Medes and Midianites in the ninth and tenth centuries before the present era.
In the following chart the kingdom of Mitanni is restored to its proper place in history. In column one are the kings of Egypt. Column two, center, contains the kings of Mitanni. The third column is devoted to excerpts of important contemporary history. No date lists of the early kings of Mitanni are known.

Contemporary Kings of Egypt	Kings of Mitanni	History from Contemporary Sources
Thutmose I (1030-1017)	Suttarna I	Conquers city of Assur during Assyria's 50 years of decline (1041-991)
Thutmose II (1017-997)	Saussatar
Thutmose III	Artatama I	Thutmose III asks (997-943) for his daughter to wife.
Thutmose IV (918-909)
Amenhotpe III	Suttarna II	Amenhotpe III sought his (909-871) daughter in marriage.
	Artasura	Kingdom of Mitanni sundered.
	Tusratta, son of Suttarna II
Akhenaton (871-854)	Mittiwaza	Rise of Hurrian kingdom under Artatama II and Suttarna III. Mattiwaza became Hittite vassal. Assyria rules Mesopotamia under Assur-uballit.

The final comment in column three again demonstrates that Assyria and the Great Kings of Kheta or Hatti formed one vast empire far more extensive than modern historians realize.

Who Were the Hurrians?

But who were the Hurrians who suddenly migrate from apparently nowhere to dwell in Mitanni on the borders of the Egyptian Empire in Asia? Of all the people known in the Middle East the "Hurrians," or "Harrians," are the most controversial. They should not be. Consider the facts of history.
Tushratta (Tusratta) was the first Mitannian king of this era to claim the title "lord of the Hurrian land" as well as "lord of the Mitanni land." ("Journal of Cuneiform Studies", XI, 3, p. 67, column two.) Tushratta was a contemporary of Amenhotpe III. Is there any record of a people in the days of Amenhotpe III who came to dwell on the borders of the Empire of Egypt? There certainly is. The record has already been mentioned in this Compendium in connection with Akhenaten ("Huria" in Hittite) in the beginning of chapter eight. Here it is again: "The Ethiopians, removing from the River Indus, settled near Egypt."
There are two branches of Ethiopians in the world. wrote Herodotus. Those who dwell in India, with straight or wavy hair; and those who dwell in Africa with frizzled hair ("Polymnia", sect. 20). The Indian Cushites. or Ethiopians, are Aryan-speaking. The leaders of the Hurrians, or Harrians. were Indo-Iranian or Aryan speaking. The Hurrians worshipped Indra, Varuna and various other gods of the Hindu pantheon. No such worship has ever been found among African tribes. No migration to Africa from the Indus is known. But the migration of Indo-Iranian people into Mesopotamia is well attested in history.
Why, then, did Manetho, in the Book of Sothis, refer to "Egypt" as the neighborhood of the Ethiopian migration from the Indus? Because in the days of Amenhotpe III the Empire of Egypt extended to the Upper Euphrates. Literally dozens of Assyrian references speak of "Musri" -- Egypt -- as that territory immediately west of the Upper Euphrates. See the annals of Tiglath-pileser I, for example. As late as the days of Necho and Nebuchadnezzar the city of Carchemish, on the Euphrates. was regarded as the fixed border of Egypt. That the Hurrians were Cushites is also clear from Egyptian annals which speak of "God's Land, Syria and Cush."
The famous migration of Cushites into Mesopotamia during the reign of Amenhotpe had been preceded by Cushite migrations from the Persian highlands over a century before. They were the Kassu or Kassites under Gande, the first Kassite king. The Kassites worshipped Maruttash, a god of India. These Ethiopian incursions from the East were paralleled by Ethiopian conquests in Asia from Egypt under the Theban kings. The influence of the children of Cush in the ancient world has never been made plain before. It reveals why so many of the descendants of Aram and Lud, sons of Shem, show strong intermixture with dark races. In most of the Middle East, the population today has become light brown, not white, as a result of such mixture.

