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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+       Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+       or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16163]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+
+OF THE
+
+ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;
+
+
+OR,
+
+
+THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA
+
+BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,
+
+OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+
+CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+
+
+WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD MONARCHY.
+
+
+
+MEDIA.
+
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+Along the eastern flank of the great Mesopotamian lowland, curving
+round it on the north, and stretching beyond it to the south and the
+south-east, lies a vast elevated region, or highland, no portion of
+which appears to be less than 3000 feet above the sea-level. This
+region may be divided, broadly, into two tracts, one consisting of lofty
+mountainous ridges, which form its outskirts on the north and on the
+west; the other, in the main a high flat table-land, extending from the
+foot of the mountain chains, southward to the Indian Ocean, and eastward
+to the country of the Afghans. The western mountain-country consists,
+as has been already observed, of six or seven parallel ridges, having
+a direction nearly from the north-west to the south-east, enclosing
+between them, valleys of great fertility, and well watered by a large
+number of plentiful and refreshing streams. This district was known to
+the ancients as Zagros, while in modern geography it bears the names of
+Kurdistan and Luristan. It has always been inhabited by a multitude of
+warlike tribes, and has rarely formed for any long period a portion
+of any settled monarchy. Full of torrents, of deep ravines, or rocky
+summits, abrupt and almost inaccessible; containing but few passes, and
+those narrow and easily defensible; secure, moreover, owing to the rigor
+of its climate, from hostile invasion during more than half the year;
+it has defied all attempts to effect its permanent subjugation, whether
+made by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Parthians, or Turks, and remains
+to this day as independent of the great powers in its neighborhood as it
+was when the Assyrian armies first penetrated its recesses. Nature seems
+to have constructed it to be a nursery of hardy and vigorous men, a
+stumbling-block to conquerors, a thorn in the side of every powerful
+empire which arises in this part of the great eastern continent.
+
+The northern mountain country--known to modern geographers as Eiburz--is
+a tract of far less importance. It is not composed, like Zagros, of
+a number of parallel chains, but consists of a single lofty ridge,
+furrowed by ravines and valleys, from which spurs are thrown
+out, running in general at right angles to its axis. Its width is
+comparatively slight; and instead of giving birth to numerous large
+rivers, it forms only a small number of insignificant streams, often dry
+in summer, which have short courses, being soon absorbed either by the
+Caspian or the Desert. Its most striking feature is the snowy peak of
+Demavend, which impends over Teheran, and appears to be the highest
+summit in the part of Asia west of the Himalayas.
+
+The elevated plateau which stretches from the foot of those two mountain
+regions to the south and east is, for the most part, a flat sandy
+desert, incapable of sustaining more than a sparse and scanty
+population. The northern and western portions are, however, less arid
+than the east and south, being watered to some distance by the streams
+that descend from Zagros and Elburz, and deriving fertility also from
+the spring rains. Some of the rivers which flow from Zagros on this side
+are large and strong. One, the Kizil-Uzen, reaches the Caspian. Another,
+the Zenderud, fertilizes a large district near Isfahan. A third, the
+Bendamir, flows by Persepolis and terminates in a sheet of water of
+some size--lake Bakhtigan. A tract thus intervenes between the mountain
+regions and the desert which, though it cannot be called fertile, is
+fairly productive, and can support a large settled population. This
+forms the chief portion of the region which the ancients called Media,
+as being the country inhabited by the race on whose history we are about
+to enter.
+
+Media, however, included, besides this, another tract of considerable
+size and importance. At the north-western angle of the region above
+described, in the corner whence the two great chains branch out to
+the south and to the east, is a tract composed almost entirely of
+mountains, which the Greeks called Atropatene, and which is now known
+as Azerbijan. This district lies further to the north than the rest of
+Media, being in the same parallels with the lower part of the Caspian
+Sea. It comprises the entire basin of Lake Urumiyeh, together with the
+country intervening between that basin and the high mountain chain which
+curves round the south-western corner of the Caspian, It is a region
+generally somewhat sterile, but containing a certain quantity of very,
+fertile territory, more particularly in the Urumiyeh basin, and towards
+the mouth of the river Araxes.
+
+The boundaries of Media are given somewhat differently by different
+writers, and no doubt they actually varied at different periods; but the
+variations were not great, and the natural limits, on three sides at any
+rate, may be laid down with tolerable precision. Towards the north the
+boundary was at first the mountain chain closing in on that side the
+Urumiyeh basin, after which it seems to have been held that the true
+limit was the Araxes, to its entrance on the low country, and then the
+mountain chain west and south of the Caspian. Westward, the line of
+demarcation may be best regarded as, towards the south, running along
+the centre of the Zagros region; and, above this, as formed by that
+continuation of the Zagros chain which separates the Urumiyeh from
+the Van basin. Eastward, the boundary was marked by the spur from the
+Elburz, across which lay the pass known as the Pylse Caspise, and below
+this by the great salt desert, whose western limit is nearly in the
+same longitude. Towards the south there was no marked line or natural
+boundary; and it is difficult to say with any exactness how much of the
+great plateau belonged to Media and how much to Persia. Having regard,
+however, to the situation of Hamadan, which, as the capital, should have
+been tolerably central, and to the general account which historians and
+geographers give of the size of Media, we may place the southern limit
+with much probability about the line of the thirty-second parallel,
+which is nearly the present boundary between Irak and Fars.
+
+The shape of Media has been called a square; but it is rather a
+long parallelogram, whose two principal sides face respectively the
+north-east and the south-west, while the ends or shorter sides front to
+the south-east and to the northwest. Its length in its greater direction
+is about 600 miles, and its width about 250 miles. It must thus contain
+nearly 150,000 square miles, an area considerably larger than that of
+Assyria and Chaldaea put together, and quite sufficient to constitute a
+state of the first class, even according to the ideas of modern Europe.
+It is nearly one-fifth more than the area of the British Islands, and
+half as much again as that of Prussia, or of peninsular Italy. It equals
+three fourths of France, or three fifths of Germany. It has, moreover,
+the great advantage of compactness, forming a single solid mass, with no
+straggling or outlying portions; and it is strongly defended on almost
+every side by natural barriers offering great difficulties to an
+invader.
+
+In comparison with the countries which formed the seats of the two
+monarchies already described, the general character of the Median
+territory is undoubtedly one of sterility. The high table-land is
+everywhere intersected by rocky ranges, spurs from Zagros, which have
+a general direction from west to east, and separate the country into a
+number of parallel broad valleys, or long plains, opening out into the
+desert. The appearance of these ranges is almost everywhere bare, arid,
+and forbidding. Above, they present to the eye huge masses of gray rock
+piled one upon another; below, a slope of detritus, destitute of trees
+or shrubs, and only occasionally nourishing a dry and scanty herbage.
+The appearance of the plains is little superior; they are flat and
+without undulations, composed in general of gravel or hard clay, and
+rarely enlivened by any show of water; except for two months in
+the spring, they exhibit to the eye a uniform brown expanse, almost
+treeless, which impresses the traveller with a feeling of sadness and
+weariness. Even in Azerbijan, which is one of the least arid portions
+of the territory, vast tracks consist of open undulating downs, desolate
+and sterile, bearing only a coarse withered grass and a few stunted
+bushes.
+
+Still there are considerable exceptions to this general aspect of
+desolation. In the worst parts of the region there is a time after
+the spring rains when nature puts on a holiday dress, and the country
+becomes gay and cheerful. The slopes at the base of the rocky ranges are
+tinged with an emerald green: a richer vegetation springs up over the
+plains, which are covered with a fine herbage or with a variety of
+crops; the fruit trees which surround the villages burst out into the
+most luxuriant blossom; the roses come into bloom, and their perfume
+everywhere fills the air. For the two months of April and May the
+whole face of the country is changed, and a lovely verdure replaces the
+ordinary dull sterility.
+
+In a certain number of more favored spots beauty and fertility are
+found during nearly the whole of the year. All round the shores of Lake
+Urumiyeh, more especially in the rich plain of Miyandab at its southern
+extremity, along the valleys of the Aras, the Kizil-uzen, and the
+Jaghetu, in the great valley of Linjan, fertilized by irrigation from
+the Zenderud, in the Zagros valleys, and in various other places,
+there is an excellent soil which produces abundantly with very slight
+cultivation.
+
+The general sterility of Media arises from the scantiness of the water
+supply. It has but few rivers, and the streams that it possesses run for
+the most part in deep and narrow valleys sunk below the general level of
+the country, so that they cannot be applied at all widely to purposes of
+irrigation. Moreover, some of them are, unfortunately, impregnated
+with salt to such an extent that they are altogether useless for
+this purpose; and indeed, instead of fertilizing, spread around
+them desolation and barrenness. The only Median streams which are
+of sufficient importance to require description are the Aras, the
+Kizil-Uzen, the Jaghetu, the Aji-Su and the Zenderud, or river of
+Isfahan.
+
+The Aras is only very partially a Median stream. It rises from several
+sources in the mountain tract between Kars and Erzeroum, and runs with
+a generally eastern direction through Armenia to the longitude of Mount
+Ararat, where it crosses the fortieth parallel and begins to trend
+southward, flowing along the eastern side of Ararat in a south-easterly
+direction, nearly to the Julfa ferry on the high road from Erivan to
+Tabriz. From this point it runs only a little south of east to long.
+46 deg. 30' E. from Greenwich, when it makes almost a right angle and runs
+directly north-east to its junction with the Kur at Djavat. Soon after
+this it curves to the south, and enters the Caspian by several mouths in
+lat. 39 deg. 10' nearly. The Aras is a considerable stream almost from its
+source. At Hassan-Kaleh, less than twenty miles from Erzeroum, where
+the river is forded in several branches, the water reaches to the
+saddle-girths. At Keupri-Kieui, not much lower, the stream is crossed
+by a bridge of seven arches. At the Julfa ferry it is fifty yards wide,
+and runs with a strong current. At Megree, thirty miles further down,
+its width is eighty yards. In spring and early summer the stream
+receives enormous accessions from the spring rains and the melting of
+the snows, which produce floods that often cause great damage to the
+lands and villages along the valley. Hence the difficulty of maintaining
+bridges over the Aras, which was noted as early as the time of Augustus,
+and is attested by the ruins of many such structures remaining along its
+course. Still, there are at the present day at least three bridges over
+the stream--one, which has been already mentioned, at Keupri-Kieui,
+another a little above Nakshivan, and the third at Khudoperinski,
+a little below Megree. The length of the Aras, including only main
+windings, is 500 miles.
+
+The Kizil-Uzen, or (as it is called in the lower part of its course) the
+Sefid-Rud, is a stream of less size than the Aras, but more important
+to Media, within which lies almost the whole of its basin. It drains a
+tract of 180 miles long by 150 broad before bursting through the Elburz
+mountain chain, and descending upon the low country which skirts the
+Caspian. Rising in Persian Kurdistan almost from the foot of Zagros,
+it runs in a meandering course with a general direction of north-east
+through that province into the district of Khamseh, where it suddenly
+sweeps round and flows in a bold curve at the foot of lofty and
+precipitous rocks, first northwest and then north, nearly to Miana, when
+it doubles back upon itself, and turning the flank of the Zenjan range
+runs with a course nearly south-east to Menjil, after which it resumes
+its original direction of north-east, and, rushing down the pass of
+Budbar, crosses Ghilan to the Caspian. Though its source is in direct
+distance no more than 320 miles from its mouth, its entire length, owing
+to its numerous curves and meanders, is estimated at 490 miles. It is a
+considerable stream, forded with difficulty, even in the dry season, as
+high up as Karagul, and crossed by a bridge of three wide arches before
+its junction with the Garongu river near Miana. In spring and early
+summer it is an impetuous torrent, and can only be forded within a short
+distance of its source.
+
+The Jaghetu and the Aji-Su are the two chief rivers of the Urumiyeh
+basin. The Jaghetu rises from the foot of the Zagros chain, at a very
+little distance from the source of the Kizil-Uzen. It collects the
+streams from the range of hills which divides the Kizil-Uzen basin from
+that of Lake Urumiyeh, and flows in a tolerably straight course first
+north and then north-west to the south-eastern shore of the lake. Side
+by side with it for some distance flows the smaller stream of the Tatau,
+formed by torrents from Zagros; and between them, towards their mouths,
+is the rich plain of Miyandab, easily irrigated from the two streams,
+the level of whose beds is above that of the plain, and abundantly
+productive even under the present system of cultivation. The Aji-Su
+reaches the lake from the north-east. It rises from Mount Sevilan,
+within sixty miles of the Caspian, and flows with a course which is at
+first nearly due south, then north-west, and finally south-west, past
+the city of Tabriz, to the eastern shore of the lake, which it enters in
+lat. 37 deg. 50'. The waters of the Aji-Su are, unfortunately, salt, and it
+is therefore valueless for purposes of irrigation.
+
+The Zenderud or river of Isfahan rises from the eastern flank of the
+Kuh-i-Zerd (Yellow Mountain), a portion of the Bakhti-yari chain, and,
+receiving a number of tributaries from the same mountain district, flows
+with a course which is generally east or somewhat north of east, past
+the great city of Isfahan--so long the capital of Persia--into the
+desert country beyond, where it is absorbed in irrigation. Its entire
+course is perhaps not more than 120 or 130 miles; but running chiefly
+through a plain region, and being naturally a stream of large size,
+it is among the most valuable of the Median rivers, its waters being
+capable of spreading fertility, by means of a proper arrangement of
+canals, over a vast extent of country, and giving to this part of Iran a
+sylvan character, scarcely found elsewhere on the plateau.
+
+It will be observed that of these streams there is not one which reaches
+the ocean. All the rivers of the great Iranic plateau terminate in lakes
+or inland seas, or else lose themselves in the desert. In general the
+thirsty sand absorbs, within a short distance of their source, the
+various brooks and streams which flow south and east into the desert
+from the northern and western mountain chains, without allowing them to
+collect into rivers or to carry fertility far into the plain region. The
+the river of Isfahan forms the only exception to this rule within the
+limits of the ancient Media. All its other important streams, as has
+been seen, flow either into the Caspian or into the great lake of
+Urumiyeh.
+
+That lake itself now requires our attention. It is an oblong basin,
+stretching in its greater direction from N.N.W. to S.S. E., a distance
+of above eighty miles, with an average width of about twenty-five miles.
+On its eastern side a remarkable peninsula, projecting far into its
+waters, divides it into two portions of very unequal size--a northern
+and a southern.
+
+The southern one, which is the largest of the two, is diversified
+towards its centre by a group of islands, some of which are of a
+considerable size. The lake, like others in this part of Asia, is
+several thousand feet above the sea level. Its waters are heavily
+impregnated with salt, resembling those of the Dead Sea. No fish can
+live in them. When a storm sweeps over their surface it only raises the
+waves a few feet; and no sooner is it passed than they rapidly subside
+again into a deep, heavy, death-like sleep. The lake is shallow, nowhere
+exceeding four fathoms, and averaging about two fathoms--a depth which,
+however, is rarely attained within two miles of the land. The water is
+pellucid. To the eye it has the deep blue color of some of the northern
+Italian lakes, whence it was called by the Armenians the Kapotan Zow or
+"Blue Sea."
+
+According to the Armenian geography, Media contained eleven districts;
+Ptolemy makes the number eight; but the classical geographers in
+general are contented with the twofold division already indicated,
+and recognized at the constituent parts of Media only Atropatene (now
+Azerbijan) and Media Magna, a tract which nearly corresponds with the
+two provinces of Irak Ajemj and Ardelan. Of the minor subdivisions there
+are but two or three which seem to deserve any special notice. One of
+these is Ehagiana, or the tract skirting the Elburz Mountains from the
+vicinity of the Kizil-Uzen (or Sefid-Eud) to the Caspian Gates, a long
+and narrow slip, fairly productive, but excessively hot in summer, which
+took its name from the important city of Rhages. Another is Nissea, a
+name which the Medes seem to have carried with them from their early
+eastern abodes, and to have applied to some high upland plains west
+of the main chain of Zagros, which were peculiarly favorable to the
+breeding of horses. As Alexander visited these pastures on his way from
+Susa to Ecbatana, they must necessarily have lain to the south of the
+latter city. Most probably they are to be identified with the modern
+plains of Kbawah and Alishtar, between Behistun and Khorramabad, which
+are even now considered to afford the best summer pasturage in Persia.
+
+It is uncertain whether any of these divisions were known in the time of
+the great Median Empire. They are not constituted in any case by marked
+natural lines or features. On the whole it is perhaps most probable
+that the main division--that into Media Magna and Media Atropatene--was
+ancient, Astro-patene being the old home of the Medes, and Media Magna a
+later conquest; but the early political geography of the country is too
+obscure to justify us in laying down even this as certain. The minor
+political divisions are still less distinguishable in the darkness of
+those ancient times.
+
+From the consideration of the districts which composed the Median
+territory, we may pass to that of their principal cities, some of which
+deservedly obtained a very great celebrity. Tho most important of all
+were the two Ecbatanas--the northern and the southern--which seem to
+have stood respectively in the position of metropolis to the northern
+and the southern province. Next to these may be named Rhages, which was
+probably from early times a very considerable place; while in the
+third rank may be mentioned Bagistan--rather perhaps a palace than
+a town--Concobar, Adrapan, Aspadan, Charax, Kudrus, Hyspaostes,
+Urakagabarna, etc.
+
+The southern Ecbatana or Agbatana--which the Medes and Persians
+themselves knew as Hagmatan--was situated, as we learn from Polybius and
+Diodorus, on a plan at the foot of Mont Orontes, a little to the east of
+the Zagros range. The notices of these authors, combined with those of
+Eratosthenes, Isidore, Pliny, Arrian, and others, render it as nearly
+certain as possible that the site was that of the modern town of
+Hamadan, the name of which is clearly but a slight corruption of the
+true ancient appellation. [PLATE I., Fig. 2.] Mount Orontes is to
+be recognized in the modern Elwend or Erwend--a word etymologically
+identical with _Oront-es_--which is a long and lofty mountains standing
+out like a buttress from the Zagros range, with which it is connected
+towards the north-west, while on every other side it stands isolated,
+sweeping boldly down upon the flat country at its base. Copious streams
+descend from the mountain on every side, more particularly to the
+north-east, where the plain is covered with a carpet of the most
+luxuriant verdure, diversified with rills, and ornamented with numerous
+groves of large and handsome forest trees. It is here, on ground sloping
+slightly away from the roots of the mountain, that the modern town,
+which lies directly at its foot, is built. The ancient city, if we may
+believe Diodorus, did not approach the mountain within a mile or a mile
+and a half. At any rate, if it began where Hamadan now stands, it most
+certainly extended very much further into the plain. We need not suppose
+indeed that it had the circumference, or even half the circumference,
+which the Sicilian romancer assigns to it, since his two hundred and
+fifty stades would give a probable area of fifty square miles, more than
+double that of London! Ecbatana is not likely to have been at its most
+flourishing period a larger city than Nineveh; and we have already seen
+that Nineveh covered a space, within the walls, of not more than 1800
+English acres.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE I.]
+
+The character of the city and of its chief edifices has, unfortunately,
+to be gathered almost entirely from unsatisfactory authorities. Hitherto
+it has been found possible in these volumes to check and correct the
+statements of ancient writers, which are almost always exaggerated,
+by an appeal to the incontrovertible evidence of modern surveys
+and explorations. But the Median capital has never yet attracted a
+scientific expedition. The travellers by whom it has been visited have
+reported so unfavorably of its character as a field of antiquarian
+research that scarcely a spadeful of soil has been dug, either in the
+city or in its vicinity, with a view to recover traces of the ancient
+buildings. Scarcely any remains of antiquity are apparent. As the site
+has never been deserted, and the town has thus been subjected for nearly
+twenty-two centuries to the destructive ravages of foreign conquerors,
+and the still more injurious plunderings of native builders, anxious
+to obtain materials for new edifices at the least possible cost and
+trouble, the ancient structures have everywhere disappeared from sight,
+and are not even indicated by mounds of a sufficient size to attract the
+attention of common observers. Scientific explorers have consequently
+been deterred from turning their energies in this direction; more
+promising sites have offered and still offer themselves; and it is as
+yet uncertain whether the plan of the old town might not be traced
+and the position of its chief edifices fixed by the means of careful
+researches conducted by fully competent persons. In this dearth of
+modern materials we have to depend entirely upon the classical writers,
+who are rarely trustworthy in their descriptions or measurements, and
+who, in this instance, labor under the peculiar disadvantage of being
+mere reporters of the accounts given by others.
+
+Ecbatana was chiefly celebrated for the magnificence of its palace,
+a structure ascribed by Diodorus to Semiramis, but most probably
+constructed originally by Cyaxares, and improved, enlarged, and
+embellished by the Achaemenian monarchs. According to the judicious
+and moderate Polybius, who prefaces his account by a protest against
+exaggeration and over-coloring, the circumference of the building
+was seven stades, or 1420 yards, somewhat more than four fifths of an
+English mile. This size, which a little exceeds that of the palace
+mound at Susa, while it is in its turn a little exceeded by the palatial
+platform at Persepolis, may well be accepted as probably close to
+the truth. Judging, however, from the analogy of the above-mentioned
+palaces, we must conclude that the area thus assigned to the royal
+residence was far from being entirely covered with buildings. One half
+of the space, perhaps more, would be occupied by large open courts,
+paved probably with marble, surrounding the various blocks of buildings
+and separating them from one another. The buildings themselves may be
+conjectured to have resembled those of the Achaemenian monarchs at Susa
+and Persepolis, with the exception, apparently, that the pillars, which
+formed their most striking characteristic, were for the most part of
+wood rather than oL stone. Polybius distinguishes the pillars into
+two classes, those of the main buildings, and those which skirted the
+courts, from which it would appear that at Ecbatana the courts were
+surrounded by colonnades, as they were commonly in Greek and Roman
+houses. These wooden pillars, all either of cedar or of cypress,
+supported beams of a similar material, which crossed each other at right
+angles, leaving square spaces between, which were then filled in with
+woodwork. Above the whole a roof was placed, sloping at an angle, and
+composed (as we are told) of silver plates in the shape of tiles. The
+pillars, beams, and the rest of the woodwork were likewise coated with
+thin laminse of the precious metals, even gold being used for this
+purpose to a certain extent.
+
+Such seems to have been the character of the true ancient Median palace,
+which served probably as a model to Darius and Xerxes when they designed
+their great palatial edifices at the more southern capitals. In the
+additions which the palace received under the Achaemenian kings, stone
+pillars may have been introduced; and hence probably the broken shafts
+and bases, so nearly resembling the Persepolitan, one of which Sir E.
+Ker Porter saw in the immediate neighborhood of Hamadan on his visit
+to that place in 1818. [PLATE I., Fig. 1.] But to judge from the
+description of Polybius, an older and ruder style of architecture
+prevailed in the main building, which depended for its effect not on the
+beauty of architectural forms, but on the richness and costliness of the
+material. A pillar architecture, so far as appears, began in this part
+of Asia with the Medes, who, however, were content to use the more
+readily obtained and more easily worked material of wood; while the
+Persians afterwards conceived the idea of substituting for these
+inartificial props the slender and elegant stone shafts which formed the
+glory of their grand edifices.
+
+At a short distance from the palace was the "Acra," or citadel, an
+artificial structure, if we may believe Polybius, and a place of very
+remarkable strength. Here probably was the treasury, from which Darius
+Codomanus carried off 7000 talents of silver, when he fled towards
+Bactria for fear of Alexander. And here, too, may have been the Record
+Office, in which were deposited the royal decrees and other public
+documents under the earlier Persian kings. Some travellers are of
+opinion that a portion of the ancient structure still exists; and there
+is certainly a ruin on the outskirts of the modern town towards the
+south, which is known to the natives as "the inner fortress," and which
+may not improbably occupy some portion of the site whereon the original
+citadel stood. But the remains of building which now exist are certainly
+not of an earlier date than the era of Parthian supremacy, and they can
+therefore throw no light on the character of the old Median stronghold.
+It may be thought perhaps that the description which Herodotus gives
+of the building called by him "the palace of Deioces" should be here
+applied, and that by its means we might obtain an exact notion of the
+original structure. But the account of this author is wholly at variance
+with the natural features of the neighborhood, where there is no such
+conical hill as he describes, but only a plain surrounded by mountains.
+It seems, therefore, to be certain that either his description is a pure
+myth, or that it applies to another city, the Ecbatana of the northern
+province. It is doubtful whether the Median capital was at any time
+surrounded with walls. Polybius expressly declares that it was an
+unwalled place in his day and there is some reason to suspect that it
+had always been in this condition. The Medes and Persians appear to have
+been in general content to establish in each town a fortified citadel or
+stronghold, round which the houses were clustered, without superadding
+the further defence of a town wall. Ecbatana accordingly seems never to
+have stood a siege. When the nation which held it was defeated in the
+open field, the city (unlike Babylon and Nineveh) submitted to the
+conqueror without a struggle. Thus the marvellous description in the
+book of Judith, which is internally very improbable, would appear to be
+entirely destitute of any, even the slightest, foundation in fact.
+
+The chief city of northern Media, which bore in later times the names of
+Gaza, Gazaca, or Canzaca, is thought to have also been called Ecbatana,
+and to have been occasionally mistaken by the Greeks for the southern or
+real capital. The description of Herodotus, which is irreconcilably
+at variance with the local features of the Hamadan site, accords
+sufficiently with the existing remains of a considerable city in the
+province of Azerbijan; and it seems certainly to have been a city in
+these parts which was called by Moses of Chorene "the second Ecbatana,
+the seven-walled town." The peculiarity of this place was its situation
+on and about a conical hill which sloped gently down from its summit
+to its base, and allowed of the interposition of seven circuits of wall
+between the plain and the hill's crest. At the top of the hill, within
+the innermost circle of the defences, were the Royal Palace and
+the treasuries; the sides of the hill were occupied solely by the
+fortifications; and at the base, outside the circuit of the outermost
+wall, were the domestic and other buildings which constituted the town.
+According to the information received by Herodotus, the battlements
+which crowned the walls were variously colored. Those of the outer
+circle were white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the
+fourth blue, of the fifth orange, of the sixth silver, and of the
+seventh gold. A pleasing or at any rate a striking effect was thus
+produced--the citadel, which towered above the town, presenting to the
+eye seven distinct rows of colors.
+
+If there was really a northern as well as a southern Ecbatana, and if
+the account of Herodotus, which cannot possibly apply to the southern
+capital, may be regarded as truly describing the great city of the
+north, we may with much probability fix the site of the northern town
+at the modern Takht-i-Suleiman, in the upper valley of the Saruk, a
+tributary of the Jaghetu. [PLATE I., Fig. 3.] Here alone in northern
+Media are there important ruins occupying such a position as that which
+Herodotus describes. Near the head of a valley in which runs the main
+branch of the Saruk, at the edge of the hills which skirt it to the
+north, there stands a conical mound projecting into the vale and rising
+above its surface to the height of 150 feet. The geological formation of
+the mound is curious in the extreme. It seems to owe its origin entirely
+to a small lake, the waters of which are so strongly impregnated with
+calcareous matter that wherever they overflow they rapidly form a
+deposit which is as hard and firm as natural rock. If the lake was
+originally on a level with the valley, it would soon have formed
+incrustations round its edge, which every casual or permanent overflow
+would have tended to raise; and thus, in the course of ages, the entire
+hill may have been formed by a mere accumulation of petrefactions. The
+formation would progress more or less rapidly according to the tendency
+of the lake to overflow its bounds; which tendency must have been strong
+until the water reached its present natural level--the level, probably,
+of some other sheet of water in the hills, with which it is connected
+by an underground siphon. The lake, which is of an irregular shape,
+is about 300 paces in circumference. Its water, notwithstanding the
+quantity of mineral matter held in solution, is exquisitely clear, and
+not unpleasing to the taste. Formerly it was believed by the natives to
+be unfathomable; but experiments made in 1837 showed the depth to be no
+more than 156 feet.
