Freemasonry > Free-masons pocket-companion

3i
Chap. IV. of MASONRY.
for its aftoniftiing workmanfhip, Xerxes, the avow¬
ed enemy of image-worfhip, thought fit to leave
{landing, while he burnt all the other temples in
his way to Greece.
But on the fame day that Alexander the Great
was born, after it had flood 365 Y;ar of the flood
years from the time of its being 1992. Before chrift
finifhed, this beautiful edifice was 356'
burnt to the ground by a villain, who thought
thereby to tranfmit his name to poflerity; for, up¬
on being put to the rack, he acknowledged that
his only view was, that, by deflroying fo excellent
a work, he might perpetuate his name, and make
it be remembered in after-ages: whereupon the
council of Afia made a decree, that no one fhould
ever name him; but this made him fo much the
more remembered, fb remarkable an extravagance
fcarce efcaping any of the hiflorians that have writ¬
ten of thofe times. It was again rebuilt by the fa¬
mous architett and defigner, Denocrates, at the ex-
penfe of the neighbouring princes and ftates.
The AJfyrian monarchs, ever fince Nimrod and
Ninus, had cultivated the royal art, efpecially at
their great Nineveh, down to Sardanapalus, who
being befieged by his brother Ti- Year of the flood
ghth-Pdefer, and his general Na- *598. Before Chrift
b'Aiajfar, burnt himfelf, hisfami- 75°‘
ly, and vafl treafure in old Nimrod’s palace, in the
twelfth year of Jotham, king of Judah; when the
empire was partitioned between Tiglath, who fuc-
ceeded