Syrian King of Diodorus) beautifully repaired that city, and so magnificently built his hanging gardens,[A 1] that from succeeding writers he had the honour of the first. From whence overlooking Babylon, and all the region about it, he found no circumscription to the eye of his ambition; till over-delighted with the bravery of this Paradise, in his melancholy metamorphosis he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment in the contrary habitation—in wild plantations and wanderings of the fields.
The Persian gallants, who destroyed this monarchy, maintained their botanical bravery. Unto whom we owe the very name of Paradise, wherewith we meet not in Scripture before the time of Solomon, and conceived originally Persian. The word for that disputed garden expressing, in the Hebrew, no more than a field enclosed, which from the same root is content to derive a garden and a buckler.
Cyrus the Elder, brought up in woods and mountains,[B 1] when time and power enabled, pursued the dictate of his education, and brought the treasures of the field into rule and circumscription. So nobly beautifying the hanging gardens of Babylon, that he was also thought to be the author thereof.
Ahasuerus (whom many conceive to have been Artaxerxes Longimanus), in the country and city of flowers,[A 2] and in an open garden, entertained his princes and people, while Vashti more modestly treated the ladies within the palace thereof.
But if, as some opinion,[A 3] King Ahasuerus were Artaxerxes Mnemon, that found a life and reign answerable unto his great memory, our magnified Cyrus was his second brother, who gave the occasion of that memorable work, and almost miraculous retreat of Xenophon. A person of high spirit and honour, naturally a king, though fatally prevented by the harmless chance of post-geniture; not only a lord of gardens, but a manual planter thereof, disposing his trees, like his armies, in regular ordination. So that while old Laertes hath
- ↑ Cyrus the elder, &c.] Alluding to his having been brought up by the shepherd of Astyages, his grandfather.
