The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

SUPPLEMENTAL ENCYCLOPAEDIAThe kingdoms of Persia, Media and Babylon were connectedby royal family ties from the time of Nabopolassarto that of Darius, by the marriage of Nebuchadnezzar,son of Nabopolassar and King of Babylon, to Amyitis,daughter of Astyages, King of Media. Cambyses, Kingof Persia, married Mandane, daughter of Astyages, Kingof Media. Cyrus the Great was the son of King Cambysesand Mandane and the grandson of Astyages, King of Media.Belshazzar was the son of Nabonadius, King of Babylon,and the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.Damascus A celebrated metropolis of Syria, and nowprobably the oldest city on the globe. It stands on theriver Barada, in a beautiful and fertile plain on the eastand southeast of Ante-Lebanon. This plain is about fiftymiles in circumference; it is open to the desert of Arabiaon the south and east, and is bounded on the other sidesby the mountains. It is still celebrated, with the surroundingcountry, by all travelers as one of the most beautifuland luxuriant regions in the world. The Orientals themselvescall it the "Paradise on earth." It is the most purelyOriental city yet remaining of all that are named in theBible. Its public buildings and bazaars are fine ;and manyprivate dwellings, though outwardly mean, are decoratedwithin in a style of the most costly luxury. Its positionhas made it from the very first a commercial city; hugecaravans assemble here at intervals, and traverse, just asof old, the desert routes to remote cities.Darius, King of Persia The successor of Cyrus andCambyses (Ahasuerus) on the throne of Persia, Babylonand Media, was the son of Hystaspes, a member of thenoble family of Ach^emenidae. He was one of the sevennoble Persians who conspired against and killed the usurperSmerdis (Artaxerxes), whom he succeeded in 521B. C.lie married two daughters of Cyrus the Great, and organizedthe extensive empire which Cyrus and Cambyses had