+
+The ruins which at present occupy this remarkable site consist of a
+strong wall, guarded by numerous bastions and pierced by four gateways,
+which runs round the brow of the hill in a slightly irregular ellipse,
+of some interesting remains of buildings within this walled space, and
+of a few insignificant traces of inferior edifices on the slope between
+the plain and the summit. As it is not thought that any of these remains
+are of a date anterior to the Sassanian kingdom, no description will be
+given of them here. We are only concerned with the Median city, and that
+has entirely disappeared. Of the seven walls, one alone is to be traced;
+and even here the Median structure has perished, and been replaced by
+masonry of a far later age. Excavations may hereafter bring, to light
+some remnants of the original town, but at present research has done no
+more than recover for us a forgotten site.
+
+The Median city next in importance to the two Ecbatanas was Raga or
+Rhages, near the Caspian Gates, almost at the extreme eastern limits of
+the territory possessed by the Medes.
+
+The great antiquity of this place is marked by its occurrence in the
+Zendavesta among the primitive settlements of the Arians. Its celebrity
+during the time of the Empire is indicated by the position which it
+occupies in the romances of Tobit and Judith. It maintained its rank
+under the Persians, and is mentioned by Darius Hystaspis as the scene of
+the struggle which terminated the great Median revolt. The last Darius
+seems to have sent thither his heavy baggage and the ladies of his
+court, when he resolved to quit Ecbatana and fly eastward. It has been
+already noticed that Rhages gave name to a district; and this district
+maybe certainly identified with the long narrow tract of fertile
+territory intervening between the Elburz mountain-range and the desert,
+from about Kasvin to Khaar, or from long. 30 deg. to 52 deg. 30'. The exact site
+of the city of Rhages within this territory is somewhat doubtful. All
+accounts place it near the eastern extremity; and as there are in this
+direction ruins of a town called Rhei or Rhey, it has been usual to
+assume that they positively fix the locality. But similarity, or even
+identity, of name is an insufficient proof of a site; and, in the
+present instance, there are grounds for placing Rhages very much nearer
+to the Caspian Gates than the position of Rhei. Arrian, whose accuracy
+is notorious, distinctly states that from the Gates to Rhages was only a
+single day's march, and that Alexander accomplished the distance in that
+time. Now from Rhei to the Girduni Surdurrah pass, which undoubtedly
+represents the Pylae Cacpise of Arrian, is at least fifty miles, a
+distance which no army could accomplish in less time than two days.
+Rhages consequently must have been considerably to the east of
+Rhei, about half-way between it and the celebrated pass which it was
+considered to guard. Its probable position is the modern Kaleh Erij,
+near Veramin, about 23 miles from the commencement of the Surdurrah
+pass, where there are considerable remains of an ancient town.
+
+In the same neighborhood with Rhages, but closer to the Straits, perhaps
+on the site now occupied by the ruins known as Uewanukif, or possibly
+even nearer to the foot of the pass, was the Median city of Charax, a
+place not to be confounded with the more celebrated city called Gharax
+Spasini, the birthplace of Dionysius the geographer, which was on the
+Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Tigris.
+
+The other Median cities, whose position can be determined with an
+approach to certainty, were in the western portion of the country, in
+the range of Zagros, or in the fertile tract between that range and the
+desert. The most important of these are Bagistan, Adrapan, Concobar, and
+Aspadan.
+
+Bagistan is described by Isidore as a "city situated on a hill, where
+there was a pillar and a statue of Semiramis." Diodorus has an account
+of the arrival of Semiramis at the place, of her establishing a royal
+park or paradise in the plain below the mountain, which was watered
+by an abundant spring, of her smoothing the face of the rock where it
+descended precipitously upon the low ground, and of her carving on the
+surface thus obtained her own effigy, with an inscription in Assyrian
+characters. The position assigned to Bagistan by both writers, and the
+description of Diodorus, identify the place beyond a doubt with the now
+famous Behistun, where the plain, the fountain, the precipitous rock,
+and the scarped surface are still to be seen, through the supposed
+figure of Semiramis, her pillar, and her inscription have disappeared.
+[PLATE II., Fig. 1.] This remarkable spot, lying on the direct route
+between Babylon and Ecbatana, and presenting the unusual combination of
+a copious fountain, a rich plain, and a rock suitable for sculptures,
+must have early attracted the attention of the great monarchs who
+marched their armies through the Zagros range, as a place where they
+might conveniently set up memorials of their exploits. The works of this
+kind ascribed by the ancient writers to Semiramis were probably either
+Assyrian or Babylonian, and (it is most likely) resembled the ordinary
+monuments which the kings of Babylon and Nineveh delighted to erect
+in countries newly conquered. The example set by the Mesopotamians was
+followed by their Arian neighbors, when the supremacy passed into
+their hands; and the famous mountain, invested by them with a sacred
+character, was made to subserve and perpetuate their glory by receiving
+sculptures and inscriptions which showed them to have become the lords
+of Asia. The practice did not even stop here. When the Parthian kingdom
+of the Arsacidee had established itself in these parts at the expense
+of the Seleucidse, the rock was once more called upon to commemorate
+the warlike triumphs of a new race. Gotarzes, the contemporary of the
+Emperor Claudius, after defeating his rival Meherdates in the plain
+between Behistun and Kermanshah, inscribed upon the mountain, which
+already bore the impress of the great monarchs of Assyria and Persia, a
+record of his recent victory.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE II.]
+
+The name of Adrapan occurs only in Isidore, who places it between
+Bagistan and Ecbatana, at the distance of twelve schoeni--36 Roman or 34
+British miles from the latter. It was, he says, the site of an ancient
+palace belonging to Ecbatana, which Tigranes the Armenian had destroyed.
+The name and situation sufficiently identify Adrapan with the modern
+village of Arteman, which lies on the southern face of Elwend near
+its base, and is well adapted for a royal residence. Here, during the
+severest winter, when Hamadan and the surrounding country are buried in
+snow, a warm and sunny climate is to be found; whilst in the summer
+a thousand rills descending from Elwend diffuse around fertility
+and fragrance. Groves of trees grow up in rich luxuriance from the
+well-irrigated soil, whose thick foliage affords a welcome shelter from
+the heat of the noonday sun. The climate, the gardens, and the manifold
+blessings of the place are proverbial throughout Persia; and naturally
+caused the choice of the site for a retired palace, to which the court
+of Ecbatana might adjourn when either the summer heat and dust or the
+winter cold made residence in the capital irksome.
+
+In the neighborhood of Adrapan, on the road leading to Bagistan, stood
+Concobar, which is undoubtedly the modern Kungawar, and perhaps the
+Chavon of Diodorus. Here, according to the Sicilian historian, Semiramis
+built a palace and laid out a paradise; and here, in the time of
+Isidore, was a famous temple of Artemis. Colossal ruins crown the summit
+of the acclivity on which the town of Kungawar stands, which may be the
+remains of this latter building; but no trace has been found that can be
+regarded as either Median or Assyrian.
+
+The Median town of Aspadan, which is mentioned by no writer but Ptolemy,
+would scarcely deserve notice here, if it were not for its modern
+celebrity. Aspadan, corrupted into Isfahan, became the capital of
+Persia, under the Sen kings, who rendered it one of the most magnificent
+cities of Asia. It is uncertain whether it existed at all in the time
+of the great Median empire. If so, it was, at best, an outlying town of
+little consequence on the extreme southern confines of the territory,
+where it abutted upon Persia proper. The district wherein it lay was
+inhabited by the Median tribe of the Parastaceni.
+
+Upon the whole it must be allowed that the towns of Media were few
+and of no great account. The Medes did not love to congregate in large
+cities, but preferred to scatter themselves in villages over their
+broad and varied territory. The protection of walls, necessary for
+the inhabitants of the low Mesopotamian regions, was not required by a
+people whose country was full of natural fastnesses to which they could
+readily remove on the approach of danger. Excepting the capital and
+the two important cities of Gazaca and Rhages, the Median towns were
+insignificant. Even those cities themselves were probably of moderate
+dimensions, and had little of the architectural splendor which gives
+so peculiar an interest to the towns of Mesopotamia. Their principal
+buildings were in a frail and perishable material, unsuited to bear the
+ravages of time; they have consequently altogether disappeared, and in
+the whole of Media modern researches have failed to bring to light a
+single edifice which can be assigned with any show of probability to the
+period of the Empire.
+
+The plan adopted in former portions of this work makes it necessary,
+before concluding this chapter, to glance briefly at the character of
+the various countries and districts by which Media was bordered--the
+Caspian district upon the north, Armenia upon the north-west, the Zagros
+region and Assyria upon the west, Persia proper upon the south, and upon
+the east Sagartia and Parthia.
+
+North and north-east of the mountain range which under different names
+skirts the southern shores of the Caspian Sea and curves round
+its south-western corner, lies a narrow but important strip of
+territory--the modern Ghilan and Mazanderan. [PLATE II., Fig. 2.] This
+is a most fertile region, well watered and richly wooded, and forms one
+of the most valuable portions of the modern kingdom of Persia. At first
+it is a low flat tract of deep alluvial soil, but little raised above
+the level of the Caspian; gradually however it rises into swelling
+hills which form the supports of the high mountains that shut in this
+sheltered region, a region only to be reached by a very few passes over
+or through them. The mountains are clothed on this side nearly to their
+summit with dwarf oaks, or with shrubs and brushwood; while, lower
+down, their flanks are covered with forests of elms, cedars, chestnuts,
+beeches, and cypress trees. The gardens and orchards of the natives
+are of the most superb character; the vegetation is luxuriant; lemons,
+oranges, peaches, pomegranates, besides other fruits, abound; rice,
+hemp, sugar-canes, mulberries are cultivated with success; vines grow
+wild; and the valleys are strewn with flowers of rare fragrance, among
+which may be noted the rose, the honeysuckle, and the sweetbrier.
+Nature, however, with her usual justice, has balanced these
+extraordinary advantages with peculiar drawbacks; the tiger, unknown
+in any other part of Western Asia, here lurks in the thickets, ready to
+spring at any moment on the unwary traveller; inundations are frequent,
+and carry desolation far and wide; the waters, which thus escape from
+the river beds, stagnate in marshes, and during the summer and autumn
+heats pestilential exhalations arise, which destroy the stranger,
+and bring even the acclimatized native to the brink of the grave. The
+Persian monarch chooses the southern rather than the northern side of
+the mountains for the site of his capital, preferring the keen winter
+cold and dry summer heat of the high and almost waterless plateau to the
+damp and stifling air of the low Caspian region.
+
+The narrow tract of which this is a description can at no time have
+sheltered a very numerous or powerful people. During the Median period,
+and for many ages afterwards, it seems to have been inhabited by various
+petty tribes of predatory habits--Cadusians, Mardi, Tapyri, etc.,--who
+passed their time in petty quarrels among themselves, and in plundering
+raids upon their great southern neighbor. Of these tribes the Cadusians
+alone enjoyed any considerable reputation. They were celebrated for
+their skill with the javelin--a skill probably represented by the modern
+Persian use of the _djereed_. According to Diodorus, they were engaged
+in frequent wars with the Median kings, and were able to bring into the
+field a force of 200,000 men! Under the Persians they seem to have been
+considered good soldiers, and to have sometimes made a struggle for
+independence. But there is no real reason to believe that they were
+of such strength as to have formed at any time a danger to the Median
+kingdom, to which it is more probable that they generally acknowledged a
+qualified subjection.
+
+The great country of Armenia, which lay north-west and partly north of
+Media, has been generally described in the first volume; but a few
+words will be here added with respect to the more eastern portion, which
+immediately bordered upon the Median territory. This consisted of
+two outlying districts, separated from the rest of the country, the
+triangular basin of Lake Van, and the tract between the Kur and
+Aras rivers--the modern Karabagh and Erivan. The basin of Lake Van,
+surrounded by high ranges, and forming the very heart of the mountain
+system of this part of Asia, is an isolated region, a sort of natural
+citadel, where a strong military power would be likely to establish
+itself. Accordingly it is here, and here alone in all Armenia, that we
+find signs of the existence, during the Assyrian and Median periods, of
+a great organized monarchy.
+
+The Van inscriptions indicate to us a line of kings who bore sway in the
+eastern Armenia--the true Ararat--and who were both in civilization
+and in military strength far in advance of any of the other princes who
+divided among them the Armenian territory. The Van monarchs may have
+been at times formidable enemies of the Medes. They have left traces of
+their dominion, not only on the tops of the mountain passes which lead
+into the basin of Lake Urumiyeh, but even in the comparatively low plain
+of Miyandab on the southern shore of that inland sea. It is probable
+from this that they were at one time masters of a large portion of Media
+Atropatene, and the very name of Urumiyeh, which still attaches to the
+lake, may have been given to it from one of their tribes. In the tract
+between the Kur and Aras, on the other hand, there is no sign of
+the early existence of any formidable power. Here the mountains are
+comparatively low, the soil is fertile, and the climate temperate. The
+character of the region would lead its inhabitants to cultivate the arts
+of peace rather than those of war, and would thus tend to prevent them
+from being formidable or troublesome to their neighbors.
+
+The Zagros region, which in the more ancient times separated between
+Media and Assyria, being inhabited by a number of independent tribes,
+but which was ultimately absorbed into the more powerful country,
+requires no notice here, having been sufficiently described among the
+tracts by which Assyria was bordered. At first a serviceable shield
+to the weak Arian tribes which were establishing themselves along its
+eastern base upon the high plateau, it gradually passed into their
+possession as they increased in strength, and ultimately became a main
+nursery of their power, furnishing to their armies vast numbers both of
+men and horses. The great horse pastures, from which the Medes first and
+the Persians afterwards, supplied their numerous and excellent
+cavalry, were in this quarter; and the troops which it furnished--hardy
+mountaineers accustomed to brave the severity of a most rigorous
+climate--must have been among the most effective of the Median forces.
+
+On the south Media was bounded by Persia proper--a tract which
+corresponded nearly with the modern province of Farsistan. The complete
+description of this territory, the original seat of the Persian nation,
+belongs to a future volume of this work, which will contain an account
+of the "Fifth Monarchy." For the present it is sufficient to observe
+that the Persian territory was for the most part a highland, very
+similar to Media, from which it was divided by no strongly marked line
+or natural boundary. The Persian mountains are a continuation of the
+Zagros chain, and Northern Persia is a portion--the southern portion--of
+the same great plateau, whose western and north-western skirts formed
+the great mass of the Median territory. Thus upon this side Media was
+placed in the closest connection with an important country, a country
+similar in character to her own, where a hardy race was likely to grow
+up, with which she might expect to have difficult contests.
+
+Finally, towards the east lay the great salt desert, sparsely inhabited
+by various nomadic races, among which the most important were the
+Cossseans and the Sagartians. To the latter people Herodotus seems to
+assign almost the whole of the sandy region, since he unites them with
+the Sarangians and Thamanseans on the one hand, with the Utians and
+Mycians upon the other. They were a wild race, probably of Arian origin,
+who hunted with the lasso over the great desert mounted on horses, and
+could bring into the field a force of eight or ten thousand men. Their
+country, a waste of sand and gravel, in parts thickly encrusted with
+salt, was impassable to an army, and formed a barrier which effectively
+protected Media along the greater portion of her eastern frontier.
+Towards the extreme north-east the Sagartians were replaced by the
+Cossseans and the Parthians, the former probably the people of the
+Siah-Koh mountain, the latter the inhabitants of the tract known now
+as the Atak, or "skirt," which extends along the southern flank of the
+Elburz range from the Caspian Gates nearly to Herat, and is capable
+of sustaining a very considerable population. The Cossseans were
+plunderers, from whose raids Media suffered constant annoyance; but they
+were at no time of sufficient strength to cause any serious fear.
+The Parthians, as we learn from the course of events, had in them the
+materials of a mighty people; but the hour for their elevation and
+expansion was not yet come, and the keenest observer of Median times
+could scarcely have perceived in them the future lords of Western Asia.
+From Parthia, moreover, Media was divided by the strong rocky spur which
+runs out from the Elburz into the desert in long. 52 deg. 10' nearly, over
+which is the narrow pass already mentioned as the Caspian Gates. Thus
+Media on most sides was guarded by the strong natural barriers of seas,
+mountains, and deserts lying open only on the south, where she adjoined
+upon a kindred people. Her neighbors were for the most part weak in
+numbers, though warlike. Armenia, however, to the north-west, Assyria to
+the west, and Persia to the south, were all more or less formidable.
+A prescient eye might have foreseen that the great struggles of
+Media would be with these powers, and that if she attained imperial
+proportions it must be by their subjugation or absorption.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+
+
+Media, like Assyria, is a country of such extent and variety that, in
+order to give a correct description of its climate, we must divide it
+into regions. Azerbijan, or Atropatene, the most northern portion, has
+a climate altogether cooler than the rest of Media; while in the more
+southern division of the country there is a marked difference between
+the climate of the east and of the west, of the tracts lying on the
+high plateau and skirting the Great Salt Desert, and of those contained
+within or closely abutting upon the Zagros mountain range. The
+difference here is due to the difference of physical conformation, which
+is as great as possible, the broad mountainous plains about Kasvin,
+Koum, and Kashan, divided from each other by low rocky ridges, offering
+the strongest conceivable contrast to the perpetual alternations of
+mountain and valley, precipitous height and deep wooded glen, which
+compose the greater part of the Zagros region.
+
+The climate of Azerbijan is temperate and pleasant, though perhaps
+somewhat overwarm, in summer; while in winter it is bitterly severe,
+colder than that of almost any other region in the same latitude. This
+extreme rigor seems to be mainly owing to elevation, the very valleys
+and valley plains of the tract being at a height of from 4000 to 5000
+feet above the sea level. Frost commonly sets in towards the end of
+November--or at latest early in December; snow soon covers the ground
+to the depth of several feet; the thermometer falls below zero; the sun
+shines brightly except when from time to time fresh deposits of snow
+occur; but a keen and strong wind usually prevails, which is represented
+as "cutting like a sword," and being a very "assassin of life." Deaths
+from cold are of daily occurrence; and it is impossible to travel
+without the greatest risk. Whole companies or caravans occasionally
+perish beneath the drift, when the wind is violent, especially if a
+heavy fall happen to coincide with one of the frequent easterly gales.
+The severe weather commonly continues till March, when travelling
+becomes possible, but the snow remains on much of the ground till May,
+and on the mountains still longer. The spring, which begins in April, is
+temperate and delightful; a sudden burst of vegetation succeeds to the
+long winter lethargy; the air is fresh and balmy, the sun pleasantly
+warm, the sky generally cloudless. In the month of May the heat
+increases--thunder hangs in the air--and the valleys are often close
+and sultry. Frequent showers occur, and the hail-storms are sometimes so
+violent as to kill the cattle in the fields. As the summer advances the
+heats increase, but the thermometer rarely reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and
+except in the narrow valleys the air is never oppressive. The autumn is
+generally very fine. Foggy mornings are common; but they are succeeded
+by bright pleasant days, without wind or rain. On the whole the climate
+is pronounced healthy, though somewhat trying to Europeans, who do not
+readily adapt themselves to a country where the range of the thermometer
+is as much as 90 deg. or 100 deg.. In the part of Media situated on the great
+plateau--the modern Irak Ajemi--in which are the important towns of
+Teheran, Isfahan, Hamadan, Kashan, Kasvin, and Koum. the climate is
+altogether warmer than in Azerbijan, the summers being hotter, and the
+winters shorter and much less cold. Snow indeed covers the ground
+for about three months, from early in December till March; but the
+thermometer rarely shows more than ten or twelve degrees of frost, and
+death from cold is uncommon. The spring sets in about the beginning of
+March, and is at first somewhat cool, owing to the prevalence of the
+_baude caucasan_ or north wind,a which blows from districts where the
+snow still lies. But after a little time the weather becomes delicious;
+the orchards are a mass of blossom; the rose gardens come into bloom;
+the cultivated lands are covered with springing crops; the desert itself
+wears a light livery of green. Every sense is gratified; the nightingale
+bursts out with a full gush of song; the air plays softly upon the
+cheek, and comes loaded with fragrance. Too soon, however, this charming
+time passes away, and the summer heats begin, in some places as early as
+June 18 The thermometer at midday rises to 90 or 100 degrees. Hot gusts
+blow from the desert, sometimes with great violence. The atmosphere is
+described as choking; and in parts of the plateau it is usual for the
+inhabitants to quit their towns almost in a body, and retire for several
+months into the mountains. This extreme heat is, however, exceptional;
+in most parts of the plateau the summer warmth is tempered by cool
+breezes from the surrounding mountains, on which there is always a good
+deal of snow. At Hamadan, which, though on the plain, is close to the
+mountains, the thermometer seems scarcely ever to rise above 90 deg., and
+that degree of heat is attained only for a few hours in the day. The
+mornings and evenings are cool and refreshing; and altogether the
+climate quite justifies the choice of the Persian monarchs, who selected
+Ecbatana for their place of residence during the hottest portion of the
+year. Even at Isfahan, which is on the edge of the desert, the heat is
+neither extreme nor prolonged. The hot gusts which blow from the east
+and from the south raise the temperature at times nearly to a hundred
+degrees; but these oppressive winds alternate with cooler breezes from
+the west, often accompanied by rain; and the average highest temperature
+during the day in the hottest month, which is August, does not exceed
+90 deg..
+
+A peculiarity in the climate of the plateau which deserves to be noticed
+is the extreme dryness of the atmosphere. In summer the rains which fall
+are slight, and they are soon absorbed by the thirsty soil. There is a
+little dew at nights, especially in the vicinity of the few streams;
+but it disappears with the first hour of sunshine, and the air is left
+without a particle of moisture. In winter the dryness is equally
+great; frost taking the place of heat, with the same effect upon the
+atmosphere. Unhealthy exhalations are thus avoided, and the salubrity of
+the climate is increased; but the European will sometimes sigh for the
+soft, balmy airs of his own land, which have come flying over the sea,
+and seem to bring their wings still dank with the ocean spray.
+
+Another peculiarity of this region, produced by the unequal rarefaction
+of the air over its different portions, is the occurrence, especially in
+spring and summer, of sudden gusts, hot or cold, which blow with great
+violence. These gusts are sometimes accompanied with, whirlwinds, which
+sweep the country in different directions, carrying away with them
+leaves, branches, stubble, sand, and other light substances, and causing
+great annoyance to the traveller. They occur chiefly in connection with
+a change of wind, and are no doubt consequent on the meeting of two
+opposite currents. Their violence, however, is moderate, compared
+with that of tropical tornadoes, and it is not often that they do any
+considerable damage to the crops over which they sweep.
+
+One further characteristic of the flat region may be noticed. The
+intense heat of the summer sun striking on the dry sand or the saline
+efflorescence of the desert throws the air over them into such a state
+of quivering undulation as produces the most wonderful and varying
+effects, distorting the forms of objects, and rendering the most
+familiar strange and hard to be recognized. A mud bank furrowed by the
+rain will exhibit the appearance of a magnificent city, with columns,
+domes, minarets, and pyramids; a few stunted bushes will be transformed
+into a forest of stately trees; a distant mountain will, in the space of
+a minute, assume first the appearance of a lofty peak, then swell out at
+the top, and resemble a mighty mushroom, next split into several parts,
+and finally settle down into a flat tableland. Occasionally, though not
+very often that semblance of water is produced which Europeans are are
+apt to suppose the usual effect of mirage. The images of objects are
+reflected at their base in an inverted position; the desert seems
+converted into a vast lake; and the thirsty traveller, advancing towards
+it, finds himself the victim of an illusion, which is none the less
+successful because he has been a thousand times forewarned of its
+deceptive power.
+
+In the mountain range or Zagros and the tracts adjacent to it, the
+climate, owing to the great differences of elevation, is more varied
+than in the other parts of the ancient Media. Severe cold prevails in
+the higher mountain regions for seven months out of the twelve, while
+during the remaining five the heat is never more than moderate. In
+the low valleys, on the contrary, and in other favored situations, the
+winters are often milder than on the plateau; while in the summers, if
+the heat is not greater, at any rate it is more oppressive. Owing to the
+abundance of the streams and proximity of the melting snows, the air is
+moist; and the damp heat, which stagnates in the valleys, broods fever
+and ague. Between these extremes of climate and elevation, every variety
+is to be found; and, except in winter, a few hours' journey will almost
+always bring the traveller into a temperate region.
+
+In respect of natural productiveness, Media (as already observed)
+differs exceedingly in different, and even in adjacent, districts. The
+rocky ridges of the great plateau, destitute of all vegetable mold, are
+wholly bare and arid, admitting not the slightest degree of cultivation.
+Many of the mountains of Azerbijan, naked, rigid, and furrowed, may
+compare even with these desert ranges for sterility. The higher parts
+of Zagros and Elburz are sometimes of the same character; but more often
+they are thickly clothed with forests, affording excellent timber and
+other valuable commodities. In the Elburz pines are found near the
+summit, while lower down there occur, first the wild almond and the
+dwarf oak, and then the usual timber-trees of the country, the Oriental
+plane, the willow, the poplar, and the walnut. The walnut grows to a
+large size both here and in Azerbijan, but the poplar is the wood most
+commonly used for building purposes. In Zagros, besides most of these
+trees, the ash and the terebinth or turpentine-tree are common; the oak
+bears gall-nuts of a large size; and the gum-tragacanth plant frequently
+clothes the mountain-sides. The valleys of this region are full of
+magnificent orchards, as are the low grounds and more sheltered nooks of
+Azerbijan. The fruit-trees comprise, besides vines and mulberries, the
+apple, the pear, the quince, the plum, the cherry, the almond, the nut,
+the chestnut, the olive, the peach, the nectarine, and the apricot.
+
+On the plains of the high plateau there is a great scarcity of
+vegetation. Trees of a large size grow only in the few places which are
+well watered, as in the neighborhood of Hamadan, Isfahan, and in a
+less degree of Kashan. The principal tree is the Oriental plane, which
+flourishes together with poplars and willows along the water-courses;
+cypresses also grow freely; elms and cedars are found, and the orchards
+and gardens contain not only the fruit-trees mentioned above, but also
+the jujube, the cornel, the filbert, the medlar, the pistachio nut, the
+pomegranate, and the fig. Away from the immediate vicinity of the rivers
+and the towns, not a tree, scarcely a bush, is to be seen. The common
+thorn is indeed tolerably abundant in a few places; but elsewhere the
+tamarisk and a few other sapless shrubs are the only natural products of
+this bare and arid region.
+
+In remarkable contrast with the natural barrenness of this wide tract
+are certain favored districts in Zagros and Azerbijan, where the herbage
+is constant throughout the summer, and sometimes only too luxuriant.
+Such are the rich and extensive grazing grounds of Khawah and Alishtar,
+near Kermanshah, the pastures near Ojan and Marand, and the celebrated
+Chowal Moghan or plain of Moghan, on the lower course of the Araxes
+river, where the grass is said to grow sufficiently high to cover a
+man on horseback. These, however, are rare exceptions to the general
+character of the country, which is by nature unproductive, and scarcely
+deserving even of the qualified encomium of Strabo.
+
+Still Media, though deficient in natural products, is not ill adapted
+for cultivation. The Zagros valleys and hillsides produce under a very
+rude system of agriculture, besides the fruits already noticed, rice,
+wheat, barley, millet, sesame, Indian corn, cotton, tobacco, mulberries,
+cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and the castor-oilplant. In Azerbijan the
+soil is almost all cultivable, and if ploughed and sown will bring good
+crops of the ordinary kinds of grain. Even on the side of the desert,
+where Nature has shown herself most niggardly, and may seem perhaps to
+deserve the reproach of Cicero, that she behaves as a step mother to
+a man rather than as a mother, a certain amount of care and scientific
+labor may render considerable tracts fairly productive. The only want
+of this region is water; and if the natural deficiency of this necessary
+fluid can be anyhow supplied, all parts of the plateau will bear crops,
+except those which form the actual Salt Desert. In modern, and still
+more in ancient times, this fact has been clearly perceived, and an
+elaborate system of artifical irrigation, suitable to the peculiar
+circumstances of the country, has been very widely established. The
+system of _kanats_, as they are called at the present day, aims at
+utilizing to the uttermost all the small streams and rills which descend
+towards the desert from the surrounding mountains, and at conveying
+as far as possible into the plain the spring water, which is the
+indispensable condition of cultivation in a country where--except for
+a few days in the spring and autumn--rain scarcely ever falls. As the
+precious element would rapidly evaporate if exposed to the rays of the
+summer sun, the Iranian husbandman carries his conduit underground,
+laboriously tunnelling through the stiff argillaceous soil, at a depth
+of many feet below the surface. The mode in which he proceeds is as
+follows. At intervals along the line of his intended conduit he first
+sinks shafts, which he then connects with one another by galleries,
+seven or eight feet in height, giving his galleries a slight incline,
+so that the water may run down them freely, and continuing them till he
+reaches a point where he wishes to bring the water out upon the surface
+of the plain. Here and there, at the foot of his shafts, he digs wells,
+from which the fluid can readily be raised by means of a bucket and a
+windlass; and he thus brings under cultivation a considerable belt of
+land along the whole line of the _kanat_, as well as a large tract at
+its termination. These conduits, on which the cultivation of the plateau
+depends, were established at so remote a date that they were popularly
+ascribed to the mythic Semiramis, the supposed wife of Ninus. It is
+thought that in ancient times they were longer and more numerous than at
+present, when they occur only occasionally, and seldom extend more than
+a few miles from the base of the hills.