Phrygians and Hatti

To turn to northwestern Anatolia. Historians have constructed from Greek annals an extensive kingdom in northwestern Asia Minor called Phrygia. Its influence is known to have extended over much of Anatolia at the very time Assyrian and Egyptian history speaks of the Empire of Hatti.
"Phrygia" is a Greek word. The eleventh edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica", article "Phrygia." provides its meaning: "Phrygia, the name of a large country in Asia Minor, inhabited by a race which the Greeks called Phryges, 'freemen'." The Phrygians -- or Freemen -- were said to have spoken "the original speech of mankind." They were known for their extensive wealth. It is said of one of their kings, Midas, that everything he touched turned to gold -- figuratively, of course! They showed a high degree of artistic skill.
After the Trojan War the region of Phrygia was utterly devastated by Cimmerians -- Greek for people of Gomer. The Phrygians gradually migrated into Europe. Because they came from the region ruled by the wild Cimmerian hordes, it was common to speak of the Phrygians also as Cimmerians. The Greek name Phryges was gradually changed to Phraggoi. When the Romans encountered them, they applied the Roman word for Freemen -- Franci -- Franks in English. Procopius, in his Roman history, called the Franks Phraggoi (III, 3, 1). They finally settled in France. Is it only a coincidence that the name of the capital of their new land is Paris -- the name of the famous Trojan or Phrygian hero Paris, son of Priam?
The original region which the Greeks called Phrygia extended to the Hellespont, for the Phrygians at one time controlled the sea. This land was termed Wilusa or Uilusa in Hattic inscriptions. The Great Kings of Hatti were allied with the Phrygians of Wilusa -- a name changed in later Greek to Ilion, the plain of Troy. "In bygone times Labarnas, my ancestor, fought against the Arzawan Lands and the Land of Wilusa; he subdued them. Now after that, Arzawa became hostile ... but never did the Land of Wilusa secede from Hatti, but from afar they remained loyal to the kings of Hatti," declared the Treaty of Muwatallis, Great King of Hatti, with Alaksandus (Alexander) of Wilusa (Ilion, or early Phrygia). This union maintained itself even after both the Assyrians in the land of Hatti and the Phrygians were defeated at the fall of Troy in 677.
The collapse of Phrygia and the decline of the Hittites east of the Halys River basin in 677 is confirmed by Herodotus. His words are: "... the Medes bent under the Persian yoke, after they had ruled over all Asia beyond the river Halys for the space of one hundred and twenty-eight years, excepting the interval of the Scythian dominion" ("Clio", 130). The Medes succumbed to Cyrus in 549. And 128 years before is 677 the date of the Fall of Troy and the defeat of the Hatti who were Trojan allies. There were no five centuries of darkness between the so-called "Hittite Empire" and the Medes. One followed the other. West of the Halys River the Phrygians are said by several classical writers to have been overrun in the succeeding year, 676, by the Cimmerians.
In a sense the Phrygians and Assyrians in Hatti were one vast confederation. When these people journeyed into Europe they maintained the old league. The Romans recognized among the Franks, or Phraggoi, two groups: East and West Franks. The one German, the other French. The German tribe called East Frankish was the Chatti or Hessian tribe -- the same as in ancient Anatolia. Could history repeat itself any more precisely?
In reading any book on Asia Minor -- many are now being published -- always remember that it is common practice to apply the name "Hittite" to all peoples of Asia Minor. It properly belongs only to Canaanite Hittites, a wild and rude people who disappeared from the area after the fall of Persia.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Media, India, Japan and China

The wide conquests of the Assyrian Empire brought her into direct contact with many nations dwelling within and beyond the confines of the Middle East. Twice Assyria attempted to conquer India. Twice she failed. Twice the Medes rose in successful revolt against the Assyrians.
A people so far removed as the Japanese also trace their history to a remarkable event in Assyrian history. Only the Chinese, of all eastern people, remained relatively apart from the West.

