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412 SELECT NOTES ON
/. 289. p. 52. of later fame,
Built by Emathian, or by Parthian hands,
The great Seleucia, Nifibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, CteJiphon,~\
Cities of later date, built by Emathian hands, that is, Macedonian ;
by the fucceffors of Alexander in Alia. The great Seleucia, built
near the river Tigris by Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's captains,
and called great to diftinguifh it from others of the fame name ;
Nifibis, another city upon the Tigris, called alfo Antiocha, Antiochia
quam Nifibin vocant. Plin. vi. 16. Artaxata, the chief city of
Armenia, feated upon the river Araxes, juxta Araxem Artaxaie.
Plin. vi. 10. Teredon, a city near the Perfian bay, below the con-
fluence of Euphrates and Tigris, Teredon infra confluentem Euphratis
et
Tigris. Plin. vi. 28.
Ctefiphon, near Seleucia, the winter refidence
of the Parthian kings, Strabo. L. xvi. p. 743. Newton,
I. 292. p. 52. Artaxata
]
Straba, L. xi. p. 528. fays that Artaxata was built by Hannibal,
for Artaxas ; who, after being general to Antiochus the Great, be-
came king of Armenia.
/. 294. p. 52. All thefe the Parthian, nowfome ages pa/i
By great Arfaces led, tvho foundedfrjt
That empire, under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch ivon.^
All thefe cities, which before belonged to the Seleucidae or Syro-
Macedonian princes, fometimes called kings of Antioch, from their
ufual place of refidence, were now under the deminion of the Par-
thians, whofc empire was founded by Arfaces, who revolted from
Antiochus Theus, according to Prideaux, two hundred and fifty years
before Chrift. This view of the Parthian empire is much more agree-
ably and poetically defcribed than Adam's profpect of the kingdoms
of the world from the mount of vifion in the Paradife Loft, xi. 385
411:
but ftill the anachronifm in this is worfe than in the other : in
the former Adam is fuppofed to take a view of cities many years be-
fore they were built, and in the latter our Saviour beholds cities, as
Nineveh, Babylon, &c. in this flourifhing condition many years after
they were laid in ruins ; but it was the defign of the former vifion to