+
+By help of the irrigation thus contrived, the great plateau of Iran will
+produce good crops of grain, rice, wheat, barley, Indian corn, doura,
+millet, and sesame. It will also bear cotton, tobacco, saffron, rhubarb,
+madder, poppies which give a good opium, senna, and assafoetida.
+Its garden vegetables are excellent, and include potatoes, cabbages,
+lentils, kidney-beans, peas, turnips, carrots, spinach, beetroot, and
+cucumbers. The variety of its fruit-trees has been already noticed.
+The flavor of their produce is in general good, and in some cases
+surpassingly excellent. No quinces are so fine as those of Isfahan,
+and no melons have a more delicate flavor. The grapes of Kasvin are
+celebrated, and make a remarkably good wine.
+
+Among the flowers of the country must be noted, first of all, its roses,
+which flourish in the most luxuriant abundance, and are of every variety
+of hue. The size to which the tree will grow is extraordinary, standards
+sometimes exceeding the height of fourteen or fifteen feet. Lilacs,
+jasmines, and many other flowering shrubs are common in the gardens,
+while among wild flowers may be noticed hollyhocks, lilies, tulips,
+crocuses, anemones, lilies of the valley, fritillaries, gentians,
+primroses, convolvuluses, chrysanthemums, heliotropes, pinks,
+water-lilies, ranunculuses, jonquils, narcissuses, hyacinths, mallows,
+stocks, violets, a fine campanula (Michauxia levigata), a mint (Nepeta
+longiflora), several sages, salsolas, and fagonias. In many places the
+wild flowers during the spring months cover the ground, painting it with
+a thousand dazzling or delicate hues.
+
+The mineral products of Media are numerous and valuable. Excellent stone
+of many kinds abounds in almost every part of the country, the most
+important and valuable being the famous Tabriz marble. This curious
+substance appears to be a petrifaction formed by natural springs, which
+deposit carbonate of lime in large quantities. It is found only in one
+place, on the flanks of the hills, not far from the Urumiyeh lake. The
+slabs are used for tombstones, for the skirting of rooms, and for the
+pavements of baths and palaces; when cut thin they often take the place
+of glass in windows, being semi-transparent. The marble is commonly of
+a pale yellow color, but occasionally it is streaked with red, green, or
+copper-colored veins.
+
+In metals the country is thought to be rich, but no satisfactory
+examination of it has been as yet made. Iron, copper, and native steel
+are derived from mines actually at work; while Europeans have observed
+indications of lead, arsenic, and antimony in Azerbijan, in Kurdistan,
+and in the rocky ridges which intersect the desert. Tradition speaks
+of a time when gold and silver were procured from mountains near
+Takht-i-Suleman, and it is not unlikely that they may exist both there
+and in the Zagros range. Quartz, the well-known matrix of the precious
+metal, abounds in Kurdistan.
+
+Of all the mineral products, none is more abundant than salt. On the
+side of the desert, and again near Tabriz at the mouth of the Aji Su,
+are vast plains which glisten with the substance, and yield it readily
+to all who care to gather it up. Saline springs and streams are also
+numerous, from which salt can be obtained by evaporation. But, besides
+these sources of supply, rock salt is found in places, and this is
+largely quarried, and is preferred by the natives.
+
+Other important products of the earth are saltpetre, which is found
+in the Elburz, and in Azerbijan; sulphur, which abounds in the same
+regions, and likewise on the high plateau; alum, which is quarried near
+Tabriz; naphtha and gypsum, which are found in Kurdistan; and talc,
+which exists in the mountains near Koum, in the vicinity of Tabriz, and
+probably in other places.
+
+The chief wild animals which have been observed within the limits of
+the ancient Media are the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the bear, the
+beaver, the jackal, the wolf, the wild ass, the ibex or wild goat, the
+wild sheep, the stag, the antelope, the wild boar, the fox, the hare,
+the rabbit, the ferret, the rat, the jerboa, the porcupine, the mole,
+and the marmot. The lion and tiger are exceedingly rare; they seem to
+be found only in Azerbijan, and we may perhaps best account for their
+presence there by considering that a few of these animals occasionally
+stray out of Mazanderan, which is their only proper locality in this
+part of Asia. Of all the beasts, the most abundant are the stag and the
+wild goat, which are numerous in the Elburz, and in parts of Azerbijan,
+the wild boar, which abounds both in Azerbijan, and in the country about
+Hamadan, and the jackal, which is found everywhere. Bears flourish in
+Zagros, antelopes in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, and on the plains near
+Sultaniyeh. The wild ass is found only in the desert parts of the high
+plateau; the beaver only in Lake Zeribar, near Sulefmaniyeh.
+
+The Iranian wild ass differs in some respects from the Mesopotamian. His
+skin is smooth, like that of a deer, and of a reddish color, the belly
+and hinder parts partaking of a silvery gray; his head and ears are
+large and somewhat clumsy; but his neck is fine, and his legs are
+beautifully slender. His mane is short and black, and he has a black
+tuft at the end of his tail, but no dark line runs along his back or
+crosses his shoulders. The Persians call him the _gur-khur_, and chase
+him with occasional success, regarding his flesh as a great delicacy.
+He appears to be the _Asinus onager_ of naturalists, a distinct species
+from the _Asinus hemippus_ of Mesopotamia, and the _Asinus hemionus_ of
+Thibet and Tartary.
+
+It is doubtful whether some kind of wild cattle does not still inhabit
+the more remote tracts of Kurdistan. The natives mention among the
+animals of their country "the mountain ox;" and though it has been
+suggested that the beast intended is the elk, it is perhaps as likely
+to be the Aurochs, which seems certainly to have been a native of the
+adjacent country of Mesopotamia in ancient times. At any rate, until
+Zagros has been thoroughly explored by Europeans, it must remain
+uncertain what animal is meant. Meanwhile we may be tolerably sure that,
+besides the species enumerated, Mount Zagros contains within its folds
+some large and rare ruminant.
+
+Among the birds the most remarkable are the eagle, the bustard, the
+pelican, the stork, the pheasant, several kinds of partridges, the
+quail, the woodpecker, the bee-eater, the hoopoe, and the nightingale.
+Besides these, doves and pigeons, both wild and tame, are common; as are
+swallows, goldfinches, sparrows, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, linnets,
+magpies, crows, hawks, falcons, teal, snipe, wild ducks, and many other
+kinds of waterfowl. The most common partridge is a red-legged species
+(_Caccabis chukar_ of naturalists), which is unable to fly far, and is
+hunted until it drops. Another kind, common both in Azerbijan and in
+the Elburz, is the black-breasted partridge (_Perdix nigra_)--a bird not
+known in many countries. Besides these, there is a small gray partridge
+in the Zagros range, which the Kurds call seslca. The bee-eater (_Merops
+Persicus_) is rare. It is a bird of passage, and only visits Media
+in the autumn, preparatory to retreating into the warm district of
+Mazandoran for the winter months. The hoopoe (_Upupa_) is probably still
+rarer, since very few travellers mention it. The woodpecker is found in
+Zagros, and is a beautiful bird, red and gray in color.
+
+Media is, on the whole, but scantily provided with fish. Lake Urumiyeh
+produces none, as its waters are so salt that they even destroy all the
+river-fish which enter them. Salt streams, like the Aji Su, are equally
+unproductive, and the fresh-water rivers of the plateau fall so low
+in summer that fish cannot become numerous in them. Thus it is only in
+Zagros, in Azerbijan, and in the Elburz, that the streams furnish any
+considerable quantity. The kinds most common are barbel, carp, dace,
+bleak, and gudgeon. In a comparatively few streams, more especially
+those of Zagros, trout are found, which are handsome and of excellent
+quality. The river of Isfahan produces a kind of crayfish, which is
+taken in the bushes along its banks, and is very delicate eating.
+
+It is remarkable that fish are caught not only in the open streams of
+Media, but also in the _kanats_ or underground conduits, from which
+the light of day is very nearly excluded. They appear to be of one sort
+only, viz., barbel, but are abundant, and often grow to a considerable
+size. Chardin supposed them to be unfit for food; but a later observer
+declares that, though of no great delicacy, they are "perfectly sweet
+and wholesome."
+
+Of reptiles, the most common are snakes, lizards, and tortoises. In the
+long grass of the Moghan district, on the lower course of the Araxes,
+the snakes are so numerous and venomous that many parts of the plain are
+thereby rendered impassable in the summer-time. A similar abundance
+of this reptile near the western entrance of the Girduni Siyaluk pass
+induces the natives to abstain from using it except in winter. Lizards
+of many forms and hues disport themselves about the rocks and stones,
+some quite small, others two feet or more in length. They are quite
+harmless, and appear to be in general very tame. Land tortoises are also
+common in the sandy regions. In Kurdistan there is a remarkable frog,
+with a smooth skin and of an apple-green color, which lives chiefly in
+trees, roosting in them at night, and during the day employing itself in
+catching flies and locusts, which it strikes with its fore paw, as a cat
+strikes a bird or a mouse.
+
+Among insects, travellers chiefly notice the mosquito, which is in many
+places a cruel torment; the centipede, which grows to an unusual size;
+the locust, of which there is more than one variety; and the scorpion,
+whose sting is sometimes fatal.
+
+The destructive locust (the _Acridium peregrinum_, probably) comes
+suddenly into Kurdistan and southern Media in clouds that obscure the
+air, moving with a slow and steady flight and with a sound like that
+of heavy rain, and settling in myriads on the fields, the gardens, the
+trees, the terraces of the houses, and even the streets, which they
+sometimes cover completely. Where they fall, vegetation presently
+disappears; the leaves, and even the stems of the plants, are devoured;
+the labors of the husbandman through many a weary month perish in a day;
+and the curse of famine is brought upon the land which but now enjoyed
+the prospect of an abundant harvest. It is true that the devourers are
+themselves devoured to some extent by the poorer sort of people; but the
+compensation is slight and temporary; in a few days, when all verdure is
+gone, either the swarms move to fresh pastures, or they perish and cover
+the fields with their dead bodies, while the desolation which they have
+created continues. [PLATE III., Fig. 2.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE III.]
+
+Another kind of locust, observed by Mr. Rich in Kurdistan, is called by
+the natives _shira-kulla_, a name seemingly identical with the
+_chargol_ of the Jews, and perhaps the best clue which we possess to
+the identification of that species. Mr. Rich describes it as "a large
+insect, about four inches long, with no wings, but a kind of sword
+projecting from the tail. It bites," he says, "pretty severely, but
+does no harm to the cultivation." We may recognize in this description
+a variety of the great green grasshopper (_Locusta viridissima_), many
+species of which are destitute of wings, or have wing-covers only, and
+those of a very small size.
+
+The scorpion of the country (_Scorpio crassicauda_) has been represented
+as peculiarly venomous, more especially that which abounds in the city
+and neighborhood of Kashan; but the most judicious observers deny that
+there is any difference between the Kashan scorpion and that of other
+parts of the plateau, while at the same time they maintain that if the
+sting be properly treated, no danger need be apprehended from it. The
+scorpion infests houses, hiding itself under cushions and coverlets, and
+stings the moment it is pressed upon; some caution is thus requisite
+in avoiding it; but it hurts no one unless molested, and many Europeans
+have resided for years in the country without having ever been stung by
+it. [PLATE III., Fig. 3.]
+
+The domestic animals existing at present within the limits of the
+ancient Media are the camel, the horse, the mule, the ass, the cow, the
+goat, the sheep, the dog, the cat, and the buffalo. The camel is the
+ordinary beast of burden in the flat country, and can carry an enormous
+weight. Three kinds are employed--the Bactrian or two-humped camel,
+which is coarse and low; the taller and lighter Arabian breed; and a
+cross between the two, which is called _ner_, and is valued very
+highly. The ordinary burden of the Arabian camel is from seven to eight
+hundredweight; while the Bactrian variety is said to be capable of
+bearing a load nearly twice as heavy.
+
+Next to the camel, as a beast of burden, must be placed the mule the
+mules of the country are small, but finely proportioned, and carry a
+considerable weight. They travel thirty miles a day with ease, and are
+preferred for journeys on which it is necessary to cross the mountains.
+The ass is very inferior, and is only used by the poorer classes.
+
+Two distinct breeds of horses are now found in Media, both of which seem
+to be foreign--the Turkoman and the Arabian. The Turkoman is a large,
+powerful, enduring animal, with long legs, a light body, and a big
+head. The Arab is much smaller, but perfectly shaped, and sometimes
+not greatly inferior to the very best produce of Nejd. A third breed is
+obtained by an intermixture of those two, which is called the _bid-pai_,
+or "wind footed," and is the most prized of all.
+
+The dogs are of various breeds, but the most esteemed is a large kind of
+gray hound, which some suppose to have been introduced into this part of
+Asia by the Macedonians, and which is chiefly employed in the chase of
+the antelope. The animal is about the height of a full sized English
+grayhound, but rather stouter; he is deep-chested, has long, smooth
+hair, and the tail considerably feathered. His pace is inferior to that
+of our grayhounds, but in strength and sagacity he far surpasses them.
+
+We do not find many of the products of Media celebrated by ancient
+writers. Of its animals, those which had the highest reputation were its
+horses, distinguished into two breeds, an ordinary kind, of which
+Media produced annually many thousands, and a kind of rare size and
+excellence, known under the name of Nisaean. These last are celebrated
+by Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Ammianus Marcellinus, Suidas, and others.
+They are said to have been of a peculiar shape; and they were equally
+famous for size, speed, and stoutness. Strabo remarks that they resemble
+the horses known in his own time as Parthian; and this observation seems
+distinctly to connect them with the Turkoman breed mentioned above,
+which is derived exactly from the old Parthian country. In color they
+were often, if not always, white. We have no representation on the
+monuments which we can regard as certainly intended for a Nissean horse,
+but perhaps the figure from Persepolis may be a Persian sketch of the
+animal. [PLATE III., Fig. 4.]
+
+The mules and small cattle (sheep and goats) were in sufficient repute
+to be required, together with horses, in the annual tribute paid to the
+Persian king.
+
+Of vegetable products assigned to Media by ancient writers, the most
+remarkable is the "Median apple," or citron. Pliny says it was the sole
+tree for which Media was famous, and that it would only grow there
+and in Persia. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Virgil, and other writers,
+celebrate its wonderful qualities, distinctly assigning it to the same
+region. The citron, however, will not grow in the country which has been
+here termed Media. It flourishes only in the warm tract between Shiraz
+and the Persian Gulf, and in the low sheltered region, south of the
+Caspian, the modern Ghilan and Mazanderan. No doubt it was the inclusion
+of this latter region within the limits of Media by many of the
+later geographers that gave to this product of the Caspian country an
+appellation which is really a misnomer.
+
+Another product whereto Media gave name, and probably with more reason,
+was a kind of clover or lucerne, which was said to have been introduced
+into Greece by the Persians in the reign of Darius, and which was
+afterwards cultivated largely in Italy. Strabo considers this plant to
+have been the chief food of the Median horses, while Dioscorides assigns
+it certain medicinal qualities. Clover is still cultivated, in the
+Elburz region, but horses are now fed almost entirely on straw and
+barley.
+
+Media was also famous for its silphium, or assafoetida, a plant which
+the country still produces, though not in any large quantity. No drug
+was in higher repute with the ancients for medicinal purposes; and
+though the Median variety was a coarse kind, inferior in repute, not
+only to the Cyrenaic, but also to the Parthian and the Syrian, it seems
+to have been exported both to Greece and Borne, and to have been largely
+used by druggists, however little esteemed by physicians.
+
+The other vegetable products which Media furnished, or was believed to
+furnish, to the ancient world, were bdellium, amomum, cardamomum, gum
+tragacanth, wild-vine oil, and sagaponum, or the _Ferula persica_. Of
+these, gum tragacanth is still largely produced, and is an important
+article of commerce. Wild vines abound in Zagros and Elburz, but no oil
+is at present made from them. Bdellium, if it is benzoin, amomum, and
+cardamomum were perhaps rather imported through Media than the actual
+produce of the country, which is too cold in the winter to grow any good
+spices.
+
+The mineral products of Media noted by the ancient writers are nitre,
+salt, and certain gems, as emeralds, lapis lazuli, and the following
+obscurer kinds, the zathene, the gassinades, and the narcissitis. The
+nitre of Media is noticed by Pliny, who says it was procured in
+small quantities, and was called "halmyraga." It was found in certain
+dry-looking glens, where the ground was white with it, and was obtained
+there purer than in other places. Saltpetre is still derived from the
+Elburz range, and also from Azerbijan.
+
+The salt of Lake Urumiyeh is mentioned by Strabo, who says that it
+forms naturally on the surface, which would imply a far more complete
+saturation of the water than at present exists, even in the driest
+seasons. The gems above mentioned are assigned to Media chiefly by
+Pliny. The Median emeralds, according to him, were of the largest size;
+they varied considerably, sometimes approaching to the character of the
+sapphire, in which case they were apt to be veiny, and to have flaws
+in them. They were far less esteemed than the emeralds of many other
+countries. The Median lapis lazuli, on the other hand, was the best of
+its kind. It was of three colors--light blue, dark blue, and purple.
+The golden specks, however, with which it was sprinkled--really spots
+of yellow pyrites--rendered it useless to the gem-engravers of Pliny's
+time. The zathene, the gassinades, and the narcissitis were gems of
+inferior value. As they have not yet been identified with any known
+species, it will be unnecessary to prolong the present chapter by a
+consideration of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ARTS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+"Pugnatrix natio et formidanda."--Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6.
+
+
+The ethnic character of the Median people is at the present day scarcely
+a matter of doubt. The close connection which all history, sacred and
+profane, establishes between them and the Persians, the evidence of
+their proper names and of their language, so far as it is known to us,
+together with the express statements of Herodotus and Strabo, combine to
+prove that they belonged to that branch of the human family known to us
+as the Arian or Iranic, a leading subdivision of the great Indo-European
+race. The tie of a common language, common manners and customs, and to
+a great extent a common belief, united in ancient times all the dominant
+tribes of the great plateau, extending even beyond the plateau in
+one direction to the Jaxartes (Syhun) and in another to the Hyphasis
+(Sutlej). Persians, Medes, Sagartians, Chorasmians, Bactrians, Sogdians,
+Hyrcanians, Sarangians, Gandarians, and Sanskritic Indians belonged all
+to a single stock, differing from one another probably not much more
+than now differ the various subdivisions of the Teutonic or the Slavonic
+race. Between the tribes at the two extremities of the Arian territory
+the divergence was no doubt considerable; but between any two
+neighboring tribes the difference was probably in most cases exceedingly
+slight. At any rate this was the case towards the west, where the Medes
+and Persians, the two principal sections of the Arian body in that
+quarter, are scarcely distinguishable from one another in any of the
+features which constitute ethnic type.
+
+The general physical character of the ancient Arian race is best
+gathered from the sculptures of the Achsemenian kings, which exhibit to
+us a very noble variety of the human species--a form tall, graceful, and
+stately; a physiognomy handsome and pleasing, often somewhat resembling
+the Greek; the forehead high and straight, the nose nearly in the same
+line, long and well formed, sometimes markedly aquiline, the upper lip
+short, commonly shaded by a moustache, the chin rounded and generally
+covered with a curly beard. The hair evidently grew in great plenty, and
+the race was proud of it. On the top of the head it was worn smooth,
+but it was drawn back from the forehead and twisted into a row or two of
+crisp curls, while at the same time it was arranged into a large mass of
+similar small close ringlets at the back of the head and over the ears.
+[PLATE IV., Fig. 1.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IV.]
+
+Of the Median women we have no representations upon the sculptures; but
+we are informed by Xenophon that they were remarkable for their stature
+and their beauty. The same qualities were observable in the women of
+Persia, as we learn from Plutarch, Ammianus Marcellinus, and others.
+The Arian races seem in old times to have treated women with a certain
+chivalry, which allowed the full development of their physical powers,
+and rendered them specially attractive alike to their own husbands and
+to the men of other nations.
+
+The modern Persian is a very degenerate representative of the ancient
+Arian stock. Slight and supple in person, with quick, glancing eyes,
+delicate features, and a vivacious manner, he lacks the dignity and
+strength, the calm repose and simple grace of the race from which he
+is sprung, Fourteen centuries of subjection to despotic sway have left
+their stamp upon his countenance and his frame, which, though still
+retaining some traces of the original type, have been sadly weakened and
+lowered by so long a term of subservience. Probably the wild Kurd or Lur
+of the present day more nearly corresponds in physique to the ancient
+Mede than do the softer inhabitants of the great plateau.
+
+Among the moral characteristics of the Medes the one most obvious
+is their bravery. "_Pugnatrix natio et formidanda_," says Ammianus
+Marcellinus in the fourth century of our era, summing up in a few words
+the general judgment of Antiquity. Originally equal, if not superior, to
+their close kindred, the Persians, they were throughout the whole
+period of Persian supremacy only second to them in courage and warlike
+qualities. Mardonius, when allowed to take his choice out of the entire
+host of Xerxes, selected the Median troops in immediate succession to
+the Persians. Similarly, when the time for battle came he kept the Medes
+near himself, giving them their place in the line close to that of
+the Persian contingent. It was no doubt on account of their valor, as
+Diodorus suggests, that the Medes were chosen to make the first attack
+upon the Greek position at Thermopylae, where, though unsuccessful, they
+evidently showed abundant courage. In the earlier times, before riches
+and luxury had eaten out the strength of the race, their valor and
+military prowess must have been even more conspicuous. It was then
+especially that Media deserved to be called, as she is in Scripture,
+"the mighty one of the heathen"--"the terrible of the nations."
+
+Her valor, undoubtedly, was of the merciless kind. There was no
+tenderness, no hesitancy about it. Not only did her armies "dash
+to pieces" the fighting men of the nations opposed to her, allowing
+apparently no quarter, but the women and the children suffered
+indignities and cruelties at the hands of her savage warriors, which the
+pen unwillingly records. The Median conquests were accompanied by the
+worst atrocities which lust and hate combined are wont to commit when
+they obtain their full swing. Neither the virtue of women nor the
+innocence of children were a protection to them. The infant was slain
+before the very eye of the parent. The sanctity of the hearth was
+invaded, and the matron ravished beneath her own roof-tree. Spoil, it
+would seem, was disregarded in comparison with insult and vengeance;
+and the brutal soldiery cared little either for silver or gold, provided
+they could indulge freely in that thirst for blood which man shares with
+the hyena and the tiger.
+
+The habits of the Medes in the early part of their career were
+undoubtedly simple and manly. It has been observed with justice that the
+same general features have at all times distinguished the rise and fall
+of Oriental kingdoms and dynasties. A brave and adventurous prince, at
+the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy, overruns
+a vast tract, and acquires extensive dominion, while his successors,
+abandoning themselves to sensuality and sloth, probably also to
+oppressive and irascible dispositions, become in process of time victims
+to those same qualities in another prince and people which had enabled
+their own predecessor to establish their power. It was as being braver,
+simpler, and so stronger than the Assyrians that the Medes were able to
+dispossess them of their sovereignty over western Asia. But in this,
+as in most other cases of conquest throughout the East, success was
+followed almost immediately by degeneracy. As captive Greece captured
+her fierce conqueror, so the subdued Assyrians began at once to corrupt
+their subduers. Without condescending to a close imitation of Assyrian
+manners and customs, the Medes proceeded directly after their conquest
+to relax the severity of their old habits and to indulge in the delights
+of soft and luxurious living. The historical romance of Xenophon
+presents us probably with a true picture when it describes the strong
+contrast which existed towards the close of the Median period between
+the luxury and magnificence which prevailed at Ecbatana, and the
+primitive simplicity of Persia Proper, where the old Arian habits, which
+had once been common to the two races, were still maintained in all
+their original severity. Xenophon's authority in this work is, it must
+be admitted, weak, and little trust can be placed in the historical
+accuracy of his details; but his general statement is both in itself
+probable, and is also borne out to a considerable extent by other
+authors. Herodotus and Strabo note the luxury of the Median dress,
+while the latter author goes so far as to derive the whole of the later
+Persian splendor from an imitation of Median practices. We must hold
+then that towards the latter part of their empire the Medes became a
+comparatively luxurious people, not indeed laying aside altogether their
+manly habits, nor ceasing to be both brave men and good soldiers,
+but adopting an amount of pomp and magnificence to which they were
+previously strangers, affecting splendor in their dress and apparel,
+grandeur and rich ornament in their buildings, variety in their
+banquets, and attaining on the whole a degree of civilization not very
+greatly inferior to that of the Assyrians. In taste and real refinement
+they seem indeed to have fallen considerably below their teachers. A
+barbaric magnificence predominated in their ornamentation over artistic
+effort, richness in the material being preferred to skill in the
+manipulation. Literature, and even letters, were very sparingly
+cultivated. But little originality was developed. A stately dress, and
+a new style of architecture, are almost the only inventions to which the
+Medes can lay claim. They were brave, energetic, enterprising, fond
+of display, capable of appreciating to some extent the advantages of
+civilized life; but they had little genius, and the world is scarcely
+indebted to them for a single important addition to the general stock of
+its ideas.
+
+Of the Median customs in war we know but little. Herodotus tells us
+that in the army of Xerxes the Medes were armed exactly as the Persians,
+carrying on their heads a soft felt cap, on their bodies a sleeved
+tunic, and on their legs trousers. Their offensive arms, he says, were
+the spear, the bow, and the dagger. They had large wicker shields, and
+bore their quivers suspended at their backs. Sometimes their tunic
+was made into a coat of mail by the addition to it on the outside of a
+number of small iron plates arranged so as to overlap each other, like
+the scales of a fish. They served both on horseback and on foot, with
+the same equipment in both cases.
+
+There is no reason to doubt the correctness of this description of the
+Median military dress under the early Persian kings. The only question
+is how far the equipment was really the ancient warlike custom of the
+people. It seems in some respects too elaborate to be the armature of a
+simple and primitive race. We may reasonably suppose that at least the
+scale armor and the unwieldy wicker shields (yeppa), which required to
+be rested on the ground, were adopted at a somewhat late date from the
+Assyrians. At any rate the original character of the Median armies,
+as set before us in Scripture, and as indicated both by Strabo and
+Xenophon, is simpler than the Herodotean description. The primitive
+Modes seem to have been a nation of horse-archers. Trained from their
+early boyhood to a variety of equestrian exercises, and well practised
+in the use of the bow, they appear to have proceeded against their
+enemies with clouds of horse, almost in Scythian fashion, and to have
+gained their victories chiefly by the skill with which they shot their
+arrows as they advanced, retreated, or manoeuvred about their foe. No
+doubt they also used the sword and the spear. The employment of these
+weapons has been almost universal throughout the East from a very remote
+antiquity, and there is some mention of them in connection with the
+Medes and their kindred, the Persians, in Scripture; but it is evident
+that the terror which the Medes inspired arose mainly from their
+dexterity as archers.