The Revolts of the Medes

In one sense no restoration of the Median Empire is necessary. Ctesias and Herodotus preserve accurately the chronological history of the early Median tribes and of two distinct revolts. The modern historian has created an artificial problem by rejecting the traditions of both Ctesias and Herodotus. Why were they rejected? Because many of the leading events surrounding the Medes' early rise to power were absolutely supernatural. Take the classic example in Herodotus. At least 150 years before the birth of Cyrus, the prophet Isaiah was inspired by God to record the name of Cyrus as the future conqueror of Babylon. The birth of Cyrus is narrated by Herodotus. The last Median king, wrote Herodotus, had no son, only a daughter. During the pregnancy of his daughter, Astyages was frightened by a dream in which it was revealed that the child to be born of her was destined to overthrow the grandfather and conquer the world. To thwart this portent he contrived to have the child murdered. The official appointed to accomplish the deed sublet the act to a shepherd whose wife has just suffered the loss of a young baby boy. The dead infant was substituted for the living infant Cyrus. Thus the young lad survived, eventually to rule the world.
Historians view such an account as myth. By that they mean that anything so unusual as the birth of Cyrus speaks of the intervention of God whom they refuse to acknowledge. To rid themselves of His presence and His intervention in history they must discount the writers who recorded these events.
The history of Media is preserved by several early Greek and Roman writers. Diodorus Siculus records in detail how the Medes successfully overthrew the Assyrians in 816 -- the time of the prophet Jonah. One of the royal Assyrian capitals at that time was at Rehoboth on the Euphrates. There the Medes successfully attacked the person of the king, Thonos Concolerus, also known as Sardanapallus, slew him and his armed guards and razed the city. Only the repentance of the Ninevites saved it from the Median ravages.
This was also the period of the extensive conquests of Seti I in Asia.
The Median royalty which came to power in 816 was the line of Darius the Mede. The Median kings who rose to power after the revolt in 700-699 were another and distinct line of Kings.

Here are the Median kings according to Ctesias' record from the Persian archives.
 

House of Arbaces Median Rings After Overthrow of Assyrians at Rehoboth	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Arbaces	28	816-788
His son Mandauces	20	788-768
Sosarmus	30	768-738
Artycas	30	738-708
Arbianes	22	708-686
Artaeus	40	686-646
Artynes	22	646-624
Astibaras	40	624-584
Aspadas (called Astyigas	35	584-549
or Astyages)	(or 38)	(584-546)

The successor of Aspadas was Darius the Mede, mentioned in Daniel 5:31 and 9:1. The Hebrews called Aspadas "Ahasuerus". The Greeks called Darius the Mede Cyaxeres II.
Historians have completely misunderstood the events surrounding the end of Median independence. The reason is this. There were two Median kings reigning at the same time with the same name -- Astyages, or similar spelling. One was grandfather of Cyrus the Persian; the other, Aspadas called Astyigas, was father of Darius the Mede. Before explaining any more details, it is necessary to introduce the second Median royal house and the second Astyages.

In the year 700-699, following the death of Shalmaneser III, the Medes successfully completed a second revolt against the Assyrians. Not until this year were all the Medes completely free from Assyrian dominion. Herodotus preserves the names of these Median kings who ascended the throne in 699.
 

House of Deioces Median Kings Following Revolt in 700-699.	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Deioces	53	699-646
Phraortes	22	646-624
Cyaxeres I	40	624-584
Astyages, grandfather of Cyrus	35	584-549

Certain late Greek and Roman writers used figures other than those given by Herodotus and Ctesias. The preceding are the original and true figures. The variants may have risen from otherwise unknown events occurring in the Median realm, or from joint reigns.
In 549 Astyages was overthrown by his grandson, Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus had come to the Persian throne, which he shared with his father, in the year 558. He reigned altogether 29 years (558-529).
The chronological evidence from Ctesias and Herodotus indicates the last three kings of each Median line shared the throne jointly. Each was succeeded by a son in 646, 624 and 584. An exception occurred in the case of Astyages, son of Cyaxeres I. This man, declared Herodotus, had no son, only a daughter. He ruled with a harsh hand. His daughter he gave in marriage to the king of Persia, Cambyses, who became the father of Cyrus. By contrast Josephus stated that Astyages had a son -- Darius the Mede. Historians have -- for no justifiable reason -- assumed the testimony of Josephus and Herodotus were irreconcilable. A little thought would have made it plain that each writer was discussing a different Astyages. Josephus, and Daniel too, wrote of the Astyages or Aspadas who was of the house of Arbaces. Herodotus' account was of Astyages of the house of Deioces.
The confederation of Persians and Medes, often stressed in the Bible, resulted from a political union of the house of Arbaces, which began in 816, with the young Persian monarch Cyrus. Cyrus could never have come to power had there not been strife between the two Median royal families.
Worthy of special note in the preceding charts is the date 584, ending the reigns of both Cyaxeres and Astibaras. This was 28 years after the overthrow of Nineveh (612) and marked the end of Scythian dominion in ancient Upper Asia. Who those Scythians were will become apparent in the study of Japanese history and the traditions of the Parsees of India.

