Artaxerxes (Hastings' Dictionary)

The name is wriiten Artakhsliatra in Old Persian, Artaksatsu and Artaksassu in Bab. cuneiform, and is derived from the Persian arta, ' great,' and khshntra, ' kingdom.' "The meaning of ' great warrior,' there- fore, given to it by Herodotus (vi. 98) is incorrect. Ardeshir is the later Persian form of the name. The only Artaxerxes mentioned in the OT i« Artaxerxes I. Ix)ngimanus (or ' Long-handed '), the son of Xerxes, who reigned B.C. 464^25.

AETEMAS ASA 159 Ewald, Hitzi<r, and other commentators have supposed that m Ezr 4"'^ the pseudoSmerdis (n.C. 522) is meant under the name of Artaxerxes.

Hut the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions has shown tnat the Persia>n kinf's did not bear double names of the kind implied by the theory, and the diificulty felt by the commentators has been occasioned by the insertion of letters which relate only to the rebuUding of the city and walls of Jerusalem into the narrative of the rebuilding of the temple. The 24th verse of the chapter ought im- mediately to follow the 5th. (See Zeruhbabel.)

It may have been in consequence of the letters whi''ii pas.sed between the Persian king and his representatives in Palestine that in his seventh year Ezra was allowed, with other priests and temple-servants, and a grant from the imperial ex- chequer, to go up from Babylon to Jerusalem and there settle the affairs of the community (Ezr 7. 8). Thirteen years later (B.C.

4-t4), Nehemiah, the cup- bearer of Artaxerxes, was allowed to leave Susa for Jerusalem for a similar purpose, the first result of his mission being the restoration of the city walls. Artaxerxes was the third son of Xerxes, and after the assassination of his father made his way to the throne by crushing the Baetrians under his brother Hystaspes, and murdering another brother, Darius. In b.

c 46U Egypt revolted ; but in spite of the assistance rendered by Athens to the rebels, the revolt was suppressed in B.C. 455. In B.C. 449 the war with Greece was ended by a treaty, known as that of Kallias, by which Athens gave up Cyprus, and Persia renounced her claims to the Gr. cities of Asia Minor. Not Ion" afterwards Megabyzos the satrap of Syria revolted, and compelled the Persian king to agree to his own terms of peace. Artaxerxes was succeeded by his son Xerxes II. A. H. Savce.