+
+No representation of weapons which can be distinctly recognized as
+Median has come down to us. The general character of the military dress
+and of the arms appears, probably in the Persepolitan sculptures; but
+as these reliefs are in most cases representations, not of Medes, but of
+Persians, and as they must be hereafter adduced in illustration of the
+military customs of the latter people, only a very sparing use of them
+can be made in the present chapter. It would seem that the bow employed
+was short, and very much curved, and that, like the Assyrian it was
+usually carried in a bow-case, which might either be slung at the back,
+or hung from the girdle. [PLATE V., Fig. 1.] The arrows, which were
+borne in a quiver slung behind the right shoulder, must have been short,
+certainly not exceeding the length of three feet. The quiver appears to
+have been round; it was covered at the top, and was fastened by means of
+a flap and strap, which last passed over, a button. [PLATE V. Fig. 1.]
+The Median spear or lance was from six to seven feet in length. Its head
+was lozenge-shaped and flattish, but strengthened by a bar or line down
+the middle. It is uncertain whether the head was inserted into the top
+of the shaft, or whether it did not rather terminate in a ring or socket
+into which the upper end of the shaft was itself inserted. The shaft
+tapered gradually from bottom to top, and terminated below in a knob or
+ball, which was perhaps sometimes carved into the shape of some natural
+object. [PLATE IV., Fig. 2.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE V.
+
+The sword was short, being in fact little more than a dagger. It
+depended at the right thigh from a belt which encircled the waist, and
+was further secured by a strap attached to the bottom of the sheath, and
+passing round the soldier's right leg a little above the knee.
+
+Median shields were probably either round or oval. The oval specimens
+bore a resemblance to the shield of the Boeotians, having a small oval
+aperture at either side, apparently for the sake of greater lightness.
+They were strengthened at the centre by a circular boss or disk,
+ornamented with knobs or circles. They would seem to have been made
+either of metal or wood. [PLATE IV., Fig. 3.]
+
+The favorite dress of the Medes in peace is well known to us from the
+sculptures; there can be no reasonable doubt that the long flowing robe
+so remarkable for its graceful folds, which is the garb of the kings,
+the chief nobles, and the officers of the court in all the Persian
+bas-reliefs, and which is seen also upon the darics and the gems, is the
+famous "Median garment" of Herodotus, Xenophon, and Strabo. [PLATE V.,
+Fig. 2.] This garment fits the chest and shoulders closely, but falls
+over the arms in two large loose sleeves, open at the bottom. At the
+waist it is confined by a cincture. Below it is remarkably full and
+ample, drooping in two clusters of perpendicular folds at the two sides,
+and between these hanging in festoons like a curtain. It extends down
+to the ankles, where it is met by a high shoe or low boot, opening in
+front, and secured by buttons. [PLATE IV., Fig. 4.]
+
+These Median robes were of many colors. Sometimes they were purple,
+sometimes scarlet, occasionally a dark gray, or a deep crimson.
+Procopius says that they were made of silk, and this statement is
+confirmed to some extent by Justin, who speaks of their transparency.
+It may be doubted, however, whether the material was always the same;
+probably it varied with the season, and also with the wealth of the
+wearer.
+
+Besides this upper robe, which is the only garment shown in the
+sculptures, the Medes wore as under garments a sleeved shirt or tunic
+of a purple color, and embroidered drawers or trousers. They covered the
+head, not only out of doors, but in their houses, wearing either felt
+caps like the Persians, or a head-dress of a more elaborate character,
+which bore the name of _tiara_ or _cidaris_. This appears to have been,
+not a turban, but rather a kind of high-crowned hat, either stiff or
+flexible, made probably of felt or cloth, and dyed of different hues,
+according to the fancy of the owner. [PLATE VI., Fig. 1.]
+
+The Medes took a particular delight in the ornamentation of their
+persons. According to Xenophon, they were acquainted with most of the
+expedients by the help of which vanity attempts to conceal the ravages
+of time and to create an artificial beauty. They employed cosmetics,
+which they rubbed into the skin, for the sake of improving the
+complexion. They made use of an abundance of false hair. Like many other
+Oriental nations, both ancient and modern, they applied dyes to enhance
+the brilliancy of the eyes, and give them a greater apparent size and
+softness. They were also fond of wearing golden ornaments. Chains or
+collars of gold usually adorned their nocks, bracelets of the same
+precious metal encircled their wrists, and earrings were inserted into
+their ears. [PLATE VI., Fig. 2.] Gold was also used in the caparisons of
+their horses, the bit and other parts of the harness being often of this
+valuable material.
+
+We are told that the Medes were very luxurious at their banquets.
+Besides plain meat and game of different kinds, with the ordinary
+accompaniments of wine and bread, they were accustomed to place before
+their guests a vast number of side-dishes, together with a great variety
+of sauces. They ate with the hand, as is still the fashion in the East,
+and were sufficiently refined to make use of napkins. Each guest had his
+own dishes, and it was a mark of special honor to augment their number.
+Wine was drunk both at the meal and afterwards, often in an undue
+quantity; and the close of the feast was apt to be a scene of general
+turmoil and confusion. At the Court it was customary for the king to
+receive his wine at the hands of a cupbearer, who first tasted the
+draught, that the king might be sure that it was not poisoned, and then
+presented it to his master with much pomp and ceremony.
+
+The whole ceremonial of the court seems to have been imposing. Under
+ordinary circumstances the monarch kept himself secluded, and no one
+could obtain admission to him unless he formally requested an audience,
+and was introduced into the royal presence by the proper officer. On his
+admission he prostrated himself upon the ground with the same signs of
+adoration which were made on entering a temple. The king, surrounded by
+his attendants, eunuchs, and others, maintained a haughty reserve, and
+the stranger only beheld him from a distance. Business was transacted
+in a great measure by writing. The monarch rarely quitted his palace,
+contenting himself with such reports of the state of his empire as were
+transmitted to him from time to time by his officers.
+
+The chief amusement of the court, in which however the king rarely
+partook, was hunting. Media always abounded in beasts of chase; and
+lions, bears, leopards, wild boars, stags, gazelles, wild sheep, and
+wild asses are mentioned among the animals hunted by the Median nobles.
+Of these the first four were reckoned dangerous, the others harmless. It
+was customary to pursue these animals on horseback, and to aim at them
+with the bow or the javelin. We may gather a lively idea of some of
+these hunts from the sculptures of the Parthians, who some centuries
+later inhabited the same region. We see in these the rush of great
+troops of boars through marshes dense with water-plants, the bands of
+beaters urging them on, the sportsmen aiming at them with their bows,
+and the game falling transfixed with two or three well-aimed shafts.
+Again we see herds of deer driven within enclosures, and there slain by
+archers who shoot from horseback, the monarch under his parasol looking
+on the while, pleased with the dexterity of his servants. It is thus
+exactly that Xenophon portrays Astyages as contemplating the sport
+of his courtiers, complacently viewing their enjoyment, but taking no
+active part in the work himself.
+
+Like other Oriental sovereigns, the Median monarch maintained a seraglio
+of wives and concubines; and polygamy was commonly practised among the
+more wealthy classes. Strabo speaks of a strange law as obtaining with
+some of the Median tribes--a law which required that no man should be
+content with fewer wives than five. It is very unlikely that such a
+burden was really made obligatory on any: most probably five legitimate
+wives, and no more, were allowed by the law referred to, just as four
+wives, and no more, are lawful for Mohammedans. Polygamy, as usual,
+brought in its train the cruel practice of castration; and the court
+swarmed with eunuchs, chiefly foreigners purchased in their infancy.
+Towards the close of the Empire this despicable class appears to have
+been all-powerful with the monarch.
+
+Thus the tide of corruption gradually advanced; and there is reason to
+believe that both court and people had in a great measure laid aside
+the hardy and simple customs of their forefathers, and become enervated
+through luxury, when the revolt of the Persians came to test the quality
+of their courage, and their ability to maintain their empire. It would
+be improper in this place to anticipate the account of this struggle,
+which must be reserved for the historical chapter; but the well-known
+result--the speedy and complete success of the Persians--must be adduced
+among the proofs of a rapid deterioration in the Median character
+between the accession of Cyaxares and the capture--less than a century
+later--of Astyages.
+
+We have but little information with respect to the state of the arts
+among the Medes. A barbaric magnificence characterized, as has been
+already observed, their architecture, which differed from the Assyrian
+in being dependent for its effect on groups of pillars rather than on
+painting or sculpture. Still sculpture was, it is probable, practised to
+some extent by the Medes, who, it is almost certain, conveyed on to the
+Persians those modifications of Assyrian types which meet us everywhere
+in the remains of the Achsemenian monarch? The carving of winged genii,
+of massive forms of bulls and lions, of various grotesque monsters,
+and of certain clumsy representations of actual life, imitated from
+the bas-reliefs of the Assyrians, may be safely ascribed to the Medes;
+since, had they not carried on the traditions of their predecessors,
+Persian art could not have borne the resemblance that it does to
+Assyrian. But these first mimetic efforts of the Arian race have almost
+wholly perished, and there scarcely seems to remain more than a single
+fragment which can be assigned on even plausible grounds to the Median
+period. A portion of a colossal lion, greatly injured by time, is still
+to be seen at Hamadan, the site of the great Median capital, which the
+best judges regard as anterior to the Persian period, and as therefore
+most probably Median. It consists of the head and body of the animal,
+from which the four legs and the tail have been broken off, and measures
+between eleven and twelve feet from the crown of the head to the point
+from which the tail sprang. By the position of the head and what
+remains of the shoulders and thighs, it is evident that the animal was
+represented in a sitting posture, with the fore legs straight and the
+hind legs gathered up under it. To judge of the feeling and general
+character of the sculpture is difficult, owing to the worn and mutilated
+condition of the work; but we seem to trace in it the same air of calm
+and serene majesty that characterizes the colossal bulls and lions of
+Assyria, together with somewhat more of expression and of softness than
+are seen in the productions of that people. Its posture, which is unlike
+that of any Assyrian specimen, indicates a certain amount of originality
+as belonging to the Median artists, while its colossal size seems to
+show that the effect on the spectator was still to be produced, not so
+much by expression, finish, or truth to nature, as by mere grandeur of
+dimension. [PLATE VI., Fig. 3.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. RELIGION.
+
+
+The earliest form of the Median religion is to be found in those
+sections of the Zendavesta which have been pronounced on internal
+evidence to be the most ancient portions of that venerable compilation;
+as, for instance, the first Fargard of the Vendidad, and the Gathas, or
+"Songs," which occur here and there in the Yacna, or Book on Sacrifice.
+In the Gathas, which belong to a very remote era indeed, we seem to have
+the first beginnings of the Religion. We may indeed go back by their aid
+to a time anterior to themselves--a time when the Arian race was not yet
+separated into two branches, and the Easterns and Westerns, the
+Indians and Iranians, had not yet adopted the conflicting creeds of
+Zoroastrianism and Brahminism. At that remote period we seem to see
+prevailing a polytheistic nature-worship--a recognition of various
+divine beings, called indifferently Asuras (Ahuras) or Devas, each
+independent of the rest, and all seemingly nature-powers rather
+than persons, whereof the chief are Indra, Storm or Thunder; Mithra,
+Sunlight; Aramati (Armaiti), Earth; Vayu, Wind; Agni, Fire; and Soma
+(Homa), Intoxication. Worship is conducted by priests, who are called
+_kavi_, "seers;" _karapani_, "sacriflcers," or _ricikhs_, "wise men." It
+consists of hymns in honor of the gods; sacrifices, bloody and unbloody,
+some' portion of which is burnt upon an altar; and a peculiar ceremony,
+called that of Soma, in which an intoxicating liquor is offered to the
+gods, and then consumed by the priests, who drink till they are drunken.
+
+Such, in outline, is the earliest phase of Arian religion, and it is
+common to both branches of the stock, and anterior to the rise of the
+Iranic, Median, or Persian system. That system is a revolt from this
+sensuous and superficial nature-worship. It begins with a distinct
+recognition of spiritual intelligences--real persons--with whom
+alone, and not with powers, religion is concerned. It divides these
+intelligences into good and bad, pure and impure, benignant and
+malevolent. To the former it applies the term _Asuras_ (_Ahuras_),
+"living" or "spiritual beings," in a good sense; to the latter, the term
+_Devas_, in a bad one. It regards the "powers" hitherto worshipped as
+chiefly _Devas_; but it excepts from this unfavorable view a certain
+number, and, recognizing them as _Asuras_, places them above the
+_Izeds_, or "angels." Thus far it has made two advances, each of great
+importance, the substitution of real "persons" for "powers," as objects
+of the religious faculty, and the separation of the persons into good
+and bad, pure and impure, righteous and wicked. But it does not stop
+here. It proceeds to assert, in a certain sense, monotheism against
+polytheism. It boldly declares that, at the head of the good
+intelligences, is a single great Intelligence, Ahuro-Mazdao, the highest
+object of adoration, the true Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the
+universe. This is its great glory. It sets before the soul a single
+Being as the source of all good and the proper object of the highest
+worship. Ahuro-Mazdao is "the creator of life, the earthly and the
+spiritual;" "he has made the celestial bodies, earth, water, and trees,
+all good creatures," and "all good, true, holy, pure, things." He is
+"the Holy God, the Holiest, the essence of truth, the father of all
+truth, the best being of all, the master of purity." He is supremely
+"happy," possessing every blessing, "health, wealth, virtue, wisdom,
+immortality." From him comes all good to man; on the pious and the
+righteous he bestows not only earthly advantages, but precious spiritual
+gifts, truth, devotion, "the good mind," and everlasting happiness; and
+as he rewards the good, so he punishes the bad, though this is an aspect
+in which he is but seldom represented.
+
+It has been said that this conception of Ahura-mazda as the Supreme
+Being is "_perfectly identical_ with the notion of Elohim, or Jehovah,
+which we find in the books of the Old Testament." This is, no doubt,
+an over-statement. Ahura-mazda is less spiritual and less awful than
+Jehovah. He is less remote from the nature of man. The very ascription
+to him of health (_haurvat_) is an indication that he is conceived of
+as possessing a sort of physical nature. Lucidity and brilliancy are
+assigned to him, not (as it would seem) in a mere metaphorical sense.
+Again, he is so predominantly the author of good things, the source of
+blessing and prosperity, that he could scarcely inspire his votaries
+with any feeling of fear. Still, considering the general failure of
+unassisted reason to mount up to the true notion of a spiritual
+God, this doctrine of the early Arians is very remarkable; and its
+approximation to the truth sufficiently explains at once the favorable
+light in which its professors are viewed by the Jewish prophets, and the
+favorable opinion which they form of the Jewish system. Evidently,
+the Jews and Arians, when they became known to one another, recognized
+mutually the fact that they were worshippers of the same great Being.
+Hence the favor of the Persians towards the Jews, and the fidelity of
+the Jews towards the Persians. The Lord God of the Jews being recognized
+as identical with Ormazd, a sympathetic feeling united the peoples. The
+Jews, so impatient generally of a foreign yoke, never revolted from
+the Persians; and the Persians, so intolerant, for the most part, of
+religions other than their own, respected and protected Judaism.
+
+The sympathy was increased by the fact that the religion of Ormazd was
+anti-idolatrous. In the early nature-worship idolatry had been allowed;
+but the Iranic system pronounced against it from the first. No images
+of Ahura-mazda, or of the Izeds, profaned the severe simplicity of
+an Iranic temple. It was only after a long lapse of ages that,
+in connection with a foreign worship, idolatry crept in. The old
+Zoroastrianism was in this respect as pure as the religion of the Jews,
+and thus a double bond of religious sympathy united the Hebrews and the
+Arians.
+
+Under the supreme God, Ahura-mazda or Ormazd, the ancient Iranic system
+placed (as has been already observed) a number of angels. Some of these,
+as _Vohu-mano_, "the Good Mind;" _Mazda_, "the Wise" (?); and _Asha_,
+"the True," are scarcely distinguishable from attributes of the
+Divinity. Armaiti, however, the genius of the Earth, and Sraosha or
+Serosh, an angel, are very clearly and distinctly personified. Sraosha
+is Ormazd's messenger. He delivers revelations, shows men the paths of
+happiness, and brings them the blessings which Ormazd has assigned to
+their share. Another of his functions is to protect the true faith.
+He is called, in a very special sense, "the friend of Ormazd," and is
+employed by Ormazd not only to distribute his gifts, but also to conduct
+to him the souls of the faithful, when this life is over, and they enter
+on the celestial scene.
+
+Armaiti is at once the genius of the Earth, and the goddess of Piety.
+The early Ormazd worshippers were agriculturists, and viewed the
+cultivation of the soil as a religious duty enjoined upon them by God.
+Hence they connected the notion of piety with earth culture; and it was
+but a step from this to make a single goddess preside over the two. It
+is as the angel of Earth that Armaiti has most distinctly a personal
+character. She is regarded as wandering from spot to spot, and laboring
+to convert deserts and wildernesses into fruitful fields and gardens.
+She has the agriculturist under her immediate protection, while she
+endeavors to persuade the shepherd, who persists in the nomadic life, to
+give up his old habits and commence the cultivation of the soil. She is
+of course the giver of fertility, and rewards her votaries by bestowing
+upon them abundant harvests. She alone causes all growth. In a certain
+cense she pervades the whole material creation, mankind included, in
+whom she is even sometimes said to "reside."
+
+Armaiti, further "tells men the everlasting laws, which no one may
+abolish"--laws which she has learnt from converse with Ahura-mazda
+himself. She is thus naturally the second object of worship to the old
+Zoroastrian; and converts to the religion were required to profess their
+faith in her in direct succession to Ahura-mazda.
+
+From Armaiti must be carefully distinguished the _geus urva_, or "soul
+of the earth"--a being who nearly resembles the "anima mundi" of the
+Greek and Roman philosophers. This spirit dwells in the earth itself,
+animating it as a man's soul animates his body. In old times, when man
+first began to plough the soil, _geus urva_ cried aloud, thinking that
+his life was threatened, and implored the assistance of the archangels.
+They however were deaf to his entreaties (since Ormazd had decreed that
+there should be cultivation), and left him to bear his pains as he best
+could. It is to be hoped that in course of time he became callous to
+them, and made the discovery that mere scratches, though they may be
+painful, are not dangerous.
+
+It is uncertain whether in the most ancient form of the Iranic worship
+the cult of Mithra was included or no. On the one hand, the fact that
+Mithra is common to both forms of the Arian creed--the Indian and
+Iranic--would induce the belief that his worship was adopted from the
+first by the Zoroastrians; on the other, the entire absence of all
+mention of Mithra from the Gathas would lead us to the conclusion that
+in the time when they were composed his cult had not yet begun. Perhaps
+we may distinguish between two forms of early Iranic worship--one that
+of the more intelligent and spiritual--the leaders of the secession--in
+whose creed Mithra had no place; the other that of the great mass of
+followers, a coarser and more material system, in which many points
+of the old religion were retained, and among them the worship of the
+Sun-god. This lower and more materialistic school of thought probably
+conveyed on into the Iranic system other points also common to the
+Zendavosta with the Vedas, as the recognition of Airyaman (Aryaman) as
+a genius presiding over marriages, of Vitraha as a very high angel, and
+the like.
+
+Vayu, "the Wind," seems to have been regarded as a god from the first.
+He appears, not only in the later portions of the Zenda vesta, like
+Mithra and Aryaman, but in the Gathas themselves. His name is clearly
+identical with that of the Vedic Wind-god, Vayu, and is apparently a
+sister form to the ventus, or wind, of the more western Arians. The root
+is probably vi, "to go," which may be traced in vis, via, vado, venio,
+etc.
+
+The ancient Iranians did not adopt into their system either Agni, "Fire"
+(Lat. _ignis_), or Soma (Homa), "Intoxication." Fire was indeed retained
+for sacrifice; but it was regarded as a mere material agent, and not as
+a mysterious Power, the proper object of prayer and worship. The Soma
+worship, which formed a main element of the old religion, and which was
+retained in Brahminism, was at the first altogether discarded by the
+Zoroastrians; indeed, it seems to have been one of the main causes of
+that disgust which split the Arian body in two, and gave rise to the new
+religion. A ceremony in which it was implied that the intoxication of
+their worshippers was pleasing to the gods, and not obscurely hinted
+that they themselves indulged in similar excesses, was revolting to the
+religious temper of those who made the Zoaroastrian reformation; and it
+is plain from the Gathas that the new system was intended at first to
+be entirely free from the pollution of so disgusting a practice. But
+the zeal of religious reformers outgoes in most cases the strength and
+patience of their people, whose spirit is too gross and earthly to keep
+pace with the more lofty flights of the purer and higher intelligence.
+The Iranian section of the Arians could not be weaned wholly from their
+beloved Soma feasts; and the leaders of the movement were obliged to
+be content ultimately with so far reforming and refining the ancient
+ceremony as to render it comparatively innocuous. The portion of the
+rite which implied that the gods themselves indulged in intoxication
+was omitted; and for the intoxication of the priests was substituted
+a moderate use of the liquor, which, instead of giving a religious
+sanction to drunkenness, merely implied that the Soma juice was a good
+gift of God, one of the many blessings for which men had to be thankful.
+
+With respect to the evil spirits or intelligences, which, in the
+Zoroastrian system, stood over against the good ones, the teaching of
+the early reformers seems to have been less clear. The old divinities,
+except where adopted into the new creed, were in a general way called
+Devas, "fiends" or "devils," in contrast with the Ahuras, or "gods."
+These devas were represented as many in number, as artful, malicious,
+deceivers and injurers of mankind, more especially of the Zoroastrians
+or Ormazd-worshippers, as inventors of spells and lovers of the
+intoxicating Soma draught. Their leading characteristics were
+"destroying" and "lying." They were seldom or never called by distinct
+names. No account was given of their creation, nor of the origin of
+their wickedness. No single superior intelligence, no great Principle of
+Evil, was placed at their head. Ahriman (Angro-mainyus) does not
+occur in the Gathas as a proper name. Far less is there any graduated
+hierarchy of evil, surrounding a Prince of Darkness, with a sort of
+court, antagonistic to the angelic host of Ormazd, as in the latter
+portions of the Zendavesta and in the modern Parsee system.
+
+Thus Dualism proper, or a belief in two uncreated and independent
+principles, one a principle of good and the other a principal of evil,
+was no part of the original Zoroastrianism. At the same time we find,
+even in the Gathas, the earliest portions of the Zondavesta, the germ
+out of which Dualism sprung. The contrast between good and evil is
+strongly and sharply marked in the Gathas; the writers continually harp
+upon it, their minds are evidently struck with this sad antithesis which
+colors the whole moral world to them; they see everywhere a struggle
+between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, purity and impurity;
+apparently they are blind to the evidence of harmony and agreement
+in the universe, discerning nothing anywhere but strife, conflict,
+antagonism. Nor is this all. They go a step further, and personify the
+two parties to the struggle. One is a "white" or holy "Spirit" (_cpento
+mainyus_), and the other a "dark spirit" (_angro mainyus_). But this
+personification is merely poetical or metaphorical, not real. The "white
+spirit" is not Ahura-mazda, and the "dark spirit" is not a hostile
+intelligence. Both resolve themselves on examination into mere figures
+of speech--phantoms of poetic imagery--abstract notions, clothed by
+language with an apparent, not a real, personality.
+
+It was natural that, as time went on, Dualism should develop itself
+out of the primitive Zoroastrianism. Language exercises a tyranny
+over thought, and abstractions in the ancient world were ever becoming
+persons. The Iranian mind, moreover, had been strack, when it first
+turned to contemplate the world, with a certain antagonism; and, having
+once entered this track, it would be compelled to go on, and seek to
+discover the origin of the antagonism, the cause (or causes) to which
+it was to be ascribed. Evil seemed most easily accounted for by the
+supposition of an evil Person; and the continuance of an equal struggle,
+without advantage to either side, which was what the Iranians thought
+they beheld in the world that lay around them, appeared to them to
+imply the equality of that evil Person with the Being whom they rightly
+regarded as the author of all good. Thus Dualism had its birth. The
+Iranians came to believe in the existence of two co-eternal and co-equal
+Persons, one good and the other evil, between whom there had been from
+all eternity a perpetual and never-ceasing conflict, and between whom
+the same conflict would continue to rage through all coming time.
+
+It is impossible to say how this development took place. We have
+evidence, however, that at a period considerably anterior to the
+commencement of the Median Empire, Dualism, not perhaps in its ultimate
+extravagant form, but certainly in a very decided and positive shape,
+had already been thought out and become the recognized creed of the
+Iranians. In the first Fargard, or chapter, of the Vendidad--the
+historical chapter, in which are traced the only movements of the Iranic
+peoples, and which from the geographical point whereat it stops must
+belong to a time when the Arians had not yet reached Media Magna---the
+Dualistic belief clearly shows itself. The term Angro-mainyus has
+now become a proper name, and designates the great spirit of evil as
+definitely and determinately as Ahura-mazda designates the good spirit.
+The antagonism between Ahura-mazda and Angro-mainyus is depicted in the
+strongest colors; it is direct, constant and successful. Whatever good
+work Ahura-mazda in his benevolence creates, Angro-mainyus steps forward
+to mar and blast it. If Ahura-mazda forms a "delicious spot" in a world
+previously desert and uninhabitable to become the first home of his
+favorites, the Arians, Angro-mainyus ruins it by sending into it a
+poisonous serpent, and at the same time rendering the climate one of
+the bitterest severity. If Ahura-mazda provides, instead of this blasted
+region, another charming habitation, "the second best of regions and
+countries," Angro-mainyus sends there the curse of murrain, fatal to
+all cattle. To every land which Ahura-mazda creates for his worshippers,
+Angro-mainyus immediately assigns some plague or other. War, ravages,
+sickness, fever, poverty, hail, earthquakes, buzzing insects, poisonous
+plants, unbelief, witchcraft, and other inexpiable sins, are introduced
+by him into the various happy regions created without any such drawbacks
+by the good spirit; and a world, which should have been "very good," is
+by these means converted into a scene of trial and suffering.
+
+The Dualistic principle being thus fully adopted, and the world looked
+on as the battle-ground between two independent and equal powers engaged
+in perpetual strife, it was natural that the imagination should complete
+the picture by ascribing to those superhuman rivals the circumstantials
+that accompany a great struggle between human adversaries. The two
+kings required, in the first place, to have their councils, which
+were accordingly assigned them, and were respectively composed of six
+councillors. The councillors of Ahura-mazda--called Amesha Spentas,
+or "Immortal Saints," afterwards corrupted into Amshashpands--wore
+Vohu-mano (Bahman), Asha-va-hista (Ardibehesht), Khshathra-vairya
+(Shahravar), Qpenta-Armaiti (Isfand-armat), Haurvatat (Khordad), and
+Ameretat (Amerdat). Those of Angro-mainyus were Ako-mano, Indra, Qaurva,
+Naonhaitya, and two others whose names are interpreted as "Darkness" and
+"Poison."
+
+Vohu-mano (Bahman) means "the Good Mind." Originally a mere attribute of
+Ahura-mazda, Vohu-mano came to be considered, first as one of the
+high angels attendant on him, and then formally as one of-his six
+councillors. He had a distinct sphere or province assigned to him in
+Ahura-mazda's kingdom, which was the maintenance of life in animals and
+of goodness in man.
+
+Asha-vahista (Ardibehesht) means "the Highest Truth"--"Voritas optima,"
+or rather perhaps "Veritas lucidissima." He was the "Light" of the
+universe, subtle, all-pervading, omnipresent. His special business
+was to maintain the splendor of the various luminaries, and thereby to
+preserve all those things whose existence and growth depend on light.
+
+Khshathra-vairya (Shahravar), whose name means simply "possessions,"
+"wealth," was regarded as presiding over metals and as the dispenser of
+riches.
+
+Qoonta-Armaiti (Isfand-armat)--the "white or holy Ar-maiti," represented
+the Earth. She had from the first, as we have already seen, a distinct
+position in the system of the Zoroastrians, where she was at once the
+Earth goddess and the genius of piety.
+
+Haurvatat (Khordad) means "health"--"sanitas"--and was originally one
+of the great and precious gifts which Ahura-mazda possessed himself and
+kindly bestowed on his creatures. When personification, and the needs
+of the theology, had made Haurvatat an archangel, he, together with
+Ameretat (Amerdat), "Immortality," took the presidency of the vegetable
+world, which it was the business of the pair to keep in good condition.