History of Early India

In 1956 a remarkable book on early India was published. Its title: "The Chronology of the Reign of Asoka Moriya." The author, Dr. P. H. L. Eggermont, resolved several difficult problems in early Indian literature. His solutions are in complete harmony with the history of Assyria.
Many of the enigmas in Indian history could long aso have been resolved had the scholars RESPECTED the literary accounts preserved by the early scribes and priests. The first step in the solution of early Indian history began when Dr. Eggermont recognized the historicity of India's earliest literary accounts. Too many scholars had arbitrarily rejected or altered them.
Dr. Eggermont's book does not include later problems in Indian history. As these difficulties have no direct bearing on the authenticity of Biblical history they are also excluded from this compendium. Only the history to the time of King Asoka is presented here.
True Indian history begins with the famous battle of Kuruksetra in the winter of 1650-1649. At the winter solstice a heavy attack was launched against Sahadeva, Indian king of Magadha, by the "Assuras" or "Daityas" from the west. The Indian king perished. Had not there been some kind of supernatural change in the weather during the course of the struggle India would have been devastated. As events turned out, Assyria was defeated.
Indian scholars long ago recognized in the "Assuras" or "Daityas" the Assyrians of the west.
The date 1649 is paralleled in Mesopotamia. In that year king Lugal-zaggisi, of Erech's Third Dynasty, toppled Assyria's allies and suddenly seized control of the land. (See the restoration of Early Babylonian history.)

The Bahadratha dynasty rose to power in Magadha in the beginning of 1649, upon the death of Sahadeva. Names, but no dates of previous kings are preserved. The following chart outlines the history of India until about 180.
 

Names of Dynasties	Duration of Dynasties	Dates
Bahadratha	989	1649-660
Pradyota	138	660-522
Sisunaga	162	522-360
The Nanda	43	360-317
Maurya	131	317-186

(For the length of the Mauryas see "Persica", No. II, 1965-1966, article by Eggermont.)
The year 1649 is not the time of the traditional migration of Aryan-speaking peoples into India. Those migrations, so famous in Indian history, did not commence until shortly before 660, toward the close of the Assyrian Empire. Aryan-speaking people were, however, already in India from earliest times.
To the plains of India the Assyrians sent into exile (around 660) tens of thousands of Ethiopians, thousands of Egyptians and multitudes from the region of the Hindu-Kush mountains in Bactria. This forced migration was the period of Assyrian conquests in Egypt and Bactria.
The wholesale dumping of captive slaves was climaxed by an Assyrian attempt to conquer India in 660. In that year Semiramis III (699-657) -- self-styled reincarnation of the "Queen of Heaven" -- led Assyrian troops to the frontier of India. Diodorus of Sicily describes the battle in detail in his history of India. A great catastrophe befell the Assyrians. The troops of the Queen were annihilated. She fled almost alone from the battle scene -- to live on in myth and religious tradition as the thrice-born "Queen of Heaven."

Early Indian Kings of Magadha

Following the tragic Indian victory in 1649 Somadhi founded a new dynasty on the Ganges. Indian history, preserved in the Puranas, centers from this time onward in the modern province of Magadha. From here royal influence was exercised across the plains to the Indus River region. Though there were other princely families governing India, only one dynastic line exercised supreme authority.
Political disintegration in India did not develop until centuries later.

Following is the official account of the Dynasty of Somadhi (beginning 1649) which was overthrown at the time of the Assyrian invasion in 660. It is taken from the Vayu Purana, edited by Rajendralala Mitra, Calcutta, 1888. (Eggermont, "Chronology of Asoka", pp. 217-218).
 

