at the mean duration of a human generation, thirty years; he then applied to this new pair of numbers the process of doubling he had employed for the couple mentioned above—­

     The number twenty-eight has been attributed to the reign of
     Arbakes, instead of the number thirty, to give an air of
     truthfulness to the whole catalogue.

This tradition ignored the monarchs who had rendered the second Assyrian empire illustrious, and substituted for them a line of inactive sovereigns, reputed to be the descendants of Ninus and Semiramis.  The last of them, Sardanapalus, had, according to this account, lived a life of self-indulgence in his harem, surrounded by women, dressing himself in their garb, and adopting feminine occupations and amusements.  The satrap of Media, Arbakes, saw him at his toilet, and his heart turned against yielding obedience to such a painted doll:  he rebelled in concert with Belesys the Babylonian.  The imminence of the danger thus occasioned roused Sardanapalus from his torpor, and revived in him the warlike qualities of his ancestors; he placed himself at the head of his troops, overcame the rebels, and was about to exterminate them, when his hand was stayed by the defection of some Bactrian auxiliaries.  He shut himself up in Nineveh, and for two whole years heroically repulsed all assaults; in the third year, the Tigris, swollen by the rains, overflowed its banks and broke down the city walls for a distance of twenty stadia.  The king thereupon called to mind an oracle which had promised him victory until the day when the river should betray him.  Judging that the prediction was about to be accomplished, he resolved not to yield himself alive to the besieger, and setting fire to his palace, perished therein, together with his children and his treasures, about 788 B.C.  Arbakes, thus rendered an independent sovereign, handed down the monarchy to his son Mandaukas, and he in his turn was followed successively by Sosarmos, Artykas, Arbianes, Artaios, Artynes, and Astibaras.* These names are not the work of pure invention; they are met with in more than one Assyrian text:  among the petty kings who paid tribute to Sargon are enumerated some which bear such names as Mashdaku,** Ashpanda,*** Arbaku, and Khartukka,*** and many others, of whom traces ought to be found some day among the archives of princely families of later times.

     * Oppert thought that the names given by Herodotus
     represented “Aryanised forms of Turanian names, of which
     Otesias has given the Persian translation.”

** Mashdaku is identified by Post with the Mandaukas or Maydaukas of Ctesias, which would then be a copyist’s error for Masdaukas.  The identification with Vashd[t]aku, Vashtak, the name of a fabulous king of Armenia, is rejected by Rost; Mashdaku would be the Iranian Mazdaka, preserved in the Mazakes of Arrian.

     *** Ashpanda is the Aspandas or Aspadas which Ctesias gives
     instead of the Astyages of Herodotus.