+
+In the council of Angro-mainyus, Ako-mano stands in direct antithesis to
+Vohu-mano, as "the bad mind," or more literally, "the naught mind"--for
+the Zoroastrians, like Plato, regarded good and evil as identical with
+reality and unreality. Ako-mano's special sphere is the mind of man,
+where he suggests evil thoughts and prompts to bad words and wicked
+deeds. He holds the first place in the infernal council, as Vohu-mano
+does in the heavenly one.
+
+Indra, who holds the second place in the infernal council, is evidently
+the Vedic god whom the Zoroastrians regarded as a powerful demon, and
+therefore made one of Angro-mainyus's chief councillors. He probably
+retained his character as the god of the storm and of war, the destroyer
+of crops and cities, the inspirer of armies and the wielder of
+the thunder-bolt. The Zoroastrians, however, ascribed to him only
+destructive actions; while the more logical Hindoos, observing that the
+same storm which hurt the crops and struck down trees and buildings was
+also the means of fertilizing the lands and purifying the air, viewed
+him under a double aspect, as at once terrible in his wrath and the
+bestower of numerous blessings.
+
+Qaurva, who stands next to Indra, is thought to be the Hindoo Shiva, who
+has the epithet qarva in one of the Vedas. But the late appearance of
+Shiva in the Hindoo system makes this highly uncertain.
+
+Naonhaitya, the fourth member of the infernal council, corresponds
+apparently to the Vedic Nasatyas, a collective name given to the two
+Aswins, the Dioscuri of Indian mythology. These were favorite gods of
+the early Hindoos, to whose protection they very mainly ascribed their
+prosperity. It was natural that the Iranians, in their aversion to
+their Indian brethren, should give the Aswins a seat at Angro-mainyus's
+council-table; but it is curious that they should represent the twin
+deities by only a single councillor.
+
+Taric and Zaric, "Darkness" and "Poison," the occupants of the fifth and
+sixth places, are evidently personifications made for the occasion, to
+complete the infernal council to its full complement of six members.
+
+As the two Principles of Good and Evil have their respective councils,
+so have they likewise their armies. The Good Spirit has created
+thousands of angelic beings, who everywhere perform his will and fight
+on his side against the Evil One; and the Evil One has equally on
+his part called into being thousands of malignant spirits who are his
+emissaries in the world, doing his work continually, and fighting
+his battles. These are the Devas or Dives, so famous in Persian fairy
+mythology. They are "wicked, bad, false, untrue, the originators of
+mischief, most baneful, destructive, the basest of all beings." The
+whole universe is full of them. They aim primarily at destroying all
+the good creations of Ahura-mazda; but if unable to destroy they content
+themselves with perverting and corrupting. They dog the steps of men,
+tempting them to sin; and, as soon as sin, obtaining a fearful power
+over them.
+
+At the head of Ahura-mazda's army is the angel Sraosha (Serosh). Serosh
+is "the sincere, the beautiful, the victorious, the true, the master
+of truth." He protects the territories of the Iranians, wounds, and
+sometimes even slays the demons, and is engaged in a perpetual struggle
+against them, never slumbering night or day, but guarding the world with
+his drawn sword, more particularly after sunset, when the demons have
+the greatest power.
+
+Angro-mainyus appears not to possess any such general-in-chief. Besides
+the six councillors above mentioned, there are indeed various demons
+of importance, as Drukhs, "destruction;" Aeshemo, "rapine;" Daivis,
+"deceit;" Driwis, "poverty," etc.; but no one of these seems to occupy
+a parallel place in the evil world to that which is assigned to
+Serosh in the good. Perhaps we have here a recognition of the anarchic
+character of evil, whose attacks are like those of a huge undisciplined
+host--casual, fitful, irregular--destitute wholly of that principle of
+law and order which gives to the resisting power of good a great portion
+of its efficacy.
+
+To the belief in a spiritual world composed of all these various
+intelligences--one half of whom were good, and the other half evil--the
+early Zoroastrians added notions with respect to human duties and human
+prospects far more enlightened than those which have usually prevailed
+among heathen nations. In their system truth, purity, piety, and
+industry were the virtues chiefly valued and inculcated. Evil was traced
+up to its root in the heart of man; and it was distinctly taught that
+no virtue deserved the name but such as was co-extensive with the whole
+sphere of human activity, including the thought, as well as the word and
+deed. The purity required was inward as well as outward, mental as
+well as bodily. The industry was to be of a peculiar character. Man was
+placed upon the earth to preserve the good creation; and this could only
+be done by careful tilling of the soil, eradication of thorns and weeds,
+and reclamation of the tracts over which Angro-mainyus had spread the
+curse of barrenness. To cultivate the soil was thus a religious duty;
+the whole community was required to be agricultural; and either as
+proprietor, as farmer, or as laboring man, each Zoroastrian must
+"further the works of life" by advancing tillage. Piety consisted in the
+acknowledgment of the One True God, Ahura-mazda, and of his holy angels,
+the Amesha Spentas or Amshashpands, in the frequent offering of prayers,
+praises, and thanksgivings, in the recitation of hymns, the performance
+of the reformed Soma ceremony, and the occasional sacrifice of animals.
+Of the hymns we have abundant examples in the Gathas of the Zendavesta,
+and in the Yagna haptanhaiti, or "Yaana of seven chapters," which
+belongs to the second period of the religion. A specimen from the latter
+source is subjoined below. The Soma or Homa ceremony consisted in the
+extraction of the juice of the Homa plant by the priests during the
+recitation of prayers, the formal presentation of the liquid extracted
+to the sacrificial fire, the consumption of a small portion of it by one
+of the officiating priests, and the division of the remainder among the
+worshippers. As the juice was drunk immediately after extraction and
+before fermentation had set in, it was not intoxicating. The ceremony
+seems to have been regarded, in part, as having a mystic force, securing
+the favor of heaven; in part, as exerting a beneficial influence upon
+the body of the worshipper through the curative power inherent in the
+Homa plant.
+
+The sacrifices of the Zoroastrians were never human. The ordinary victim
+was the horse; and we hear of occasions on which a single individual
+sacrificed as many as ten of these animals. Mares seem to have been
+regarded as the most pleasing offerings, probably on account of their
+superior value; and if it was desired to draw down the special favor of
+the Deity, those mares were selected which were already heavy in foal.
+Oxen, sheep, and goats were probably also used as victims. A priest
+always performed the sacrifice, slaying the animal, and showing the
+flesh to the sacred fire by way of consecration, after which it was
+eaten at a solemn feast by the priest and worshippers.
+
+The Zoroastrians were devout believers in the immortality of the soul
+and a conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after
+death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceeded together along an
+appointed path to "the bridge of the gatherer" (chinvatperetu). This was
+a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of
+the pious alone could pass, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf
+below, where they found themselves in the place of punishment. The good
+soul was assisted across the bridge by the angel Serosh--"the happy,
+well-formed, swift, tall Serosh"--who met the weary wayfarer and
+sustained his steps as he effected the difficult passage. The prayers
+of his friends in this world were of much avail to the deceased,
+and greatly, helped him on his journey. As he entered, the archangel
+Vohu-mano or Bahman rose from his throne and greeted him with the words,
+"How happy art thou who hast come here to us from the mortality to the
+immortality!" Then the pious soul went joyfully onward to Ahura-mazda,
+to the immortal saints, to the golden throne, to Paradise. As for the
+wicked, when they fell into the gulf, they found themselves in outer
+darkness, in the kingdom of Angro-mainyus, where they were forced to
+remain and to feed upon poisoned banquets.
+
+It is believed by some that the doctrine of the resurrection of the
+body was also part of the Zoroastrian creed. Theopompus assigned this
+doctrine to the Magi; and there is no reason to doubt that it was
+held by the priestly caste of the Arian nations in his day. We find it
+plainly stated in portions of the Zendavesta, which, if not among the
+earliest, are at any rate of very considerable antiquity, as in the
+eighteenth chapter of the Vendidad. It is argued that even in the
+Gathas there is an expression used which shows the doctrine to have
+been already held when they were composed; but the phrase adduced is so
+obscure that its true meaning must be pronounced in the highest degree
+uncertain. The absence of any plain allusion to the resurrection from
+the earlier portions of the sacred volume is a strong argument against
+its having formed any part of the original Arian creed--an argument
+which is far from outweighed by the occurrence of a more possible
+reference to it in a single ambiguous passage.
+
+Around and about this nucleus of religious belief there grew up in
+course of time a number of legends, some of which possess considerable
+interest. Like other thoughtful races, the Iranians speculated upon the
+early condition of mankind, and conceived a golden age, and a king
+then reigning over a perfectly happy people, whom they called King
+Yima--Yima-khshaeta--the modern Persian Jemshid. Yima, according to the
+legend, had dwelt originally in Aryanem vaejo--the primitive seat of the
+Arians--and had there reigned gloriously and peacefully for awhile; but
+the evils of winter having come upon his country, he had removed from it
+with his subjects, and had retired to a secluded spot where he and
+his people enjoyed uninterrupted happiness. In this place was "neither
+overbearing nor mean-spiritedness, neither stupidity nor violence,
+neither poverty nor deceit, neither puniness nor deformity, neither huge
+teeth nor bodies beyond the usual meassure." The inhabitants suffered no
+defilement from the evil spirit. They dwelt amid odoriferous trees and
+golden pillars; their cattle were the largest, best, and most beautiful
+on the earth; they were themselves a tall and beautiful race; their food
+was ambrosial, and never failed them. No wonder that time sped fast with
+them, and that they, not noting its night, thought often that what was
+really a year had been no more than a single day. Yima was the great
+hero of the early Iranians. His titles, besides "the king" (khshaeta),
+are "the brilliant," "the happy," "the greatly wealthy," "the leader
+of the peoples," "the renowned in Aryanem vaejo." He is most probably
+identical with the Yama of the Vedas, who was originally the first man,
+the progenitor of mankind and the ruler of the blessed in Paradise, but
+who was afterwards transformed into "the god of death, the inexorable
+judge of men's doings, and the punisher of the wicked."
+
+Next in importance to Yima among the heroes is Thraetona--the modern
+Persian Feridun. He was born in Varena--which is perhaps Atropatene, or
+Azerbijan--and was the son of a distinguished father, Athwyo. His chief
+exploit was the destruction of Ajis-dahaka (Zohak), who is sometimes
+represented as a cruel tyrant, the bitter enemy of the Iranian race,
+sometimes as a monstrous dragon, with three mouths, three tails, six
+eyes, and a thousand scaly rings, who threatened to ruin the whole of
+the good creation. The traditional scene of the destruction was the
+mountain of Demavend, the highest peak of the Elburz range south of the
+Caspian. Thraetona, like Yima, appears to be also a Vedic hero. He may
+be recognized in Traitana, who is said in the Rig-Veda to have slain a
+mighty giant by severing his head from his shoulders.
+
+A third heroic personage known in the early times was Keresaspa, of the
+noble Sama family. He was the son of Thrita--a distinct personage from
+Thraetona--and brother of Urvakh-shaya the Just and was bred up in the
+arid country of Veh-keret (Khorassan). The "glory" which had rested upon
+Yima so many years became his in his day. He was the mightiest among
+the mighty, and was guarded from all danger by the fairy (pairika)
+Enathaiti, who followed him whithersoever he went. He slew Qravara, the
+queen and venomous serpent, who swallowed up men and horses. He killed
+Gandarewa with the golden heel, and also Cnavidhaka, who had boasted
+that, when he grew up, he would make the earth his wheel and heaven
+his chariot, that he would carry off Ahura-mazda from heaven and
+Angro-mainyus from hell, and yoke them both as horses to his car.
+Keresaspa appears as Gershasp in the modern Persian legends, where,
+however, but little is said of his exploits. In the Hindoo books he
+appears as Krigagva, the son of Samyama, and is called king of Vaigali,
+or Bengal!
+
+From these specimens the general character of the early Iranic legends
+appears sufficiently. Without affording any very close resemblances in
+particular cases, they present certain general features which are common
+to the legendary lore of all the Western Arians. They are romantic
+tales, not allegories; they relate with exaggerations the deeds of men,
+not the processes of nature. Combining some beauty with a good deal
+that is bizarre and grotesque, they are lively and graphic, but somewhat
+childish, having in no case any deep meaning, and rarely teaching a
+moral lesson. In their earliest shape they appear, so far as we can
+judge, to have been brief, disconnected, and fragmentary. They owe the
+full and closely interconnected form which they assume in the Shahna-meh
+and other modern Persian writings, partly to a gradual accretion during
+the course of centuries, partly to the inventive genius of Firdausi, who
+wove the various and often isolated legends into a pseudo-history,
+and amplified them at his own pleasure. How much of the substance of
+Firdausi's poems belongs to really primitive myth is uncertain. We
+find in the Zend texts the names of Gayo-marathan, who corresponds to
+Kaiomars; of Haoshyanha, or Hosheng; of Yima-shaeta, or Jemshid; of
+Ajisdahaka, or Zohak; of Athwya, or Abtin; of Thraetona, or Feridun; of
+Keresaspa, or Gershasp; of Kava Uq, or Kai Kavus; of Kava Hucrava, or
+Kai Khosroo; and of Kava Vistaspa, or Gushtasp. But we have no mention
+of Tahomars; of Gava (or Gau) the blacksmith; of Feridua's sons, Selm,
+Tur, and Irij; of Zal, or Mino'chihr, or Eustem; of Afrasiab, or Kai
+Kobad; of Sohrab, or Isfendiar. And of the heroic names which actually
+occur in the Zendavesta, several, as Gayo-marathan, Haoshyariha, Kava
+Uc, and Kava Hugrava, are met with only in the later portions, which
+belong probably to about the fourth century before our era. The only
+legends which we know to be primitive are those above related, which are
+found in portions of the Zendavesta, whereto the best critics ascribe a
+high antiquity. The negative argument is not, however, conclusive; and
+it is quite possible that a very large proportion of Firdausi's tale may
+consist of ancient legends dressed up in a garb comparatively modern.
+
+Two phases of the early Iranic religion have been now briefly described;
+the first a simple and highly spiritual creed, remarkable for its
+distinct assertion of monotheism, its hatred of idolatry, and the
+strongly marked antithesis which it maintained between good and evil;
+the second, a natural corruption of the first, Dualistic, complicated
+by the importance which it ascribed to angelic beings verging upon
+polytheism. It remains to give an account of a third phase into which
+the religion passed in consequence of an influence exercised upon it
+from without by an alien system.
+
+When the Iranic nations, cramped for space in the countries east and
+south of the Caspian, began to push themselves further to the west, and
+then to the south, they were brought into contact with various Scythic
+tribes inhabiting the mountain regions of Armenia, Azerbijan, Kurdistan,
+and Luristan, whose religion appears to have been Magism. It was here,
+in these elevated tracts, where the mountains almost seem to reach the
+skies, that the most venerated and ancient of the fire-temples were
+established, some of which remain, seemingly in their primitive
+condition, at the present day. [PLATE VI., Fig. 4.] Here tradition
+placed the original seat of the fire-worship; and from hence many taught
+that Zoroaster, whom they regarded as the founder of Magism, had sprung.
+Magism was, essentially, the worship of the elements, the recognition
+of fire, air, earth, and water as the only proper objects of human
+reverence. The Magi held no personal gods, and therefore naturally
+rejected temples, shrines, and images, as tending to encourage the
+notion that gods existed of a like nature with man, i.e., possessing
+personality--living and intelligent beings. Theirs was a nature worship,
+but a nature worship of a very peculiar kind. They did not place gods
+over the different parts of nature, like the Greeks; they did not
+even personify the powers of nature, like the Hindoos; they paid their
+devotion to the actual material things themselves. Fire, as the most
+subtle and ethereal principle, and again as the most powerful agent,
+attracted their highest regards; and on their fire-altars the sacred
+flame, generally said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning
+uninterruptedly from year to year and from age to age by bands of
+priests, whose special duty it was to see that the sacred spark was
+never extinguished. To defile the altar by blowing the flame with one's
+breath was a capital offence; and to burn a corpse was regarded as an
+act equally odious. When victims were offered to fire, nothing but a
+small portion of the fat was consumed in the flame. Next to fire, water
+was reverenced. Sacrifice was offered to rivers, lakes, and fountains,
+the victim being brought near to them and then slain, while great care
+was taken that no drop of their blood should touch the water and pollute
+it. No refuse was allowed to be cast into a river, nor was it even
+lawful to wash one's hands in one. Reverence for earth was shown by
+sacrifice, and by abstention from the usual mode of burying the dead.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VI.]
+
+The Magian religion was of a highly sacerdotal type. No worshipper could
+perform any religious act except by the intervention of a priest, or
+Magus, who stood between him and the divinity as a Mediator. The Magus
+prepared the victim and slew it, chanted the mystic strain which gave
+the sacrifice all its force, poured on the ground the propitiatory
+libation of oil, milk, and honey, held the bundle of thin tamarisk
+twigs--the Zendic barsom (baregma)--the employment of which was
+essential to every sacrificial ceremony. The Magi were a priest-caste,
+apparently holding their office by hereditary succession. They claimed
+to possess, not only a sacred and mediatorial character, but also
+supernatural prophetic powers. They explained omens, expounded dreams,
+and by means of a certain mysterious manipulation of the barsom, or
+bundle of twigs, arrived at a knowledge of future events, which they
+communicated to the pious inquirer.
+
+With such pretensions it was natural that the caste should assume a
+lofty air, a stately dress, and an entourage of ceremonial magnificence.
+Clad in white robes, and bearing Upon their heads tall felt caps, with
+long lappets at the sides, which concealed the jaw and even the lips,
+each with his barsom in his hand, they marched in procession to their
+pynetheia, or fire altars, and standing around them performed for an
+hour at a time their magical incantations. The credulous multitude,
+impressed by sights of this kind, and imposed on by the claims to
+supernatural power which the Magi advanced, paid them a willing homage;
+the kings and chiefs consulted them; and when the Arian tribes, pressing
+westward, came into contact with the races professing the Magian
+religion, they found a sacerdotal caste all-powerful in most of the
+Scythic nations.
+
+The original spirit of Zoroastrianism was fierce and exclusive. The
+early Iranians looked with contempt and hatred on the creed of their
+Indian brethren; they abhorred idolatry; and were disinclined to
+tolerate any religion except that which they had themselves worked out.
+But with the lapse of ages this spirit became softened. Polytheistic
+creeds are far less jealous than monotheism; and the development of
+Zoroastrianism had been in a polytheistic direction. By the time that
+the Zoroastrians were brought into contact with Magism, the first fervor
+of their religious zeal had abated, and they were in that intermediate
+condition of religious faith which at once impresses and is impressed,
+acts upon other systems, and allows itself to be acted upon in return.
+The result which supervened upon contact with Magism seems to have been
+a fusion, an absorption into Zoroastrianism of all the chief points of
+the Magian belief, and all the more remarkable of the Magian religious
+usages. This absorption appears to have taken place in Media. It was
+there that the Arian tribes first associated with themselves, and
+formally adopted into their body, the priest-caste of the Magi, which
+thenceforth was recognized as one of the six Median tribes. It is there
+that Magi are first found acting in the capacity of Arian priests.
+According to all the accounts which have come down to us, they soon
+acquired a predominating influence, which they no doubt used to impress
+their own religious doctrines more and more upon the nation at large,
+and to thrust into the background, so far as they dared, the peculiar
+features of the old Arian belief. It is not necessary to suppose that
+the Medes ever apostatized altogether from the worship of Ormazd, or
+formally surrendered their Dualistic faith. But, practically, the Magian
+doctrines and the Magian usages--elemental worship, divination with
+the sacred rods, dream expounding, incantations at the fire-altars,
+sacrifices whereat a Magus officiated--seem to have prevailed; the
+new predominated over the old; backed by the power of an organized
+hierarchy, Magism over-laid the primitive Arian creed, and, as time went
+on, tended more and more to become the real religion of the nation.
+
+Among the religious customs introduced by the Magi into Media there are
+one or two which seem to require especial notice. The attribution of a
+sacred character to the four so-called elements--earth, air, fire and
+water--renders it extremely difficult to know what is to be done with
+the dead. They cannot be burnt, for that is a pollution of fire; or
+buried, for that is a pollution of earth; or thrown into a river, for
+that is a defilement of water. If they are deposited in sarcophagi, or
+exposed, they really pollute the air; but in this case the guilt of the
+pollution, it may be argued, does not rest on man, since the dead body
+is merely left in the element in which nature placed it. The only mode
+of disposal which completely avoids the defilement of every element
+is consumption of the dead by living beings; and the worship of the
+elements leads on naturally to this treatment of corpses. At present the
+Guebres, or Fire-worshippers, the descendants of the ancient Persians,
+expose all their dead, with the intention that they shall be devoured
+by birds of prey. In ancient times, it appears certain that the Magi
+adopted this practice with respect to their own dead; but, apparently,
+they did not insist upon having their example followed universally by
+the laity. Probably a natural instinct made the Arians averse to this
+coarse and revolting custom; and their spiritual guides, compassionating
+their weakness, or fearful of losing their own influence over them if
+they were too stiff in enforcing compliance, winked at the employment by
+the people of an entirely different practice. The dead bodies were first
+covered completely with a coating of wax, and were then deposited in
+the ground. It was held, probably, that the coating of wax prevented the
+pollution which would have necessarily resulted had the earth come into
+direct contact with the corpse.
+
+The custom of divining by means of a number of rods appears to have
+been purely Magian. There is no trace of it in the Gathas, in the Yagna
+haptanhaiti, or in the older portions of the Vendidad. It was a Scythic
+practice; and probably the best extant account of it is that which
+Herodotus gives of the mode wherein it was managed by the Scyths of
+Europe. "Scythia," he says, "has an abundance of soothsayers, who
+foretell the future by means of a number of willow wands. A large bundle
+of these rods is brought and laid on the ground. The soothsayer unties
+the bundle, and places each wand by itself, at the same time uttering
+his prophecy: then, while he is still speaking, he gathers the rods
+together again, and makes them up once more into a bundle." A divine
+power seems to have been regarded as resting in the wands; and they were
+supposed to be "consulted" on the matter in hand, both severally and
+collectively. The bundle of wands thus imbued with supernatural wisdom
+became naturally part of the regular priestly costume, and was carried
+by the Magi on all occasions of ceremony. The wands were of different
+lengths; and the number of wands in the bundle varied. Sometimes there
+were three, sometimes five, sometimes as many as seven or nine; but in
+every case, as it would seem, an odd number.
+
+Another implement which the priests commonly bore must be regarded, not
+as Magian, but as Zoroastrian. This is the khrafgthraghna, or instrument
+for killing bad animals, frogs, toads, snakes, mice, lizards, flies,
+etc., which belonged to the bad creation, or that which derived its
+origin from Angro-mainyus. These it was the general duty of all men,
+and the more especial duty of the Zoroastrian priests, to put to death,
+whenever they had the opportunity. The Magi, it appears, adopted this
+Arian usage, added the khrafgthraghna to the barsom, and were so zealous
+in their performance of the cruel work expected from them as to excite
+the attention, and even draw upon themselves the rebuke, of foreigners.
+
+A practice is assigned to the Magi by many classical and ecclesiastical
+writers, which, if it were truly charged on them, would leave a very
+dark stain on the character of their ethical system. It is said that
+they allowed and even practised incest of the most horrible kind--such
+incest as we are accustomed to associate with the names of Lot, OEdipus,
+and Herod Agrippa. The charge seems to have been first made either by
+Xanthus the Lydian, or by Ctesias. It was accepted, probably without
+much inquiry, by the Greeks generally, and then by the Romans, was
+repeated by writer after writer as a certain fact, and became finally a
+stock topic with the early Christian apologists. Whether it had any real
+foundation in fact is very uncertain. Herodotus, who collects with so
+much pains the strange and unusual customs of the various nations whom
+he visits, is evidently quite ignorant of any such monstrous practice.
+He regards the Magian religion as established in Persia, yet he holds
+the incestuous marriage of Cambyses with his sister to have been
+contrary to existing Persian laws. At the still worst forms of incest
+of which the Magi and those under their influence are accused, Herodotus
+does not even glance. No doubt, if Xanthus Lydus really made the
+statement which Clemens of Alexandria assigns to him, it is an important
+piece of evidence, though scarcely sufficient to prove the Magi guilty.
+Xanthus was a man of little judgment, apt to relate extravagant tales;
+and, as a Lydian, he may have been disinclined to cast an aspersion
+on the religion of his country's oppressors. The passage in question,
+however, probably did not come from Xanthus Lydus, but from a much later
+writer who assumed his name, as has been well shown by a living critic.
+The true original author of the accusation against the Magi and their
+co-religionists seems to have been Ctesias, whose authority is far
+too weak to establish a charge intrinsically so improbable. Its only
+historical foundation seems to have been the fact that incestuous
+marriages were occasionally contracted by the Persian kings; not,
+however, in consequence of any law, or religious usage, but because in
+the plenitude of their power they could set all law at defiance, and
+trample upon the most sacred principles of morality and religion.
+
+A minor charge preferred against the Magian morality by Xanthus, or
+rather by the pseudo-Xanthus, has possibly a more solid foundation.
+"The Magi," this writer said, "hold their wives in common: at least
+they often marry the wives of others with the free consent of their
+husbands." This is really to say that among the Magians divorce was
+over-facile; that wives were often put away, merely with a view to their
+forming a fresh marriage, by husbands who understood and approved of the
+transaction. Judging by the existing practice of the Persians, we must
+admit that such laxity is in accordance with Iranic notions on the
+subject of marriage--notions far less strict than those which have
+commonly prevailed among civilized nations. There is, however, no other
+evidence, besides this, that divorce was very common where the Magian
+system prevailed; and the mere assertion of the writer who personated
+Xanthus Lydus will scarcely justify us in affixing even this stigma on
+the religion.
+
+Upon the whole, Magism, though less elevated and less pure than the
+old Zoroastrian creed, must be pronounced to have possessed a certain
+loftiness and picturesqueness which suited it to become the religion
+of a great and splendid monarchy. The mysterious fire-altars on
+the mountain-tops, with their prestige of a remote antiquity--the
+ever-burning flame believed to have been kindled from on high--the
+worship in the open air under the blue canopy of heaven--the long troops
+of Magians in their white robes, with their strange caps, and their
+mystic wands--the frequent prayers--the abundant sacrifices--the long
+incantations--the supposed prophetic powers of the priest-caste--all
+this together constituted an imposing whole at once to the eye and to
+the mind, and was calculated to give additional grandeur to the civil
+system that should be allied with it. Pure Zoroastrianism was too
+spiritual to coalesce readily with Oriental luxury and magnificence,
+or to lend strength to a government based on the ordinary principles of
+Asiatic despotism. Magism furnished a hierarchy to support the throne,
+and add splendor and dignity to the court, while they overawed the
+subject-class by their supposed possession of supernatural powers,
+and of the right of mediating between heaven and man. It supplied a
+picturesque worship which at once gratified the senses and excited
+the fancy It gave scope to man's passion for the marvellous by
+its incantations, its divining-rods, its omen-reading, and its
+dream-expounding. It gratified the religious scrupulosity which finds
+a pleasure in making to itself difficulties, by the disallowance of
+a thousand natural acts, and the imposition of numberless rules
+for external purity. At the same time it gave no offence to the
+anti-idolatrous spirit in which the Arians had hitherto gloried, but
+rather encouraged the iconoclasm which they always upheld and practised.
+It thus blended easily with the previous creed of the people, awaking no
+prejudices, clashing with no interests; winning its way by an apparent
+meekness and unpresumingness, while it was quite prepared, when the
+fitting time came, to be as fierce and exclusive as if it had never worn
+the mask of humility and moderation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+
+
+On the language of the ancient Medes a very few observations will be
+here made. It has been noticed already that the Median form of speech
+was closely allied to that of the Persians. The remark of Strabo quoted
+above, and another remark which he cites from Nearchus, imply at once
+this fact, and also the further fact of a dialectic difference between
+the two tongues. Did we possess, as some imagine that we do, materials
+for tracing out this diversity, it would be proper in the present place
+to enter fully on the subject, and instead of contenting ourselves with
+asserting, or even proving, the substantial oneness of the languages,
+it would be our duty to proceed to the far more difficult and more
+complicated task of comparing together the sister dialects, and noting
+their various differences. The supposition that there exist means for
+such a comparison is based upon a theory that in the language of the
+Zendavesta we have the true speech of the ancient people of Media, while
+in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achasmenian kings it is beyond
+controversy that we possess the ancient language of Persia. It becomes
+necessary, therefore, to examine this theory, in order to justify our
+abstention from an inquiry on which, if the theory were sound, we should
+be now called upon to enter.