Royal House of Somadhi	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Somadhi	58	1649-1591
Srutasruvas	64	1591-1527
Ayutayus	26	1527-1501
Niramitra	100	1501-1401
Sukrtta	56	1401-1345
Vrhatkarman	23	1345-1322
Senajit	23	1322-1299
Srutamjaya	40	1299-1259
Nrpa	35	1259-1224
Suci	58	1224-1166
Ksema	28	1166-1138
Bhuvata	64	1138-1074
Dharmanetra	5	1074-1069
Nrpati	58	1069-1011
Suvrata	38	1011- 973
	(or 28)	(1011- 983)
Drdhasena	48	973- 925
	(or 58)	(983- 925)
Sumati	35	925- 890
Sucala	22	890- 868
Sunetra	40	868- 828
Satyajit	83	828- 745
Virajit	35	745- 710
Arinjaya	50	710- 660

In Indian literature other spellings and occasional variations in reigns are used. But the preceding is the official register and is in perfect harmony with parallel events elsewhere in the world. The extra long reign of Niramitra is not out of keeping with the contemporary Old Testament world in which men were living to be 120.

Consequent to the Assyrian invasion a change of power occurred in Magadha in 660. The Pradyota regime came to prominence. Its kings ruled to the time of the death of Cambyses in Persia.
 

Pradyota Dynasty in Magadha	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Pradyota	23	660-637
Palaka	24	637-613
Visakhayupa	50	613-563
Ajaka	21	563-542
Varttivarddhana	20	542-522

At this juncture the Saisunagas replaced the Pradyota family. The Saisunagas received their name from the fourth and most famous king.
 

Dynasty of the Saisunagas in Magadha	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Bimbisara	28	522-494
Ajatasatru	25	494-469
Udayin	33	469-436
Sisunaga	40	436-396
Kakavarna	36	396-360

The Saisunagas in Indian literature were so famous that the length of the dynasty became artificially inflated with contemporary reigns to suit the heroic deeds of its kings. Dr. Eggermont had no need to restore the two dynasties preceding the Saisunagas. His efforts were spent primarily on the kings between the end of the Pradyotas (in 522) and the reign of Asoka. Any questions arising on this period should be directly referred to his aforementioned study published by E. J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands.
The next dynasty after 360 was composed of one king -- The Nanda, or, in Indian literature, Mahanandin. His actual length of reign was only 43 years -- 360-317.

The year 317 is the direct link between India and Greek history. At that date Eudamos and Peithon departed from the Panjab and Sindh, whereupon Candagutta occupied the Indus. The Mauryas ruled for 131 years. Dr. P.H.L. Eggermont proves in his book that the date for the commencement of this dynasty is not 321, as long assumed, but 317, a restoration which makes Indian history harmonious with all contemporary records.
 

Dynasty of the Mauryas to Asoka	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Candagutta (Chandragupta)	24	317-293
Bindusara	25	293-268
Asoka	29	268-239
Dasaratha	8	239-231
Samprati	10	231-221
Salisuka	13	221-208
Somasarman	7	208-201
Satadhanvan	8	201-193
Brhadratha	7	193-186

(See Eggermont's reconstruction in Persica, No. II, 1965-1966, "New Notes on Asoka and His Successors".)
The year 186 marks the commencement of the Sunga Era, from which point succeeding dynasties may be accurately dated.
For a complete list of later ruling houses consult volume I of Stokvis' "Manuel D'Histoire", p. 237.

Scythia and the History of Japan

The vast reaches of Scythia were famous in antiquity. Within its borders lived numerous unrelated tribes. Anciently the word Scythia (or Sacae) was applied to a people living in that region in the Caucasus, (Jeremiah 51:27). This area bore the name "Land of the Rising Sun."
But in the process of time the name Scythia passed to other tribes and peoples who dwelt in, or migrated through, the land of Scythia. Hence the Greek writers included in Scythia the Eastern Slavic people who migrated from Asia Minor into Eurasia. Diodorus Siculus refers to their queen as "Zarina" -- Russian feminine for Czar (Book II, 34, 3). Other writers, like Paul the apostle, divided the world into Greek and Jew, Barbarian and Scythian (Colossians 3:11) -- applying the name Scythian to that people which came out of the east and migrated into Western Europe and the British Isles. The modern word Scot is, in fact, merely a corruption of the old Greek Scythian.
Herodotus describes the Eastern Scythians. To him they were unusual people, lacking body hair, with noticeably rounded face and chin, flat-nosed, speaking a peculiar language and wearing a distinctive costume (Melpomene, 23).
According to Herodotus the Scythians of antiquity were allied with the Assyrians during most of the last century of Assyrian dominion. Semiramis III -- famous for her marital relations with the "kings of the earth" -- especially prized her relationship with these Scythians. The alliance between the two royal families endured long after the Assyrian "Queen of Heaven" died.
In 612 the Medes and Babylonians were besieging Nineveh. Onto the scene came Scythian troops from the region of Bactria to lift the siege. The Medes, sensing what would happen if Assyria were to recover strength, submitted terms to the Scythians in exchange for breaking their alliance with Assyria. They were accepted. Nineveh fell. But the agreement cost the Medes control of much of Upper Asia for 28 bleak years. (Herodotus, Clio. 106).
At the end of that period Media and Scythia came to blows. Scythian ravages were more than the Medes could take. The Medes were victorious. The Scythians withdrew to far Asia.
The Parsees of India have preserved several traditions of these events. (The Parsees are Persian immigrants living in India.) In their sacred literature references to a famous prince Zoroaster II -- a "son of heaven" -- are found. He came to royal prominence in 660, following defeat in India of his mother, the "Queen of Heaven." Zoroaster means "seed of Ishtar." He spread the religion of sun-worship throughout the east. The Parsees -- and scholars ever since -- have puzzled how Zoroaster II could have exercised such influence and yet not be a king of Media or Persia They overlooked Scythia.
In Parsee tradition Zoroaster lost his life in a war in Media in the year 584-583 (see "Ency. Amer.", art. "Zoroaster").
Is there any Oriental nation, at least in part Scythian, with a tradition of a "son of Heaven" who came to the throne in 660, who reigned to about 584, who extended his rule from west to east, whose mother was a "goddess" and a queen, in whose land sun-worship spread? Was Zoroaster II known under another name in the Far East?
Absolutely! In Japan. The Japanese royal throne, according to the "Nihonji", a book of traditional and sacred history, was founded in 660. Its first emperor is assigned 76 years, to 584. He was a "son of Heaven;" his mother a "goddess" and a queen. In the traditions of the Nihonji it is reported of him that he said: "Now I have heard ... that in the East there is a fair land encircled on all sides by blue mountains .... I think that this land will undoubtedly be suitable for the extension of the Heavenly task" -- that is, world conquest -- "so that its glory should fill the universe" (p. 110 of "Nihonji", trans. by W. G. Aston).
The Nihonji continues: "In that year, in winter, ... the Emperor in person led the Imperial Princes and a naval force on an expedition against the East" (page 111).
In Chinese history we find the following quote: "The barbarians invaded the territory of the Marquis of Wei I Kong in 660 B.C. The Marquis gave them battle in the marsh of Yug." The Chinese were defeated and the barbarians passed on to the east. ("Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China", Sir. J. C. Coyajee, p. 47.)
The Japanese, according to their tradition, were led to their isles by a symbolic three-legged sun-crow. In Pamphylia and Lycia, in Scythian-dominated Asia Minor, coins have been found which bear the rare figures of three-legged birds in various forms. ("La Migration des Symboles", by Comte Goblet d'Alviella, page 222 of 1891 edition.) Compare this symbol with the Biblical "wings of a great eagle" (Exodus 19:4).
Here are coincidences that cannot be explained unless Scythian tribes migrated to Japan under the authority of a prince who was a son of the Assyrian "Queen of Heaven." Had historians been willing to restore Assyrian history and Semiramis III to the proper place in history, had they been willing to credit the chronological framework of Japanese history, the mystery of the Scythians, of Togarmah and other peoples of North Asia would have vanished.
Of course there are legends and apparent contradictions in Japanese historical literature. But they do not alter the essential facts of history around which the legends were later woven. Historians carelessly reject most early Japanese records on the unprovable assumption that their history could not have been recorded prior to the adoption of the Chinese art of writing. Overlooked is the fact that in Scythia they were literate long before adopting Chinese culture in the east.
The Japanese Imperial family is found in most thorough histories of that nation and need not be included here. One note of caution, however. It has become all too common for historians to criticise freely what they do not want to believe. Because the early Japanese rulers appear to have governed unusually long -- 76 years, 36, 38, 35, 83, 102, 76, 57, 60, 68, etc. (but much shorter later) -- the early period is discounted. Yet Chinese sources of the same period refer to the Japanese as especially longlived people in the centuries immediately following their arrival to the isles. Also, the sons who succeeded to the throne were often not the eldest. "Primogeniture was evidently not recognized in Japan at the time ...", writes Aston on page 110, note 1, in "Nihonji".
The names of Japanese emperors, by which they are known in history, are given to them after death. The first emperor received the posthumous name Jimmu Tenno -- signifying "divine valour." (For further references see the "History of the Empire of Japan", compiled and translated for the Imperial Japanese Commission of the world's Columbian Exposition, 1893.)