+
+The notion that the Zend language was the idiom of ancient Media
+originated with Anquetil du Perron. He looked on Zoroaster as a native
+of Azerbijan, contemporary with Darius Hystaspis. His opinion was
+embraced by Kleuker, Herder, and Eask; and again, with certain
+modifications, by Tychsen and Heeren. These latter writers even gave a
+more completely Median character to the Zendavesta, by regarding it as
+composed in Media Magna, during the reign of the great Cyaxares. The
+main foundation of these views was the identification of Zoroastrianism
+with the Magian fire-worship, which was really ancient in Azerbijan,
+and flourished in Media under the great Median monarch. But we have seen
+that Magianism and Zoroastrianism were originally entirely distinct, and
+that the Zendavesta in all its earlier portions belongs wholly to the
+latter system. Nothing therefore is proved concerning the Zend dialect
+by establishing a connection between the Medes and Magism, which was
+a corrupting influence thrown in upon Zoroastrianism long after the
+composition of the great bulk of the sacred writings.
+
+These writings themselves sufficiently indicate the place of their
+composition. It was not Media, but Bactria, or at any rate the
+north-eastern Iranic country, between the Bolor range and the Caspian.
+This conclusion, which follows from a consideration of the various
+geographical notices contained in the Zend books, had been accepted of
+late years by all the more profound Zend scholars. Originated by Rhode,
+it has also in its favor the names of Burnouf, Lassen, Westergaard, and
+Haug. If then the Zend is to be regarded as really a local dialect, the
+idiom of a particular branch of the Iranic people, there is far more
+reason for considering it to be the ancient speech of Bactria than of
+any other Arian country. Possibly the view is correct which recognizes
+two nearly-allied dialects as existing side by side in Iran during its
+flourishing period--one prevailing towards the west, the other towards
+the east--one Medo-Persic, the other Sogdo-Bactrian--the former
+represented to us by the cuneiform inscriptions, the latter by the Zend
+texts. Or it may be closer to the truth to recognize in the Zendic and
+Achsemenian forms of speech, not so much two contemporary idioms, as two
+stages of one and the same language, which seems to be at present the
+opinion of the best comparative philologists. In either case Media can
+claim no special interest in Zend, which, if local, is Sogdo-Bactrian,
+and if not local is no more closely connected with Media than with
+Persia.
+
+It appears then that we do not at present possess any means of
+distinguishing the shades of difference which separated the. Median from
+the Persian speech. We have in fact no specimens of the former beyond a
+certain number of words, and those chiefly proper names, whereas we know
+the latter tolerably completely from the inscriptions. It is proposed
+under the head of the "Fifth Monarchy" to consider at some length the
+general character of the Persian language as exhibited to us in these
+documents. From the discussion then to be raised may be gathered the
+general character of the speech of the Medes. In the present place all
+that will be attempted is to show how far the remnants left us of Median
+speech bear out the statement that, substantially, one and the same
+tongue was spoken by both peoples.
+
+Many Median names are absolutely identical with Persian; e.g.,
+Ariobarzanes, Artabazus, Artaeus, Artembares, Harpagus, Arbaces,
+Tiridates, etc. Others which are not absolutely identical approach
+to the Persian form so closely as to be plainly mere variants, like
+Theodoras and Theodosius, Adelbert and Ethelbert, Miriam, Mariam, and
+Mariamne. Of this kind are Intaphres, another form of Intaphernes,
+Artynes, another form of Artanes, Parmises, another form of Parmys, and
+the like. A third class, neither identical with any known Persian names,
+nor so nearly approaching to them as to be properly considered mere
+variants, are made up of known Persian roots, and may be explained
+on exactly the same principles as Persian names. Such are Ophernes,
+Sitraphernes, Mitraphernes, Megabernes, Aspadas, Mazares, Tachmaspates,
+Xathrites, Spitaces, Spitamas, Ehambacas, and others. In Ophernes,
+Sitra-phernes, Mitra-phernes, and Mega-bernes, the second element
+is manifestly the pharna or frana which is found in Arta-phernes and
+Inta-phernes (Vida-frana), an active participial form from pri, to
+protect. The initial element in O-phernes represents the Zend hu, Sans,
+su, Greek ev, as the same letter does in O-manes, O-martes, etc. The
+Sitra of Sitra-phernes has been explained as probably Ichshatra, "the
+crown," which is similarly represented in the Safro-pates of Curtius, a
+name standing to Sitra-phernes exactly as Arta-patas to Arta-phernes. In
+Mega-bernes the first element is the well-known baga, "God," under
+the form commonly preferred by the Greeks; and the name is exactly
+equivalent to Curtius's Bagfo-phanes, which only differs from it by
+taking the participle of pa, "to protect," instead of the participle
+of pri, which has the same meaning. In Aspa-das it is easy to recognize
+aspa, "horse" (a common root in Persian names,) e.g., Aspa-thines,
+Aspa-mitras, Prex-aspes, and the like, followed by the same element
+which terminates the name of Oromaz-des, and which means either
+"knowing" or "giving." Ma-zares presents us with the root meh, "much" or
+"great," which is found in the name of the ilf-aspii, or "Big Horses,"
+a Persian tribe, followed by zara, "gold," which appears in Ctesias's
+"Arto-awes," and perhaps also in Zoro-aster. In Tachmaspates, the
+first element is takhma, "strong," a root found in the Persian names
+Ar-tochmes and Tritan-taechmes, while the second is the frequently
+used pati, "lord," which occurs as the initial element in Pak-zeithes,"
+Pafa-ramphes, etc., and as the terminal in Pharna-jjates, Avio-peithes,
+and the like. In Xathrites we have clearly khshatra (Zend khshathra),
+"crown" or "king," with a participial suffix -ita, corresponding to the
+Sanscrit participle in -it. Spita-ces and Spita-mas contain the root
+spita, equivalent to spenta, "holy," which is found in Spitho-hates,
+Spita-mens, Spita-des, etc. This, in Spita-ces, is followed by a
+guttural ending, which is either a diminutive corresponding to the
+modern Persian -efc, or perhaps a suffixed article. In Spit-amas, the
+suffix -mas is the common form of the superlative, and may be compared
+with the Latin -mus in optimus, intimus, supremus, and the like.
+Ehambacas contains the root rafno, "joy, pleasure," which we find in
+Pati-ramphies, followed by the guttural suffix.
+
+There remains, finally, a class of Median names, containing roots not
+found in any known names of Persians, but easily explicable from Zend,
+Sanscrit, or other cognate tongues, and therefore not antagonistic to
+the view that Median and Persian were two closely connected dialects.
+Such, for instance, are the royal names mentioned by Herodotus, Deioces,
+Phraortes, Astyages, and Cyaxares; and such also are the following,
+which come to us from various sources; Amytis, Astibaras, Armamithres or
+Harmamithres, Mandauces, Parsondas, Eama-tes, Susiscanes, Tithaous, and
+Zanasanes.
+
+In Deioces, or (as the Latins write it) Dejoces, there can be little
+doubt that we have the name given as Djohak or Zohak in the Shahnameh
+and other modern Persian writings, which is itself an abbreviation of
+the Ajis-dahaka of the Zendavesta. Dahaka means in Zend "biting," or
+"the biter," and is etymo-logically connected with the Greek.
+
+Phraortes, which in old Persian was Fravartish, seems to be a mere
+variant of the word which appears in the Zendavesta as fravashi, and
+designates each man's tutelary genius. The derivation is certainly from
+fra, and probably from a root akin to the German wahren, French garder,
+English "ward, watch," etc. The meaning is "a protector."
+
+Cyaxares, the Persian form of which was "Uvakhshatara," seems to be
+formed from the two elements it or hu, "well, good," and akhsha (Zend
+arsnd), "the eye," which is the final element of the name Cyavarswa in
+the Zendavesta. Cyavarsna is "dark-eyed;" Uvakhsha (= Zend Huvarsna)
+would be "beautiful-eyed." Uvakhshatara appears to be the comparative
+of this adjective, and would mean "more beautiful-eyed (than others)."
+
+Astyages, which, according to Moses of Chorene, meant "a dragon" or
+"serpent," is almost certainly Ajis-dahaka, the full name whereof
+Dojoces (or Zohak) is the abbreviation. It means "the biting snake,"
+from aji or azi, "a snake" or "serpent," and dahaka, "biting."
+
+Amytis is probably ama, "active, great," with the ordinary feminine
+suffix -iti, found in Armaiti, Khnathaiti, and the like. Astibaras
+is perhaps "great of bone," from Zend agta (Sans, asthi), "bone," and
+bereza, "tall, great." Harmamithres, if that is the true reading,
+would be "mountain-lover" (monticolus), from hardam, ace. of hara, "a
+mountain," and mithra or mitra, "fond of." If, however, the name should
+be read as Armamithres, the probable derivation will be from rama, ace.
+of raman, "pleasure," which is also the root of Rama-tea. Armamithres
+may then be compared with Rheomithres, Siromitras, and Sysimithres,
+which are respectively "fond of splendor," "fond of beauty," and "fond
+of light." Mandauces is perhaps "biting spirit--esprit mordant," from
+mand, "coeur, esprit," and dahaka, "biting." M Parsondas can scarcely
+be the original form, from the occurrence in it of the nasal before the
+dental. In the original it must have been Parsodas, which would mean
+"liberal, much giving," from pourus, "much," and da, "to give." Ramates,
+as already observed, is from rama, "pleasure." It is an adjectival form,
+like Datis, and means probably "pleasant, agreeable." Susiscanes may be
+explained as "splendidus juvenis," from quc, "splendere," pres. part,
+cao-cat, and kainin, "adolescens, juvenis." Tithaeus is probably for
+Tathaeus, which would be readily formed from tatka, "one who makes."
+Finally, Zanasanes may be referred to the root zan or jan, "to kill,"
+which is perhaps simply followed by the common appellative suffix -ana.
+
+From these names of persons we may pass to those of places in Media,
+which equally admit of explanation from roots known to have existed
+either in Zend or in old Persian. Of these, Ecbatana, Bagistana, and
+Aspadana may be taken as convenient specimens. Ecbatana (or Agbatana),
+according to the orthography of the older Greeks was in the native
+dialect Hagmatana, as appears from the Behistun inscription. This form,
+Hagmatana, is in all probability derived from the three words ham,
+"with" (Sans, sam, Latin cum), gam, "to go" (Zend gd, Sans, 'gam), and
+ctana (Mod. Pers. -stan) "a place." The initial ham has dropped the
+m and become ha, and cum becomes co- in Latin; gam has become gma
+by metathesis; and gtan has passed into -tan by phonetic corruption.
+Ha-gma-tana would be "the place for assembly," or for "coming together"
+(Lat. comitium); the place, i.e., where the tribes met, and where,
+consequently, the capital grew up.
+
+Bagistan, which was "a hill sacred to Jupiter" according to Diodorus,
+is clearly a name corresponding to the Beth-el of the Hebrews and the
+Allahabad of the Mahometans. It is simply "the house, or place, of
+God"--from baga, "God," and gtana, "place, abode," the common modern
+Persian terminal (compare Farsi-stan, Khuzi-stan, Afghani-stan,
+Belochi-stan, Hindu-stan, etc.), which has here not suffered any
+corruption.
+
+Aspadana contains certainly as its first element the root acpa, "horse."
+The suffix dan may perhaps be a corruption of ctana, analogous to that
+which has produced Hama-dan from Hagma-ctan; or it may be a contracted
+form of danhu, or dairihu, "a-province," Aspadana having been originally
+the name of a district where horses were bred, and having thence become
+the name of its chief town.
+
+The Median words known to us, other than names of persons or places, are
+confined to some three or four. Herodotus tells us that the Median word
+for "dog" was spaka; Xenophon implies, if he does not expressly state,
+that the native name for the famous Median robe was candys; Nicolas of
+Damascus informs us that the Median couriers were called Angari; and
+Hesychius says that the artabe was a Median measure. The last-named
+writer also states that artades and devas were Magian words, which
+perhaps implies that they were common to the Medes with the Persians.
+Here, again, the evidence, such as it is, favors a close connection
+between the languages of Media and Persia.
+
+That artabe and angarus were Persian words no less than Median, we have
+the evidence of Herodotus. Artades, "just men" (according to Hesychhis),
+is probably akin to ars, "true, just," and may represent the ars-data,
+"made just," of the Zendavesta. Devas (Seven), which Hesychius
+translates "the evil gods" is clearly the Zendic daiva, Mod. Pers. div.
+(Sans, deva, Lat. divus). In candys we have most probably a formation
+from qan, "to dress, to adorn." Spaka is the Zendic cpa, with the
+Scythic guttural suffix, of which the Medes were so fond, cpa itself
+being akin to the Sanscrit cvan, and so to hvoov and canis. Thus we may
+connect all the few words which are known as Median with forms contained
+in the Zend, which was either the mother or the elder sister of the
+ancient Persian.
+
+That the Medes were acquainted with the art of writing, and practised
+it--at least from the time that they succeeded to the dominion of the
+Assyrians--scarcely admits of a doubt. An illiterate nation, which
+conquers one in possession of a literature, however it may despise
+learning and look down upon the mere literary life, is almost sure to
+adopt writing to some extent on account of its practical utility. It
+is true the Medes have left us no written monuments; and we may fairly
+conclude from that fact that they used writing sparingly; but besides
+the antecedent probability, there is respectable evidence that letters
+were known to them, and that, at any rate, their upper classes could
+both read and write their native tongue. The story of the letter sent
+by Harpagus the Mede to Cyrus in the belly of a hare, though probably
+apocryphal, is important as showing the belief of Herodotus on the
+subject. The still more doubtful story of a despatch written on
+parchment by a Median king, Artseus, and sent to Nanarus, a provincial
+governor, related by Nicolas of Damascus, has a value, as indicating
+that writer's conviction that the Median monarchs habitually conveyed
+their commands to their subordinates in a written form. With these
+statements of profane writers agree certain notices which we find in
+Scripture. Darius the Mode, shortly after the destruction of the Median
+empire, "signs" a decree, which his chief nobles have presented to him
+in writing. He also himself "writes" another decree addressed to his
+subjects generally. In later times we find that there existed at the
+Persian court a "book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and
+Persia," in which was probably a work begun under the Median and
+continued under the Persian sovereigns.
+
+If then writing was practised by the Medes, it becomes interesting to
+consider whence they obtained their knowledge of it, and what was the
+system which they employed. Did they bring an alphabet with them from
+the far East, or did they derive their first knowledge of letters
+from the nations with whom they came into contact after their great
+migration? In the latter case, did they adopt, with or without
+modifications, a foreign system, or did they merely borrow the idea of
+written symbols from their new neighbors, and set to work to invent for
+themselves an alphabet suited to the genius of their own tongue? These
+are some of the questions which present themselves to the mind as
+deserving of attention, when this subject is brought before it.
+Unfortunately we possess but very scanty data for determining, and can
+do little more than conjecture, the proper answers to be given to them.
+
+The early composition of certain portions of the Zendavesta, which has
+been asserted in this work, may seem at first sight to imply the use
+of a written character in Bactria and the adjacent countries at a very
+remote era. But such a conclusion is not necessary. Nations have often
+had an oral literature, existing only in the memories of men, and have
+handed down such a literature from generation to generation, through
+a long succession of ages. The sacred lore of Zoroaster may have been
+brought by the Modes from the East-Caspian country in an unwritten
+shape, and may not have been reduced to writing till many centuries
+later. On the whole it is perhaps most probable that the Medes were
+unacquainted with letters when they made their great migration, and that
+they acquired their first knowledge of them from the races with whom
+they came into collision when they settled along the Zagros chain. In
+these regions they were brought into contact with at least two forms of
+written speech, one that of the old Armenians, a Turanian dialect, the
+other that of the Assyrians, a language of the Semitic type. These two
+nations used the same alphabetic system, though their languages were
+utterly unlike; and it would apparently have been the easiest plan
+for the new comers to have adopted the established forms, and to have
+applied them, so far as was possible, to the representation of their own
+speech. But the extreme complication of a system which employed between
+three and four hundred written signs, and composed signs sometimes of
+fourteen or fifteen wedges, seems to have shocked the simplicity of the
+Medes, who recognized the fact that the varieties of their articulations
+fell far short of this excessive luxuriance. The Arian races, so far
+as appears, declined to follow the example set them by the Turanians of
+Armenia, who had adopted the Assyrian alphabet, and preferred to invent
+a new system for themselves, which they determined to make far more
+simple. It is possible that they found an example already set them.
+In Achaemenian times we observe two alphabets used through Media and
+Persia, both of which are simpler than the Assyrian: one is employed to
+express the Turanian dialect of the people whom the Arians conquered and
+dispossessed; the other, to express the tongue of the conquerors. It
+is possible--though we have no direct evidence of the fact--that
+the Turanians of Zagros and the neighborhood had already formed for
+themselves the alphabet which is found in the second columns of the
+Achaemenian tablets, when the Arian invaders conquered them. This
+alphabet, which in respect of complexity holds an intermediate position
+between the luxuriance of the Assyrian and the simplicity of the
+Medo-Persic system, would seem in all probability to have intervened
+in order of time between the two. It consists of no more than about a
+hundred characters, and these are for the most part far less complicated
+than those of Assyria. If the Medes found this form of writing already
+existing in Zagros when they arrived, it may have assisted to give them
+the idea of making for themselves an alphabet so far on the old model
+that the wedge should be the sole element used in the formation, of
+letters, but otherwise wholly new, and much more simple than those
+previously in use.
+
+Discarding then the Assyrian notion of a syllabarium, with the enormous
+complication which it involves, the Medes strove to reduce sounds to
+their ultimate elements, and to represent these last alone by symbols.
+Contenting themselves with the three main vowel sounds, a,i, and u, and
+with one breathing, a simple h, they recognized twenty consonants,
+which were the following, b,d,f,g,j,k,kh,m,n,n (sound doubtful),
+p,r,s,sh,t,v,y,z,ch (as in much), and tr, an unnecessary compound. Had
+they stopped here, their characters should have been but twenty-four,
+the number which is found in Greek. To their ears, however, it would
+seem, each consonant appeared to carry with it a short a, and as this,
+occurring before i and u, produced the diphthongs ai and au, sounded
+nearly as e and o, it seemed necessary, where a consonant was to be
+directly followed by the sounds i or u, to have special forms to which
+the sound of a should not attach. This system, carried out completely,
+would have raised the forms of consonants to sixty, a multiplication
+that was feared as inconvenient. In order to keep down the number,
+it seems to have been resolved, that one form should suffice for the
+aspirated letters and the sibilants (viz., h,kh; ch,ph or f,s,sh, and
+z), and also for b,y, and tr; that two forms should suffice for the
+tenues, k,p,t, for the liquids n and r, and for v; and consequently that
+the full number of three forms should be limited to some three or
+four letters, as d, m, j, and perhaps g. The result is that the known
+alphabet of the Persians, which is assumed here to have been the
+invention of the Medes, consists of some thirty-six or thirty-seven
+forms, which are really representative of no more than twenty-three
+distinct sounds.
+
+It appears then that, compared with the phonetic systems in vogue among
+their neighbors, the alphabet of the Medes and Persians was marked by
+a great simplicity. The forms of the letters were also very much
+simplified. Instead of conglomerations of fifteen or sixteen wedges in
+a single character, we have in the Medo-Persic letters a maximum of five
+wedges. The most ordinary number is four, which is sometimes reduced
+to three or even two. The direction of the wedges is uniformly either
+perpendicular or horizontal, except of course in the case of the double
+wedge or arrow-head, where the component elements are placed obliquely.
+The arrow-head has but one position, the perpendicular, with the angle
+facing towards the left hand. The only diagonal sign used is a simple
+wedge, placed obliquely with the point towards the right, which is a
+mere mark of separation between the words.
+
+The direction of the writing was, as with the Arian nations generally,
+from left to right. Words were frequently divided, and part carried on
+to the next line. The characters were inscribed between straight lines
+drawn from end to end of the tablet on which they were written. Like the
+Hebrew, they often closely resembled one another, and a slight defect in
+the stone will cause one to be mistaken for another. The resemblance is
+not between letters of the same class or kind; on the contrary, it
+is often between those which are most remote from one another. Thus g
+nearly resembles u; ch is like d; tr like p; and so on: while k and kh,
+s and sh, p and ph (or J) are forms quite dissimilar.
+
+It is supposed that a cuneiform alphabet can never have been employed
+for ordinary writing purposes, but must have been confined to documents
+of some importance, which it was desirable to preserve, and which
+were therefore either inscribed on stone, or impressed on moist clay
+afterwards baked. A cursive character, it is therefore imagined, must
+always have been in use, parallel with a cuneiform one; and as the
+Babylonians and Assyrians are known to have used a character of this
+kind from a very high antiquity, synchronously with their lapidary
+cuneiform, so it is supposed that the Arian races must have possessed,
+besides the method which has been described as a cursive system of
+writing. Of this, however, there is at present no direct evidence. No
+cursive writing of the Arian nations at this time, either Median or
+Persian, has been found; and it is therefore uncertain what form of
+character they employed on common occasions.
+
+The material used for ordinary purposes, according to Nicolas of
+Damascus and Ctesias, was parchment. On this the kings wrote the
+despatches which conveyed their orders to the officers who administered
+the government of provinces; and on this were inscribed the memorials
+which each monarch was careful to have composed giving an account of the
+chief events of his reign. The cost of land carriage probably prevented
+papyrus from superseding this material in Western Asia, as it did in
+Greece at a tolerably early date. Clay, so much used for writing on both
+in Babylonia and Assyria, appears never to have approved itself as a
+convenient substance to the Iranians. For public documents the chisel
+and the rock, for private the pen and the prepared skin, seem to have
+been preferred by them; and in the earlier times, at any rate, they
+employed no other materials.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+
+
+Media . . . quam ante regnum Cyri superlovis et incrementa Persidos
+legimus Asiae reginam totius.--Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6.
+
+
+The origin of the Median nation is wrapt in a profound obscurity.
+Following the traces which the Zendavesta offers, taking into
+consideration its minute account of the earlier Arian migrations, its
+entire omission of any mention of the Medes, and the undoubted fact that
+it was nevertheless by the Medes and Persians that the document itself
+was preserved and transmitted to us, we should be naturally led to
+suppose that the race was one which in the earlier times of Arian
+development was weak and insignificant, and that it first pushed itself
+into notice after the ethnological portions of the Zendavesta were
+composed, which is thought to have been about B.C. 1000. Quite in
+accordance with this view is the further fact that in the native
+Assyrian annals, so far as they have been, recovered, the Medes do not
+make their appearance till the middle of the ninth century B.C., and
+when they appear are weak and unimportant, only capable of opposing a
+very slight resistance to the attacks of the Ninevite kings. The natural
+conclusion from these data would appear to be that until about B.C. 850
+the Median name was unknown in the world, and that previously, if Medes
+existed at all, it was either as a sub-tribe of some other Arian race,
+or at any rate as a tribe too petty and insignificant to obtain mention
+either on the part of native or of foreign historians. Such early
+insignificance and late development of what ultimately becomes the
+dominant tribe of a race is no strange or unprecedented phenomenon to
+the historical inquirer; on the contrary, it is among the facts with
+which he is most familiar, and would admit of ample illustration, were
+the point worth pursuing, alike from the history of the ancient and the
+modern world.
+
+But, against the conclusion to which we could not fail to be led by
+the Arian and Assyrian records, which agree together so remarkably, two
+startling notices in works of great authority but of a widely different
+character have to be set. In the Toldoth Beni Noah, or "Book of the
+Generation of the Sons of Noah," which forms the tenth chapter of
+Genesis, and which, if the work of Moses, was probably composed at
+least as early as B.C. 1500, we find the Madai--a word elsewhere always
+signifying "the Medes"--in the genealogy of the sons of Japhet. The word
+is there conjoined with several other important ethnic titles, as Gomer,
+Magog, Javan, Tubal, and Meshech; and there can be no reasonable doubt
+that it is intended to designate the Median people. If so, the people
+must have had already a separate and independent existence in the
+fifteenth century B.C., and not only so, but they must have by that time
+attained so much distinction as to be thought worthy of mention by
+a writer who was only bent on affiliating the more important of the
+nations known to him.
+
+The other notice is furnished by Berosus. That remarkable historian,
+in his account of the early dynasties of his native Chaldaea, declared
+that, at a date anterior to B.C. 2000, the Medes had conquered Babylon
+by a sudden inroad, had established a monarchy there, and had held
+possession of the city and neighboring territory for a period of 224
+years. Eight kings of their race had during that interval occupied the
+Babylonian throne, It has been already observed that this narrative must
+represent a fact. Berosus would not have gratuitously invented a foreign
+conquest of his native land; nor would the earlier Babylonians, from
+whom he derived his materials, have forged a tale which was so little
+flattering to their national vanity. Some foreign conquest of Babylon
+must have taken place about the period named; and it is certainly a most
+important fact that Berosus should call the conquerors Medes. He may no
+doubt have been mistaken about an event so ancient; he may have misread
+his authorities, or he may have described as Medes a people of which he
+really knew nothing except that they had issued from the tract which
+in his own time bore the name of Media. But, while these axe mere
+possibilities, hypotheses to which the mind resorts in order to escape
+a difficulty, the hard fact remains that he has used the word; and this
+fact, coupled with the mention of the Medes in the book of Genesis, does
+certainly raise a presumption of no inconsiderable strength against,
+the view which it would be natural to take if the Zendavesta and the
+Assyrian annals were our solo authorities on the subject. It lends a
+substantial basis to the theories of those who regard the Medes as one
+of the principal primeval races; who believe that they were well known
+to the Semitic inhabitants of the Mesopotamian valley as early as the
+twenty-third century before Christ--long ere Abraham left Ur for Harran;
+and that they actually formed the dominant power in Western Asia
+for more than two centuries, prior to the establishment of the first
+Chaldaean kingdom.
+
+And if there are thus distinct historical grounds for the notion of an
+early Median development, there are not wanting these obscurer but to
+many minds more satisfactory proofs wherewith comparative philology
+and ethnology are wont to illustrate and confirm the darker passages of
+ancient history. Recent linguistic research has clearly traced among the
+Arba Lisun, or, "Four Tongues" of ancient Chaldaea, which are so often
+mentioned on the ancient monuments, an Arian formation, such as would
+naturally have been left in the country, if it had been occupied for
+some considerable period by a dominant Arian power. The early Chaldaean
+ideographs have often several distinct values; and when this is the
+case, one of the powers is almost always an Arian name of the object
+represented. Words like nir, "man", ar, "river," (compare the names
+Aras, Araxes, Endanus, Rha, Rhodanus, etc., the Slavonic rika, "river,"
+etc.), san, "sun," (compare German Sonne, Slavonic solnce, English
+"sun," Dutch zon, etc.), are seemingly Arian roots; and the very
+term "Arian" (Ariya, "noble") is perhaps contained in the name of a
+primitive Chaldaean monarch, "Arioch, king of Ellasar." There is
+nothing perhaps in these scattered traces of Arian influence in in Lower
+Mesopotamia at a remote era that points very particularly to the Medes;
+but at any rate they harmonize with the historical account that has
+reached us of early Arian power in these parts, and it is important that
+they should not be ignored when we are engaged in considering the degree
+of credence that is to be awarded to the account in question.