History of China

Everyone owes a great deal of respect to the Chinese nation for being the only people whose chronological records have been preserved without need of restoration from the time of Babel till now. The history of the Chinese nation is found in the Shoo King, which means literally the "Canon of History."
China naturally has had her literary critics who have sought to reinterpret the ancient records. Witness the "Bamboo Annals". But their attempts have been consistently rejected as unwarranted opposition to the traditional history of the "Shoo King". Only China's unusual reverence for tradition -- and superstition -- could have preserved the framework of history for more than 4,200 years:
True, some of the events are legendary. Nevertheless, no other people's secular history is more accurate than China's. The chinese recorded their history in a form similar to the Hebrews' accounts in the books of the Old Testament. Each ruler is evaluated for his "moral conduct." His special contributions, good or bad, are simply evaluated. Such evaluations are, of course, subjective and may reflect later political thinking. But politics, in the modern western sense, was unknown in China.
The Chinese reckon the reigns of their rulers in calendar years commencing at approximately the winter solstice. In the earliest period it fell in what would have been the later weeks of January. (See page 99, vol. III, 1, of Legge's "Chinese Classics".) As centuries rolled by, the Chinese regnal year came to approximate a January-to-January year. Later still, the solstice dropped back into December.
The following list of Chinese rulers is derived from Shoo King, translated by Legge in "Chinese Classics", III, 1, pp. 184-188. As the later history of China is recognized by all reputable scholars as valid, only the early portion is included in this Compendium.
Late in Chinese historiography it became the practice to add to the list of early rulers the legendary names of heroes from before the flood. These late additions are manifestly invalid, for no nation without the Hebrew record had access to the information after Babel.
The first man of whom Chinese sources speak is Yao, or Yaou. The traditional information about Yao is nebulous. When referring to the Mongols, the Arabian historians speak of Magog and Yagog. It is likely that the Yagog of Arabic tradition is the personage whom the Chinese tradition knows as Yao.
The results of a catastrophic flood were still apparent in Yao's day. "The deluge assailed the heavens, and in its vast expanse encompassed the mountains, and overtopped the hills ..." (Canon of Yao).
In the lifetime of Yao a stranger named Shun came to power. The meaning of his name is obscure. Later legends found in the Shoo King attempt to create Shun a native Chinese hero. But the earliest records (some found in the Bamboo Annals) make it clear he was a black foreigner. His mother was "Queen of the West land;" his father was Kusou, or Chusou -- Cush. From Babylonian traditions we learn that Cush and Nimrod shared jointly in the government together until Nimrod displaced his father. In Chinese records, as in Genesis, only Shun (Nimrod) appears -- for he was certainly the mainspring of the rebellion.

Shun reigned but 50 years after Babel over the Chinese people 2254-2204. Thereafter, through migration, the Chinese appear to have gained independence. A native Chinese family came to power in 2204, known in modern parlance as the Hsia Dynasty. It governed 439 years -- 2204-1765. (Some authors incorrectly pre-date these years into the December of the preceding year.)
 

Kings of Hsia Dynasty 2204-1765	Lengths of Reign	Dates
Yu	8	2204-2196
Ch'i	9	2196-2187
T'ai K'ang	29	2187-2158
Chung K'ang	13	2158-2145
Hsiang	27	2145-2118
Hong-Yi, a usurper		2118
Han Cho, another usurper, assassinates Hong-Yi	40	2118-2078
Shao K'ang	22	2078-2056
Ch'u	17	2056-2039
Huai	26	2039-2013
Mang	18	2013-1995
Hsieh	16	1995-1979
Pu Chiang	59	1979-1920
Chiung	21	1920-1899
Chin	21	1899-1878
K'ung Chia	31	1878-1847
Kao	11	1847-1836
Fa	19	1836-1817
Chieh Kuei	52	1817-1765

Shang (or Yin) Dynasty (1765-1121)

Under first king of this dynasty the year was made to begin at new moon nearest winter solstice.
 

Ch'en T'ang

13

1765-1752

In his reign China suffered from seven years of famine, shortly before that of Egypt (Jackson's "Chronology of Most Ancient Nations", vol. II, 455).
 

T'ai Chia	33	1752-1719
Wu Ting	29	1719-1690
T'ai Keng	25	1690-1665
Hsiao Chia	17	1665-1648
Yung Chi	12	1648-1636
T'ai Mou	75	1636-1561
Chung Ting	13	1561-1548
Wai Jen	15	1548-1533
Ho Tan Chia	9	1533-1524
Tsu Yi	19	1524-1505
Tsu Hsin	16	1505-1489
Wu Chia	25	1489-1464
Tsu Ting	32	1464-1432
Nan Keng	25	1432-1407
Yang Chia	7	1407-1400
P'an Keng	28	1400-1372
Hsiao Hsin	21	1372-1351
Hsiao Yi	28	1351-1323
Wu Ting	59	1323-1264
Tsu Keng	7	1264-1257
Tsu Chia	33	1257-1224
Lin Hsin	6	1224-1218
Keng Ting	21	1218-1197
Wu Yi	4	1197-1193
T'ai Ting	3	1193-1190
Ti Yi	37	1190-1153
Ti Hsin (Chou)	32	1153-1121

Chou Dynasty (1121-256)
 

Wu Fa	7	1121-1114
Ch'eng	37	1114-1077
K'ang Chao	26	1077-1051
Chao H'ia	51	1051-1000
Mu Man	55	1000- 945

This king was unusually fond of horses and chariots. He lived during the time of King Solomon who exported horses and chariots throughout the world.
 

Kung I Hu	12	945-933
I Hsi	25	933-908
Hsiao P'ih	15	908-893
I Sieh	16	893-877
Li Hu	51	877-826
Hsuan Tsing	46	826-780
Yu Kung Nieh	11	780-769
P'ing Hsuang Chiu	51	769-718
Huan Lin	23	718-695
Chuang T'o	15	695-680
Hsi Hu Ch'i	5	680-675
Hui Lang	25	675-650
Hsiang Ching	33	650-618

(from this reign on the years in this chart are reckoned as corresponding to Roman years, January through December)
 

Ch'ing Jen K'uang	6	617-612
K'uang Pan	6	611-606
Ting Yu	21	605-585
Chien I	14	584-571
Ling Hsieh Sin	27	570-544
Ching Kewi	25	543-519
Ching Ch'ih	44	518-475
Yuan Jen	7	474-468
Chen Ting Chiai	28	467-440
K'ao Wei	15	439-425
Wei Lieh Wu	24	424-401
An Chiao	26	400-375
Lieh Hsi	7	374-368
Hsien Pien	48	367-320
Shen Ching Ting	6	319-314
Nan Yen	58	313-256

A list of succeeding dynasties may be found summarized in "The Year Names of China and Japan", by P. M. Susuki. A simple, though uncritical, outline of each emperor's reign is preserved in John Jackson's "Chronology of Most Ancient Nations". Few modern writers cover the earliest period (except Legge's original translation of the Shoo King in the "Chinese Classics"). If described at all, China's earliest ages are unfortunately limited to studies of potsherds and bronze statuary!
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