+
+Again, there are traces of a vast expansion, apparently at a very early
+date, of the Median race, such as seems to imply that they must have
+been a great nation in Western Asia long previously to the time of the
+Iranic movements in Bactria and the adjoining regions. In the Matieni
+of Zagros and Cappadocia, in the Sauro-matae (or Northern Medes) of the
+country between the Palus Maeotis and the Caspian, in the Maetae or
+Maeotae of the tract about the mouth of the Don, and in the Maedi of
+Thrace, we have seemingly remnants of a great migratory host which,
+starting from the mountains that overhang Mesopotamia, spread itself
+into the regions of the north and the north-west at a time which
+does not admit of being definitely stated, but which is clearly
+anti-historic. Whether these races generally retained any tradition of
+their origin, we do not know; but a tribe which in the time of Herodotus
+dwelt still further to the west than even the Maedi--to wit, the
+Sigynnae, who occupied the tract between the Adriatic and the
+Danube--had a very distinct belief in their Median descent, a belief
+confirmed by the resemblance which their national dress bore to that of
+the Medes. Herodotus, who relates these facts concerning them, appends
+an expression of his astonishment at the circumstance that emigrants
+from Media should have proceeded to such a distance from their original
+home; how it had been brought about he could not conceive. "Still," he
+sagaciously remarks, "nothing is impossible in the long lapse of ages."
+
+A further argument in favor of the early development of Median power,
+and the great importance of the nation in Western Asia at a period
+anterior to the ninth century, is derivable from the ancient legends
+of the Greeks, which seem to have designated the Medes under the two
+eponyms of Medea and Andromeda. These legends indeed do not admit of
+being dated with any accuracy; but as they are of a primitive type, and
+probably older than Homer, we cannot well assign them to an age later
+than b.c. 1000. Now they connect the Median name with the two countries
+of Syria and Colchis, countries remote from each other, and neither of
+them sufficiently near the true Median territory to be held from it,
+unless at a time when the Medes were in possession of something like
+an empire. And, even apart from any inferences to be drawn from the
+localties which the Greek Myths connect with the Medes, the very fact
+that the race was known to the Greeks at this early date--long before
+the movements which brought them into contact with the Assyrians--would
+seem to show that there was some remote period--prior to the Assyrian
+domination--when the fame of the Medes was great in the part of Asia
+known to the Hellenes, and that they did not first attract Hellenic
+notice (as, but for the Myths, we might have imagined) by the conquests
+of Cyaxarea. Thus, on the whole it would appear that we must acknowledge
+two periods of Median prosperity, separated from each other by a lengthy
+interval, one anterior to the rise of the Cushite empire in Lower
+Babylonia, the other parallel with the decline and subsequently to the
+fall of Assyria.
+
+Of the first period it cannot be said that we possess any distinct
+historical knowledge. The Median dynasty of Berosus at Babylon appears,
+by recent discoveries, to have represented those Susianian monarchs who
+bore sway there from B.C. 2286 to 2052. The early Median preponderance
+in Western Asia, if it is a fact, must have been anterior to this, and
+is an event which has only left traces in ethnological names and in
+mythological speculations.
+
+Our historical knowledge of the Medes as a nation commences in
+the latter half of the ninth century before our era. Shalmaneser
+II.--probably the "Shalman" of Hosea,--who reigned from B.C. 859 to B.C.
+824--relates that in his twenty-fourth year (B.C. 885), after having
+reduced to subjection the Zimri, who held the Zagros mountain range
+immediately to the east of Assyria, and received tribute from the
+Persians, he led an expedition into Media and Arazias, where he took and
+destroyed a number of the towns, slaying the men, and carrying off the
+spoil. He does not mention any pitched battle; and indeed it would seem
+that he met with no serious resistance. The Medes whom he attacks
+are evidently a weak and insignificant people, whom he holds in small
+esteem, and regards as only deserving of a hurried mention. They seem
+to occupy the tract now known as Ardelan--a varied region containing
+several lofty ridges, with broad plains lying between them.
+
+It is remarkable that the time of this first contact of Media with
+Assyria--a contact taking place when Assyria was in her prime, and Media
+was only just emerging from a long period of weakness and obscurity--is
+almost exactly that which Ctesias selects as a day of the great
+revolution whereby the Empire of the East passed from the hands of the
+Shemites into those of the Arians. The long residence of Otesias among
+the Persians, gave him a bias toward that people, which even extended to
+their close kin, the Medes. Bent on glorifying these two Arian races,
+he determined to throw back the commencement of their empire to a period
+long anterior to the true date; and, feeling specially anxious to cover
+up their early humiliation, he assigned their most glorious conquests
+to the very century, and almost to the very time, when they were in fact
+suffering reverses at the hands of the people over whom he represented
+them as triumphant. There was a boldness in the notion of thus inverting
+history which almost deserved, and to a considerable extent obtained,
+success. The "long chronology" of Ctesias kept its ground until
+recently, not indeed meeting with universal acceptance, but on the whole
+predominating over the "short chronology" of Herodotus; and it may be
+doubted whether anything less than the discovery that the native records
+of Assyria entirely contradicted Ctesias would have sufficed to drive
+from the field his figment of early Median dominion.
+
+The second occasion upon which we hear of the Medes in the Assyrian
+annals is in the reign of Shalmanoser's son and successor, Shamas-Vul.
+Here again, as on the former occasion, the Assyrians were the
+aggressors. Shamas-Vul invaded Media and Arazias in his third year, and
+committed ravages similar to those of his father, wasting the country
+with fire and sword, but not (it would seem) reducing the Medes to
+subjection, or even attempting to occupy their territory. Again the
+attack is a mere raid, which produces no permanent impression.
+
+It is in the reign of the son and successor of Shamas-Vul that the Medes
+appear for the first time to have made their submission and accepted
+the position of Assyrian tributaries. A people which was unable to offer
+effectual resistance when the Assyrian levies invaded their country, and
+which had no means of retaliating upon their foe or making him suffer
+the evils that he inflicted, was naturally tempted to save itself from
+molestation by the payment of an annual tribute, so purchasing quiet at
+the expense of honor and independence. Towards the close of the ninth
+century B.C. the Medes seem to have followed the example set them very
+much earlier by their kindred and neighbors, the Persians, and to
+have made arrangements for an annual payment which should exempt their
+territory from ravage. It is doubtful whether the arrangement was made
+by the whole people. The Median tribes at this time hung so loosely
+together that a policy adopted by one portion of them might be entirely
+repudiated by another. Most probably the tribute was paid by those
+tribes only which boarded on Zagros, and not by those further to the
+east or to the north, into whose territories the Assyrian arms has not
+yet penetrated.
+
+No further change in the condition of the Medes is known to have
+occurred until about a hundred years later, when the Assyrians ceased
+to be content with the semi-independent position which had been hitherto
+allowed them, and determined on their more complete subjugation. The
+great Sargon, the assailant of Egypt and conqueror of Babylon, towards
+the middle of his reign, invaded Media with a large army, and having
+rapidly overrun the country, seized several of the towns, and "annexed
+them to Assyria," while at the same time he also established in new
+situations a number of fortified posts. The object was evidently to
+incorporate Media into the empire; and the posts wore stations in which
+a standing army was placed, to overawe the natives and prevent them from
+offering an effectual resistance. With the same view deportation of the
+people on a large scale seems to have been practised and the gaps
+thus made in the population were filled up--wholly or in part--by the
+settlement in the Median cities of Samaritan captives. On the country
+thus re-organized and re-arranged a tribute of a new character was laid.
+In lieu of the money payment hitherto exacted, the Medes were required
+to furnish annually to the royal stud a number of horses. It is probable
+that Media was already famous for the remarkable breed which is so
+celebrated in later times; and that the horses now required of her by
+the Assyrians were to be of the large and highly valued kind known as
+"Nisaean."
+
+The date of this subjugation is about B.C. 710. And here, if we compare
+the Greek accounts of Median history with those far more authentic ones
+which have reached us through the Assyrian contemporary records, we are
+struck by a repetition of the same device which came under our notice
+more than a century earlier--the device of covering up the nation's
+disgraces at a particular period by assigning to that very date certain
+great and striking successes. As Ctesias's revolt of the Medes under
+Arbaces and conquest of Nineveh synchronizes nearly with the first known
+ravages of Assyria within the territories of the Medes, so Herodotus's
+revolt of the same people and commencement of their monarchy under
+Deioces falls almost exactly at the date when they entirely lose their
+independence. As there is no reason to suspect Herodotus either of
+partiality toward the Medes or of any wilful departure from the truth,
+we must regard him as imposed upon by his informants, who were probably
+either Medes or Persians. These mendacious patriots found little
+difficulty in palming their false tale upon the simple Halicarnassian,
+thereby at once extending the antiquity of their empire and concealing
+its shame behind a halo of fictitious glory.
+
+After their subjugation by Sargon the Medes of Media Magna appear to
+have remained the faithful subjects of Assyria for sixty or seventy
+years. During this period we find no notices of the great mass of the
+nation in the Assyrian records: only here and there indications occur
+that Assyria is stretching out her arms towards the more distant and
+outlying tribes, especially those of Azerbijan, and compelling them to
+acknowledge her as mistress. Sennacherib boasts that early in his
+reign, about B.C. 702, he received an embassy from the remoter parts of
+Media--"parts of which the kings his fathers had not even heard"--which
+brought him presents in sign of submission, and patiently accepted his
+yoke. His son, Esar-haddon, relates that, about his tenth year (B.C.
+671) he invaded Bikni or Bikan, a distant province of Media, "whereof
+the kings his fathers had never heard the name;" and, attacking the
+cities of the region one after another, forced them to acknowledge his
+authority. The country was held by a number of independent chiefs, each
+bearing sway in his own city and adjacent territory. These chiefs have
+unmistakably Arian names, as Sitriparna or Sitraphernes, Eparna or
+Orphernes, Zanasana or Zanasanes, and Eamatiya or Ramates. Esar-haddon
+says that, having entered the country with his army, he seized two of
+the chiefs and carried them off to Assyria, together with a vast spoil
+and numerous other captives. Hereupon the remaining chiefs, alarmed
+for their safety, made their submission, consenting to pay an annual
+tribute, and admitting Assyrian officers into their territories, who
+watched, if they did not even control, the government.
+
+We are now approaching the time when Media seems to have been first
+consolidated into a monarchy by the genius of an individual. Sober
+history is forced to discard the shadowy forms of kings with which Greek
+writers of more fancy than judgment have peopled the darkness that rests
+upon the "origines" of the Medes. Arbaces, Maudaces, Sosarmus, Artycas,
+Arbianes, Artseus, Deioces--Median monarchs, according to Ctesias or
+Herodotus, during the space of time comprised within the years B.C. 875
+and 655--have to be dismissed by the modern writer without a word,
+since there is reason to believe that they are mere creatures of the
+imagination, inventions of unscrupulous romancers, not men who once
+walked the earth. The list of Median kings in Ctesias, so far as it
+differs from the list in Herodotus, seems to be a pure forgery--an
+extension of the period of the monarchy by the conscious use of a system
+of duplication. Each king, or period, in Herodotus occurs in the list
+of Ctesias twice--a transparent device, clumsily cloaked by the cheap
+expedient of a liberal invention of names. Even the list of Herodotus
+requires curtailment. His Deioces, whose whole history reads more like
+romance than truth--the organizer of a powerful monarchy in Media just
+at the time when Sargon was building his fortified posts in the
+country and peopling with his Israelite captives the old "cities of the
+Medes"--the prince who reigned for above half a century in perfect
+peace with his neighbors, and who, although contemporary with Sargon,
+Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and As-shur-bani-pal--all kings more or less
+connected with Media--is never heard of in any of their annals, must
+be relegated to the historical limbo in which repose so many "shades of
+mighty names;" and the Herodotean list of Median kings must at any
+rate, be thus far reduced. Nothing is more evident than that during the
+flourishing period of Assyria under the great Sargonidae above named
+there was no grand Median kingdom upon the eastern flank of the empire.
+Such a kingdom had certainly not been formed up to B.C. 671, when
+Esar-haddon reduced the more distant Medes, finding them still under the
+government of a number of petty chiefs. The earliest time at which we
+can imagine the consolidation to have taken place consistently with what
+we know of Assyria is about B.C. 760, or nearly half a century later
+than the date given by Herodotus.
+
+The cause of the sudden growth of Media in power about this period, and
+of the consolidation which followed rapidly upon that growth, is to
+be sought, apparently, in fresh migratory movements from the Arian
+head-quarters, the countries east and south-east of the Caspian. The
+Cyaxares who about the year B.C. 632 led an invading host of Medes
+against Nineveh, was so well known to the Arian tribes of the north-east
+that, when in the reign of Darius Hystaspis a Sagartian raised the
+standard of revolt in that region he stated the ground of his claim to
+the Sagartian throne to be descent from Cyaxares. This great chief,
+it is probable, either alone, or in conjunction with his father (whom
+Herodotus calls Phraortes), led a fresh emigration of Arians from the
+Bacterian and Sagartian country to the regions directly east of the
+Zagros mountain chain; and having thus vastly increased the strength of
+the Arian race in that quarter, set himself to consolidate a mountain
+kingdom capable of resisting the great monarchy of the plain. Accepted,
+it would seem, as chief by the former Arian inhabitants of the tract, he
+proceeded to reduce the scattered Scythic tribes which had hitherto held
+possession of the high mountain region. The Zimri, Minni, Hupuska,
+etc., who divided among them the country lying between Media Proper and
+Assyria, were attacked and subdued without any great difficulty; and the
+conqueror, finding himself thus at the head of a considerable kingdom,
+and no longer in any danger of subjugation at the hands of Assyria,
+began to contemplate the audacious enterprise of himself attacking
+the Great Power which had been for so many hundred years the terror of
+Western Asia. The supineness of Asshur-bani-pal, the Assyrian king,
+who must at this time have been advanced in years, encouraged his
+aspirations; and about B.C. 634, when that monarch had held the throne
+for thirty-four years, suddenly, without warning, the Median troops
+debouched from the passes of Zagros, and spread themselves over the rich
+country at its base, Alarmed by the nearness and greatness of the peril,
+the Assyrian king aroused himself, and putting himself at the head of
+his troops, marched out to confront the invader. A great battle
+was fought, probably somewhere in Adiabene, in which the Medes were
+completely defeated: their whole army was cut to pieces; and the father
+of Cyaxares was among the slain. Such was the result of the first Median
+expedition against Nineveh. The assailants had miscalculated their
+strength. In their own mountain country, and so long as they should
+be called upon to act only on the defensive, they might be right
+in regarding themselves as a match for the Assyrians; but when they
+descended into the plain, and allowed their enemy the opportunity
+of manoeuvering and of using his war chariots, their inferiority was
+marked. Cyaxares, now, if not previously, actual king, withdrew awhile
+from the war, and, convinced that all the valor of his Medes would be
+unavailing without discipline, set himself to organize the army on a
+new system, taking a pattern from the enemy, who had long possessed some
+knowledge of tactics. Hitherto, it would seem, each Median chief had
+brought into the field his band of followers, some mounted, some on
+foot, foot and horse alike armed variously as their means allowed them,
+some with bows and arrows, some with spears, some perhaps with slings or
+darts; and the army had been composed of a number of such bodies, each
+chief keeping his band close about him. Cyaxares broke up these bands,
+and formed the soldiers who composed them into distinct corps, according
+as they were horsemen or footmen, archers, slingers, or lancers. He
+then, having completed his arrangements at his ease, without disturbance
+(so far as appears) from the Assyrians, felt himself strong enough to
+renew the war with a good prospect of success. Collecting as large
+an army as he could, both from his Arian and his Scythic subjects, he
+marched into Assyria, met the troops of Asshur-bani-pal in the field,
+defeated them signally, and forced them to take refuge behind the strong
+works which defended their capital. He even ventured to follow up the
+flying foe and commence the siege of the capital itself; but at this
+point he was suddenly checked in his career of victory, and forced to
+assume a defensive attitude, by a danger of a novel kind, which recalled
+him from Nineveh to his own country.
+
+The vast tracts, chiefly consisting of grassy plains, which lie north of
+the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian, and the Jaxartes Syhun river,
+were inhabited in ancient times by a race or races known to the Asiatics
+as Saka, "Scythians." These people appear to have been allied ethnically
+with many of the more southern races, as with the Parthians, the
+Iberians, the Alarodians, the tribes of the Zagros chain, the
+Susianians, and others. It is just possible that they may have taken
+an interest in the warfare of their southern brethren, and that, when
+Cyaxares brought the tribes of Zagros under his yoke, the Scyths of the
+north may have felt resentment, or compassion, If this view seem too
+improbable, considering the distance, the physical obstacles, and the
+little communication that there was between nations in those early
+times, we must suppose that by a mere coincidence it happened that the
+subjugation of the southern Scyths by Cyaxares was followed within a few
+years by a great irruption of Scyths from the trans-Caucasian region. In
+that case we shall have to regard the invasion as a mere example of that
+ever-recurring law by which the poor and hardy races of Upper Asia or
+Europe are from time to time directed upon the effete kingdoms of the
+south, to shake, ravage, or overturn them, as the case may be, and
+prevent them from stagnating into corruption.
+
+The character of the Scythians, and the general nature of their ravages,
+have been described in a former portion of this work. If they entered
+Southern Asia, as seems probable, by the Daghestan route, they would
+then have been able to pass on without much difficulty, through Georgia
+into Azerbijan, and from Azerbijan into Media Magna, where the Medes had
+now established their southern capital. Four roads lead from Azerbijan
+to Hamadan or the Greater Ecbatana, one through Menjil and Kasvin, and
+across the Caraghan Hills; a second through Miana, Zenjan, and the
+province of Khamseh; a third by the valley of the Jaghetu, through
+Chukli and Tikan-Teppeh; and a fourth through Sefer-Khaneh and Sennah.
+We cannot say which of the four the invaders selected; but, as they were
+passing southwards, they met the army of Cyaxares, which had quitted
+Nineveh on the first news of their invasion, and had marched in hot
+haste to meet and engage them. The two enemies were not ill-matched.
+Both were hardy and warlike, both active and full of energy; with both
+the cavalry was the chief arm, and the bow the weapon on which they
+depended mainly for victory. The Medes were no doubt the better
+disciplined; they had a greater variety of weapons and of soldiers; and
+individually they were probably more powerful men than the Scythians;
+but these last had the advantage of numbers, of reckless daring, and of
+tactics that it was difficult to encounter. Moreover, the necessity of
+their situation in the midst of an enemy's country made it imperative on
+them to succeed, while their adversaries might be defeated without any
+very grievous consequences. The Scytho had not come into Asia to conquer
+so much as to ravage; defeat at their hands involved damage rather than
+destruction; and the Medes must have felt that, if they lost the battle,
+they might still hope to maintain a stout defence behind the strong
+walls of some of their towns. The result was such as might have been
+expected under these circumstances. Madyes, the Scythian leader,
+obtained the victory, Cyaxares was defeated, and compelled to make terms
+with the invader. Retaining his royal name, and the actual government of
+his country, he admitted the suzerainty of the Scyths, and agreed to pay
+them an annual tribute. Whether Media suffered very seriously from their
+ravages, we cannot say. Neither its wealth nor its fertility was such
+as to tempt marauders to remain in it very long. The main complaint
+made against the Scythian conquerors is that, not content with the
+fixed tribute which they had agreed to receive, and which was paid them
+regularly, they levied contributions at their pleasure on the various
+states under their sway, which were oppressed by repeated exactions. The
+injuries suffered from their marauding habits form only a subordinate
+charge against them, as though it had not been practically felt to be
+so great a grievance. We can well imagine that the bulk of the invaders
+would prefer the warmer and richer lands of Assyria, Mesopotamia, and
+Syria; and that, pouring into them, they would leave the colder and less
+wealthy Media comparatively free from ravage.
+
+The condition of Media and the adjacent countries under the Scythians
+must have nearly resembled that of almost the same regions under
+the Seljukian Turks during the early times of their domination. The
+conquerors made no fixed settlements, but pitched their tents in any
+portion of the territory that they chose. Their horses and cattle
+were free to pasture on all lands equally. They were recognized as the
+dominant race, were feared and shunned, but did not greatly interfere
+with the bulk of their subjects. It was impossible that they should
+occupy at any given time more than a comparatively few spots in the wide
+tract which they had overrun and subjugated; and, consequently,
+there was not much contact between them and the peoples whom they had
+conquered. Such contact as there was must no doubt have been galling and
+oppressive. The right of free pasture in the lands of others is always
+irksome to those who have to endure it, and, even where it is exercised
+with strict fairness, naturally leads to quarrels. The barbarous
+Scythians are not likely to have cared very much about fairness. They
+would press heavily upon the more fertile tracts, paying over-frequent
+visits to such spots, and remaining in them till the region was
+exhausted. The chiefs would not be able to restrain their followers
+from acts of pillage; redress would be obtained with difficulty; and
+sometimes even the chiefs themselves may have been sharers in the
+injuries committed. The insolence, moreover, of a dominant race so
+coarse and rude as the Scyths must have been very hard to bear; and we
+can well understand that the various nations which had to endure the
+yoke must have looked anxiously for an opportunity of shaking it off,
+and recovering their independence.
+
+Among these various nations, there was probably none that fretted and
+winced under its subjection more than the Medes. Naturally brave and
+high-spirited, with the love of independence inherent in mountaineers,
+and with a well-grounded pride in their recent great successes, they
+must have chafed daily and hourly at the ignominy of their position,
+the postponement of their hopes, and the wrongs which they continually
+suffered. At first it seemed necessary to endure. They had tried the
+chances of a battle, and had been defeated in fair fight--what reason
+was there to hope that, if they drew the sword again, they would be more
+successful? Accordingly they remained quiet but, as time went on, and
+the Scythians dispersed themselves continually over a wider and a
+wider space, invading Assyria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and again
+Armenia and Cappadocia, everywhere plundering and marauding, conducting
+sieges, fighting battles, losing men from the sword, from sickness, from
+excesses, becoming weaker instead of stronger, as each year went by,
+owing to the drain of constant wars--the Medes by degrees took heart.
+Not trusting, however, entirely to the strength of their right arms, a
+trust which had failed them once, they resolved to prepare the way for
+an outbreak by a stratagem which they regarded as justifiable. Cyaxares
+and his court invited a number of the Scythian chiefs to a grand
+banquet, and, having induced them to drink till they were completely
+drunk, set upon them when they were in this helpless condition, and
+remorselessly slew them all.
+
+This deed was the signal for a general revolt of the nation. The Medes
+everywhere took arms, and, turning upon their conquerors, assailed them
+with a fury the more terrible because it had been for years repressed.
+A war followed, the duration and circumstances of which are unknown; for
+the stories with which Ctesias enlivened this portion of his history can
+scarcely be accepted as having any foundation in fact. According to him,
+the Parthians made common cause with the Scythians on the occasion, and
+the war lasted many years; numerous battles were fought with great loss
+to both sides; and peace was finally concluded without either party
+having gained the upper hand. The Scyths were commanded by a queen,
+Zarina or Zarinsea, woman of rare beauty, and as brave as she was
+fair; who won the hearts, when she could not resist the swords, of her
+adversaries. A strangely romantic love-tale is told of this beauteous
+Amazon. It is not at all clear what region Ctesias supposes her to
+govern. It has a capital city, called Koxanace (a name entirely unknown
+to any other historian or geographer), and it contains many other towns
+of which Zarina was the foundress. Its chief architectural monument was
+the tomb of Zarina, a triangular pyramid, six hundred feet high, and
+more than a mile round the base, crowned by a colossal figure of the
+queen made of solid gold. But--to leave these fables and return to
+fact--we can only say with certainty that the result of the war was the
+complete defeat of the Scythians, who not only lost their position of
+pre-eminence in Media and the adjacent countries, but were driven across
+the Caucasus into their own proper territory. Their expulsion was
+so complete that they scarcely left a trace of their power or their
+presence in the geography or ethnography of the country. One Palestine
+city only, as already observed, and one Armenian province retained in
+their names a lingering memory of the great inroad which but for them
+would have passed away without making any more permanent mark on the
+region than a hurricane or a snowstorm. How long the dominion of the
+Scyths endured is a matter of great uncertainty. It was no doubt
+the belief of Herodotus that from their defeat of Cyaxares to his
+treacherous murder of their chiefs was a period of exactly twenty-eight
+years. During the whole of this space he regarded them as the undisputed
+lords of Asia. It was not till the twenty-eight years were over that
+the Medes were able, according to him, to renew their attacks on the
+Assyrians, and once more to besiege Nineveh. But this chronology is open
+to great objections. There is strong reason for believing that Nineveh
+fell about B.C. 625 or 624; but according to the numbers of Herodotus
+the fall would, at the earliest, have taken place in B.C. 602. There is
+great unlikelihood that the Scyths, if they had maintained their rule
+for a generation, should not have attracted some distinct notice from
+the Jewish writers. Again, if twenty-eight out of the forty years
+assigned to Cyaxares are to be regarded as years of inaction, all his
+great exploits, his two sieges of Nineveh, his capture of that capital,
+his conquest of the countries north and west of Media as far as the
+Halys, his six years' war in Asia Minor beyond that river, and his joint
+expedition with Nebuchadnezzar into Syria, will have to be crowded most
+improbably into the space of twelve years, two or three preceding and
+ten or nine following the Scythian domination. These and other reasons
+lead to the conclusion, which has the support of Eusebius, that
+the Scythian domination was of much shorter duration than Herodotus
+imagined. It may have been twenty-eight years from the original attack
+on Media to the final expulsion of the last of the invaders from
+Asia--and this may have been what the informants of Herodotus really
+intended--but it cannot have been very long after the first attack
+before the Medes began to recover themselves, to shake off the fear
+which had possessed them and clear their territories of the invaders. If
+the invasion really took place in the reign of Cyaxares, and not in the
+lifetime of his father, where Eusebius places it, we must suppose that
+within eight years of its occurrence Cyaxares found himself sufficiently
+strong, and his hands sufficiently free, to resume his old projects, and
+for the second time to march an army into Assyria.
+
+The weakness of Assyria was such as to offer strong temptations to an
+invader. As the famous inroad of the Gauls into Italy in the year of
+Rome 365 paved the way for the Roman conquests in the peninsula by
+breaking the power of the Etruscans, the Umbrians, and various other
+races, so the Scythic incursion may have, really benefited, rather than
+injured, Media, by weakening the great power to whose empire she
+aspired to succeed. The exhaustion of Assyria's resources at the time is
+remarkably illustrated by the poverty and meanness of the palace which
+the last king, Saracus, built for himself at Calah. She lay, apparently,
+at the mercy of the first bold assailant, her prestige lost, her army
+dispirited or disorganized, her defences injured, her high spirit broken
+and subdued.
+
+Cyaxaros, ere proceeding to the attack, sent, it is probable, to make
+an alliance with the Susianians and Chaldaeans. Susiana was the last
+country which Assyria had conquered, and could remember the pleasures of
+independence. Chaldaea, though it had been now for above half a century
+an Assyrian fief, and had borne the yoke with scarcely a murmur during
+that period, could never wholly forget its old glories, or the long
+resistance which it had made before submitting to its northern neighbor.
+The overtures of the Median monarch seem to have been favorably
+received; and it was agreed that an army from the south should march up
+the Tigris and threaten Assyria from that quarter, while Cyaxares
+led his Medes from the east, through the passes of Zagros against the
+capital. Rumor soon conveyed the tidings of his enemies' intentions to
+the Assyrian monarch, who immediately made such a disposition of the
+forces at his command as seemed best calculated to meet the double
+danger which threatened him. Selecting from among his generals the
+one in whom he placed most confidence--a man named Nabopolassar, most
+probably an Assyrian--he put him at the head of a portion of his troops,
+and sent him to Babylon to resist the enemy who was advancing from the
+sea. The command of his main army he reserved for himself, intending to
+undertake in person the defence of his territory against the Medes. This
+plan of campaign was not badly conceived; but it was frustrated by an
+unexpected calamity, Nabopolassar, seeing his sovereign's danger, and
+calculating astutely that he might gain more by an opportune defection
+from a falling cause than he could look to receive as the reward of
+fidelity, resolved to turn traitor and join the enemies of Assyria.
+Accordingly he sent an embassy to Cyaxares, with proposals for a close
+alliance to be cemented by a marriage. If the Median monarch would
+give his daughter Amuhia (or Amyitis) to be the wife of his son
+Nebuchadnezzar, the forces under his command should march against
+Nineveh and assist Cyaxares to capture it. Such a proposition arriving
+at such a time was not likely to meet with a refusal. Cyaxares gladly
+came into the terms; the marriage took place; and Nabopolassar, who had
+now practically assumed the sovereignty of Babylon, either led or sent a
+Babylonian contingent to the aid of the Medes.
+
+The siege of Nineveh by the combined Medes and Babylonians was narrated
+by Ctesias at some length. He called the Assyrian king Sardanapalus,
+the Median commander Arbaces, the Babylonian Belesis. Though he thus
+disguised the real names, and threw back the event to a period a century
+and a half earlier than its true date, there can be no doubt that he
+intended to relate the last siege of the city, that which immediately
+preceded its complete destruction. He told how the combined army,
+consisting of Persians and Arabs as well as of Medes and Babylonians,
+and amounting to four hundred thousand men, was twice defeated with
+great loss by the Assyrian monarch, and compelled to take refuge in
+the Zagros chain--how after losing a third battle it retreated to
+Babylonia--how it was there joined by strong reinforcements from
+Bactria, surprised the Assyrian camp by night, and drove the whole host
+in confusion to Nineveh--how then, after two more victories, it advanced
+and invested the city, which was well provisioned for a siege and
+strongly fortified. The siege, Ctesias said, had lasted two full years,
+and the third year had commenced--success seemed still far off--when
+an unusually rainy season so swelled the waters of the Tigris that they
+burst into the city, sweeping away more than two miles of the wall.
+This vast breach it was impossible to repair; and the Assyrian monarch,
+seeing that further resistance was vain, brought the struggle to an end
+by burning himself, with his concubines and eunuchs and all his chief
+wealth, in his palace.
+
+Such, in outline, was the story of Ctesias. If we except the extent
+of the breach which the river is declared to have made, it contains no
+glaring improbabilities. On the contrary, it is a narrative that hangs
+well together, and that suits both the relations of the parties and
+the localities. Moreover, it is confirmed in one or two points by
+authorities of the highest order. Still, as Ctesias is a writer who
+delights in fiction, and as it seems very unlikely that he would find a
+detailed account of the siege, such as he has given us, in the Persian
+archives, from whence he professed to derive his history, no confidence
+can be placed in those points of his narrative which have not any
+further sanction. All that we know on the subject of the last siege
+of Nineveh is that it was conducted by a combined army of Medes
+and Babylonians, the former commanded by Cyaxares, the latter by
+Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar, and that it was terminated, when
+all hope was lost, by the suicide of the Assyrian monarch. The
+self-immolation of Saracus is related by Abydenus, who almost certainly
+follows Berosus in this part of his history. We may therefore accept
+it as a fact about which there ought to be no question. Actuated by
+a feeling which has more than once caused a vanquished monarch to die
+rather than fall into the power of his enemies, Saracus made a funeral
+pyre of his ancestral palace, and lighted it with his own hand.
+
+One further point in the narrative of Ctesias we may suspect to contain
+a true representation. Ctesias declared the cause of the capture to
+have been the destruction of the city wall by an unexpected rise of the
+river. Now, the prophet Nahum, in his announcement of the fate coming on
+Nineveh, has a very remarkable expression, which seems most naturally to
+point to some destruction of a portion of the fortifications by means of
+water. After relating the steps that would be taken for the defence of
+the place, he turns to remark on their fruitlessness, and says: "The
+gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved; and Huzzab
+is led away captive; she is led up, with her maidens, sighing as with
+the voice of doves, smiting upon their breasts." Now, we have already
+seen that at the northwest angle of Nineveh there was a sluice or
+floodgate, intended mainly to keep the water of the Khosrsu, which
+ordinarily filled the city moat, from flowing off too rapidly into the
+Tigris, but probably intended also to keep back the water of the Tigris,
+when that stream rose above its common level. A sudden and great rise
+of the Tigris would necessarily endanger this gate, and if it gave way
+beneath the pressure, a vast torrent of water would rush up the moat
+along and against the northern wall, which may have been undermined by
+its force, and have fallen in. The stream would then pour into the city;
+and it may perhaps have reached the palace platform, which being made
+of sun-dried bricks, and probably not cased with stone inside the
+city, would begin to be "dissolved." Such seems the simplest and best
+interpretation of this passage, which, though it is not historical, but
+only prophetical, must be regarded as giving an importance that it would
+not otherwise have possessed to the statement of Ctesias with regard to
+the part played by the Tigris in the destruction of Nineveh.
+
+The fall of the city was followed by a division of the spoil between the
+two principal conquerors. While Cyaxares took to his own share the land
+of the conquered people, Assyria Proper, and the countries dependent on
+Assyria towards the north and north-west, Nabopolassar was allowed, not
+merely Babylonia, Chaldaea, and Susiana, but the valley of the Euphrates
+and the countries to which that valley conducted. Thus two considerable
+empires arose at the same time cut of the ashes of Assyria--the
+Babylonian towards the south and the south-west, stretching from
+Luristan to the borders of Egypt, the Median towards the north, reaching
+from the salt desert of Iran to Amanus and the Upper Euphrates.
+These empires were established by mutual consent; they were connected
+together, not merely by treaties, but by the ties of affinity which
+united their rulers; and, instead of cherishing, as might have been
+expected, a mutual suspicion and distrust, they seem to have really
+entertained the most friendly feelings towards one another, and to have
+been ready on all emergencies to lend each other important assistance.
+For once in the history of the world two powerful monarchies were seen
+to stand side by side, not only without collision, but without jealousy
+or rancor. Babylonia and Media were content to share between them the
+empire of Western Asia: the world was, they thought, wide enough for
+both; and so, though they could not but have had in some respects
+conflicting interests, they remained close friends and allies for more
+than half a century.
+
+To the Median monarch the conquest of Assyria did not bring a time
+of repose. Wandering bands of Scythians were still, it is probable,
+committing ravages in many parts of Western Asia. The subjects of
+Assyria, set free by her downfall, were likely to use the occasion for
+the assertion of their independence, if they were not immediately shown
+that a power of at least equal strength had taken her place, and was
+prepared to claim her inheritance. War begets war; and the successes of
+Cyaxares up to the present point in his career did but whet his appetite
+for power, and stimulate him to attempt further conquests. In brief but
+pregnant words Herodotus informs us that Cyaxares "subdued to himself
+all Asia above the Halys." How much he may include in this expression,
+it is impossible to determine; but, _prime facie_, it would seem at
+least to imply that he engaged in a series of wars with the various
+tribes and nations which intervened between Media and Assyria on the one
+side and the river Halys on the other, and that he succeeded in bringing
+them under his dominion. The most important countries in this direction
+were Armenia and Cappadocia. Armenia, strong in its lofty mountains,
+its deep gorges, and its numerous rapid rivers--the head-streams of
+the Tigris, Euphrates, Kur, and Aras--had for centuries resisted with
+unconquered spirit the perpetual efforts of the Assyrian kings to bring
+it under their yoke, and had only at last consented under the latest
+king but one to a mere nominal allegiance. Cappadocia had not even been
+brought to this degree of dependence. It had lain beyond the furthest
+limit whereto the Assyrian arms had ever reached, and had not as yet
+come into collision with any of the great powers of Asia. Other minor
+tribes in this region, neighbors of the Armenians and Cappadocians, but
+more remote from Media, were the Ibenans, the Colchians, the Moschi, the
+Tibareni, the Mares the Macrones, and the Mosynoeci. Herodotus appears
+to have been of opinion that all these tribes, or at any rate all but
+the Colchians, were at this time brought under by Cyaxares who thus
+extended his dominions to the Caucasus and the Black Sea upon the north,
+and upon the east to the Kizil Irmak or Halys.
+
+It is possible that the reduction of these countries under the Median
+yoke was not so much a conquest as a voluntary submission of the
+inhabitants to the power which alone seemed strong enough to save them
+from the hated domination of the Scyths. According to Strabo, Armenia
+and Cappadocia were the regions where the Scythic ravages had been most
+severely felt. Cappadocia had been devastated from the mountains down
+to the coast; and in Armenia the most fertile portion of the whole
+territory had been seized and occupied by the invaders, from whom it
+thenceforth took the name of Sacassene, the Armenians and Cappadocians
+may have found the yoke of the Scyths so intolerable as to have gladly
+exchanged it for dependence on a comparatively civilized people. In
+the neighboring territory of Asia Minor a similar cause had recently
+exercised a unifying influence, the necessity of combining to resist
+Cimmerian immigrants having tended to establish a hegemony of Lydia over
+the various tribes which divided among them the tract west of the Halys.
+It is evidently not improbable that the sufferings endured at the hands
+of the Scyths may have disposed the nations east of the river to adopt
+the same remedy and that, so soon as Media had proved her strength,
+first by shaking herself free of the Scythic invaders and then
+conquering Assyria. the tribes of these parts accepted her as at once
+their mistress and their deliverer.
+
+Another quite distinct cause may also have helped to bring about the
+result above indicated. Parallel with the great Median migration from
+the East under Cyaxares, or Phraortes (?), his father, an Arian influx
+had taken place into the countries between the Caspian and the Halys.
+In Armenia and Cappadocia during the flourishing period of Assyria,
+Turanian tribes had been predominant. Between the middle and the end of
+the seventh century these tribes appear to have yielded the supremacy to
+Arians. In Armenia, the present language which is predominantly
+Arian, ousted the former Turaman tongue which appears in the cuneiform
+inscriptions of Van and the adjacent regions. In Cappadocia, the Moschi
+and Tibareni had to yield their seats to a new race--the Katapatuka, who
+were not only Arian but distinctly Medo-Persic, as is plain from their
+proper names, and from the close connection of their royal house
+with that of the kings of Persia. This spread of the Arians into the
+countries lying between the Caspian and the Halys must have done much to
+pave the way for Median supremacy over those regions. The weaker Arian
+tribes of the north would have been proud of their southern brethren, to
+whose arms the queen of Western Asia had been forced to yield, and
+would have felt comparatively little repugnance in surrendering their
+independence into the hands of a friendly and kindred people.
+
+Thus Cyaxares, in his triumphant progress to the north and the
+north-west, made war, it is probable, chiefly upon the Scyths, or upon
+them and the old Turanian inhabitants of the countries, while by
+the Arians he was welcomed as a champion come to deliver them from
+a grievous oppression. Ranging themselves under his standard, they
+probably helped him to expel from Asia the barbarian hordes which had
+now for many years tyrannized over them; and when the expulsion was
+completed, gratitude or habit made them willing to continue in the
+subject position which they had assumed in order to effect it. Cyaxares
+within less than ten years from his capture of Nineveh had added to his
+empire the fertile and valuable tracts of Armenia and Cappadocia--never
+really subject to Assyria--and may perhaps have further mastered the
+entire region between Armenia and the Caucasus and Euxine.
+
+The advance of their western frontier to the river Halys, which was
+involved in the absorption of Cappadocia into the Empire, brought the
+Medes into contact with a new power--a power which, like Media, had been
+recently increasing in greatness, and which was not likely to submit to
+a foreign yoke without a struggle. The Lydian kingdom was one of great
+antiquity in this part of Asia. According to traditions current among
+its people, it had been established more than seven hundred years at the
+time when Cyaxares pushed his conquests to its borders. Three dynasties
+of native kings--Atyadse, Heraclidse, and Mermnadae--had successively
+held the throne during that period. The Lydians could repeat the names
+of at least thirty monarchs who had borne sway in Sardis, their capital
+city, since its foundation. They had never been conquered. In the old
+times, indeed, Lydus, the son of Atys, had changed the name of the
+people inhabiting the country from Maeonians to Lydians--a change which
+to the keen sense of an historical critic implies a conquest of one race
+by another. But to the people themselves this tradition conveyed no such
+meaning; or, if it did to any, their self-complacency was not disturbed
+thereby, since they would hug the notion that they belonged not to the
+conquered race but to the conquerors. If a Ramcsos or a Sesostris had
+ever penetrated to their country, he had met with a brave resistance,
+and had left monuments indicating his respect for their courage.
+Neither Babylon nor Assyria had ever given a king to the Lydians--on the
+contrary, the Lydian tradition was, that they had themselves sent forth
+Belus and Ninus from their own country to found dynasties and cities in
+Mesopotamia. In a still more remote age they had seen their colonists
+embark upon the western waters, and start for the distant Hesperia,
+where they had arrived in safety, and had founded the great Etruscan
+nation. On another occasion they had carried their arms beyond the
+limits of Asia Minor, and had marched southward to the very extremity
+of: Syria, where their general, Ascalus, had founded a great city and
+called it after his name.
+
+Such were the Lydian traditions with respect to the more remote times.
+Of their real history they seem to have known but little, and that
+little did not extend further back than about two hundred years before
+Cyaxares. Within this space it was certain that they had had a change
+of dynasty, a change preceded by a long feud between their two greatest
+houses, which were perhaps really two branches of the royal family. The
+Heraclidae had grown jealous of the Mermnadae, and had treated them with
+injustice; the Mormnadae had at first sought their safety in flight,
+and afterwards, when they felt themselves strong enough, had returned,
+murdered the Heraclide monarch, and placed their chief, Gyges, upon
+the throne. With Gyges, who had commenced his reign about B.C. 700, the
+prosperity of the Lydians had greatly increased, and they had begun to
+assume an aggressive attitude towards their neighbors. Gyges' revenue
+was so great that his wealth became proverbial, and he could afford to
+spread his fame by sending from his superfluity to the distant temple
+of Delphi presents of such magnificence that they were the admiration
+of later ages. The relations of his predecessors with the Greeks of
+the Asiatic coast had been friendly, Gyges changed this policy, and,
+desirous of enlarging his seaboard, made war upon the Greek maritime
+towns, attacking Miletus and Smyrna without result, but succeeding in
+capturing the Ionic city of Colophon. He also picked a quarrel with
+the inland town of Magnesia, and after many invasions of its territory
+compelled it to submission. According to some, he made himself master
+of the whole territory of the Troad, and the Milesians had to obtain his
+permission before they could establish their colony of Abydos upon the
+Hellespont. At any rate he was a rich and puissant monarch in the
+eyes of the Greeks of Asia and the islands, who were never tired of
+celebrating his wealth, his wars, and his romantic history.
+
+The shadow of calamity had, however, fallen upon Lydia towards the close
+of Gyges' long reign. About thirty years before the Scythians from
+the Steppe country crossed the Caucasus and fell upon Media, the same
+barrier was passed by another groat horde of nomads. The Cimmerians,
+probably a Celtic people, who had dwelt hitherto in the Tauric
+Chersonese and the country adjoining upon it, pressed on by Scythic
+invaders from the East, had sought a vent in this direction. Passing
+the great mountain barrier either by the route of Mozdok--the Pylas
+Caucasiae--or by some still more difficult track towards the Euxine,
+they had entered Asia Minor by way of Cappadocia and had spread terror
+and devastation in every direction. Gyges, alarmed at their advance, had
+placed himself under the protection of Assyria, and had then confidently
+given them battle, defeated them, and captured several of their chiefs.
+It is uncertain whether the Assyrians gave him any material aid, but
+evident that he ascribed his success to his alliance with them. In his
+gratitude he sent an embassy to Asshur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, and
+courted his favor by presents and by sending him his Cimmerian captives.
+Later in his reign, however, he changed his policy, and, breaking with
+Assyria, gave aid to the Egyptian rebel, Psammetichus, and helped him
+to establish his independence. The result followed which was to be
+expected. Assyria withdrew her protection; and Lydia was left to fight
+her own battles when the great crisis came. Carrying all before them,
+the fierce hordes swarmed in full force into the more western districts
+of Asia Minor; Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Lydia, and Ionia were
+overrun; Gyges, venturing on an engagement, perished; the frightened
+inhabitants generally shut themselves up in their walled towns, and
+hoped that the tide of invasion might sweep by them quickly and roll
+elsewhere; but the Cimmerians, impatient and undisciplined as they
+might be, could sometimes bring themselves to endure the weary work of a
+siege, and they saw in the Lydian capital a prize well worth an effort.
+The hordes besieged Sardis, and took it, except the citadel, which was
+commandingly placed and defied all their attempts. A terrible scene of
+carnage must have followed. How Lydia withstood the blow, and rapidly
+recovered from it, is hard to understand; but it seems certain that
+within a generation she was so far restored to vigor as to venture
+on resuming her attacks upon the Greeks of the coast, which had been
+suspended during her period of prostration. Sadyattes, the son of
+Ardys, and grandson of Gyges, following the example of his father and
+grandfather, made war upon Miletus; and Alyattes, his son and successor,
+pursued the same policy of aggression. Besides pressing Miletus, he
+besieged and took Smyrna, and ravaged the territory of Clazomenae.
+
+But the great work of Alyattes' reign, and the one which seems to have
+had the most important consequences for Lydia, was the war which he
+undertook for the purpose of expelling the Cimmerians from Asia Minor.
+The hordes had been greatly weakened by time, by their losses in war,
+and, probably by their excesses; they had long ceased to be formidable;
+but they were still strong enough to be an annoyance. Alyattes is said
+to have "driven them out of Asia," by which we can scarcely understand
+less than that he expelled them from his own dominions and those of his
+neighbors--or, in other words, from the countries which had been the
+scenes of their chief ravages--Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Lydia, Phrygia,
+and Cilicia. But, to do this, he must have entered into a league with
+his neighbors, who must have consented to act under him for the purposes
+of war, if they did not even admit the permanent hegemony of his
+country. Alyattes' success appears to have been complete, or nearly so;
+he cleared Asia Minor of the Cimmerians; and having thus conferred a
+benefit on all the nations of the region and exhibited before their
+eyes his great military capacity, if he had not actually constructed an
+empire, he had at any rate done much to pave the way for one.
+
+Such was the political position in the regions west and south of the
+Halys, when Cyaxares completed his absorption of Cappadocia, and looking
+across the river that divided the Cappadocians from the Phrygians, saw
+stretched before him a region of great fertile plains, which seemed to
+invite an invader. A pretext for an attack was all that he wanted,
+and this was soon forthcoming. A body of the nomad Scyths--probably
+belonging to the great invasion, though Herodotus thought otherwise--had
+taken service under Cyaxares, and for some time served him faithfully,
+being employed chiefly as hunters. A cause of quarrel, however, arose
+after a while; and the Scyths, disliking their position or distrusting
+the intentions of their lords towards them, quitted the Median
+territory, and, marching through a great part of Asia Minor, sought and
+found a refuge with Alyattes, the Lydian king. Cyaxares, upon learning
+their flight, sent an embassy to the court of Sardis to demand the
+surrender of the fugitives; but the Lydian monarch met the demand with a
+refusal, and, fully understanding the probable consequences, immediately
+prepared for war.
+
+Though Lydia, compared to Media, was but a small state, yet her
+resources were by no means inconsiderable. In fertility she surpassed
+almost every other country of Asia Minor, which is altogether one of
+the richest regions in the world. At this time she was producing large
+quantities of gold, which was found in great abundance in the Pactolus,
+and probably in the other small streams that flowed down on all sides
+from the Tmolus mountain-chain. Her people were at once warlike and
+ingenious. They had invented the art of coining money, and showed
+considerable taste in their devices. [PLATE VII., Fig. 1], They claimed
+also to have been the inventors of a number of games, which were common
+to them with the Greeks. According to Herodotus, they were the first
+who made a livelihood by shop-keeping. They were skilful in the use of
+musical instruments, and had their own peculiar musical mode or style,
+which was in much favor among the Greeks, though condemned as effeminate
+by some of the philosophers. At the same time the Lydians were not
+wanting in courage or manliness. They fought chiefly on horseback, and
+were excellent riders, carrying long spears, which they managed with
+great skill. Nicolas of Damascus tells us that even under the Heraclido
+kings, they could muster for service cavalry to the number of 30,000. In
+peace they pursued with ardor the sports of the field, and found in the
+chase of the wild boar a pastime which called forth and exercised every
+manly quality. Thus Lydia, even by herself, was no contemptible enemy;
+though it can hardly be supposed that, without help from others, she
+would have proved a match for the Great Median Empire.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VII.]
+
+But such help as she needed was not wanting to her. The rapid strides
+with which Media had advanced towards the west had no doubt alarmed the
+numerous princes of Asia Minor, who must have felt that they had a power
+to deal with as full of schemes of conquest as Assyria, and more capable
+of carrying her designs into execution. It has been already observed
+that the long course of Assyrian aggressions developed gradually among
+the Asiatic tribes a tendency to unite in leagues for purposes of
+resistance. The circumstances of the time called now imperatively
+for such a league to be formed, unless the princes of Asia Minor were
+content to have their several territories absorbed one after another
+into the growing Median Empire. These princes appear to have seen their
+danger. Cyaxares may perhaps have, declared war specially against the
+Lydians, and have crossed the Halys professedly in order to chastise
+them; but he could only reach Lydia through the territories of other
+nations, which he was evidently intending to conquer on his way; and
+it was thus apparent that he was activated, not by anger against a
+particular power, but by a general design of extending his dominions in
+this direction. A league seems therefore to have been determined on. We
+have not indeed any positive evidence of its existence till the close of
+the war; but the probabilities are wholly in favor of its having taken
+effect from the first. Prudence would have dictated such a course; and
+it seems almost implied in the fact that a successful resistance was
+made to the Median attack from the very commencement. We may conclude
+therefore that the princes of Asia Minor, having either met in conclave
+or communicated by embassies, resolved to make common cause, if the
+Medes crossed the Halys; and that, having already acted under Lydia in
+the expulsion of the Cimmerians from their territories, they naturally
+placed her at their head when they coalesced for the second time.
+
+Cyaxares on his part, was not content to bring against the confederates
+merely the power of Media. He requested and obtained a contingent from
+the Babylonian monarch, Nabopolassar, and may not improbably have had
+the assistance of other allies also. With a vast army drawn from various
+parts of inner Asia, he invaded the territory of the Western Powers,
+and began his attempt at subjugation. We have no detailed account of
+the war; but we learn from the general expressions of Herodotus that the
+Median monarch met with a most stubborn resistance; numerous engagements
+were fought with varied results; sometimes the Medes succeeded in
+defeating their adversaries in pitched battles; but sometimes, and
+apparently as often, the Lydians and their allies gained decided
+victories over the Medes. It is noted that one of the engagements took
+place by night, a rare occurrence in ancient (as in modern) times. The
+war had continued six years, and the Medes had evidently made no serious
+impression, when a remarkable circumstance brought it suddenly to
+a termination. The two armies had once more met and were engaged in
+conflict, when, in the midst of the struggle, an ominous darkness fell
+upon the combatants and filled them with superstitious awe. The sun
+was eclipsed, either totally or at any rate considerably, so that the
+attention of the two armies was attracted to it; and, discontinuing the
+fight, they stood to gaze at the phenomenon. In most parts of the
+East such an occurrence is even now seen with dread--the ignorant mass
+believe that the orb of day is actually being devoured or destroyed,
+and that the end of all things is at hand--even the chiefs, who may have
+some notion that the phenomenon is a recurrent one, do not understand
+its cause, and participate in the alarm of their followers. On the
+present occasion it is said that, amid the general fear, a desire for
+reconciliation seized both armies. Of this spontaneous movement two
+chiefs, the foremost of the allies on either side, took advantage.
+Syennesis, king of Cilicia, the first known monarch of his name, on
+the part of Lydia, and a prince whom Herodotus calls "Labynetus of
+Babylon"--probably either Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar--on the part
+of Media, came forward to propose an immediate armistice; and, when the
+proposal was accepted on either side, proceeded to the more difficult
+task of arranging terms of peace between the contending parties. Since
+nothing is said of the Scythians, who had been put forward as the
+ostensible grounds of quarrel, we may presume that Alyattes retained
+them. It is further clear that both he and his allies preserved
+undiminished both their territories and their independence. The
+territorial basis of the treaty was thus what in modern diplomatic
+language is called the status quo; matters, in other words, returned to
+the position in which they had stood before the war broke out. The only
+difference was that Cyaxares gained a friend and an ally where he had
+previously had a jealous enemy; since it was agreed that the two kings
+of Media and Lydia should swear a friendship, and that, to cement the
+alliance, Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in marriage to
+Astyages, the son of Cyaxares. The marriage thus arranged took place
+soon afterwards, while the oath of friendship was sworn at once.
+According to the barbarous usages of the time and place, the two
+monarchs, having met and repeated the words of the formula, punctured
+their own arms, and then sealed their contract by each sucking from the
+wound a portion of the other's blood.
+
+By this peace the three great monarchies of the time--the Median, the
+Lydian, and the Babylonian--were placed on terms, not only of amity,
+but of intimacy and (if the word may be used) of blood relationship. The
+Crown Princes of the three kingdoms had become brothers. From the shores
+of the Aegean to those of the Persian Gulf, Western Asia was now ruled
+by interconnected dynasties, bound by treaties to respect each other's
+rights, and perhaps to lend each other aid in important conjunctures,
+and animated, it would seem, by a real spirit of mutual friendliness and
+attachment. After more than five centuries of almost constant war and
+ravage, after fifty years of fearful strife and convulsion, during
+which the old monarchy of Assyria had gone down and a new Empire--the
+Median--had risen up in its place, this part of Asia entered upon a
+period of repose which stands out in strong contrast with the long term
+of struggle. From the date of the peace between Alyattes and Cyaxares
+(probably B.C. 610), for nearly half a century, the three kingdoms
+of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia remained fast friends, pursuing their
+separate courses without quarrel or collision, and thus giving to the
+nations within their borders a rest and a refreshment which they must
+have greatly needed and desired.
+
+In one quarter only was this rest for a short time disturbed. During the
+troublous period the neighboring country of Egypt, which had recovered
+its freedom, and witnessed a revival of its ancient prosperity, under
+the Psamatik family, began once more to aspire to the possession of
+those provinces which, being divided off from the rest of the Asiatic
+continent by the impassable Syrian desert, seems politically to belong
+to Africa almost more than to Asia. Psamatik I., the Psammetichus of
+Herodotus, had commenced an aggressive war in this quarter, probably
+about the time that Assyria was suffering from the Median and then
+from the Scythian inroads. He had besieged for several years the strong
+Philistine town of Ashdod, which commands the coast-route from Egypt
+to Palestine, and was at this time a most important city. Despite a
+resistance which would have wearied out any less pertinacious assailant,
+he had persevered in his attempt, and had finally succeeded in taking
+the place. He had thus obtained a firm footing in Syria; and his
+successor was, able, starting from this vantage-ground, to overrun
+and conquer the whole territory. About the year B.C. 608, Neco, son of
+Psamatik I., having recently ascended the throne, invaded Palestine with
+a large army, met and defeated Josiah, king of Judah, near Megiddo in
+the great plain of Esdraelon, and, pressing forward through Syria to the
+Euphrates, attacked and took Carchemish, the strong city which guarded
+the ordinary passage of the river. Idumea, Palestine, Phoenicia, and
+Syria submitted to him, and for three years he remained in undisturbed
+possession of his conquest. Then, however, the Babylonians, who had
+received these provinces at the division of the Assyrian Empire, began
+to bestir themselves. Nebuchadnezzar marched to Carchemish, defeated the
+army of Neco, recovered all the territory to the border of Egypt, and
+even ravaged a portion of that country. It is probable that in this
+expedition he was assisted by the Medes. At any rate, seven or eight
+years afterwards, when the intrigues of Egypt had again created
+disturbances in this quarter, and Jehoiakim, the Jewish king, broke
+into open insurrection, the Median monarch sent a contingent, which
+accompanied Nebuchadnezzar into Judaea, and assisted him to establish
+his power firmly in South-Western Asia.
+
+This is the last act that we can ascribe to the great Median king. He
+can scarcely have been much less than seventy years old at this time;
+and his life was prolonged at the utmost three years longer. According
+to Herodotus, he died B.C. 593, after a reign of exactly forty years,
+leaving his crown to his son Astyages, whose marriage with a Lydian
+princess was above related.
+
+We have no sufficient materials from which to draw out a complete
+character of Cyaxares. He appears to have possessed great ambition,
+considerable military ability, and a rare tenacity of purpose, which
+gained him his chief successes. At the same time he was not wanting in
+good sense, and could bring himself to withdraw from an enterprise, when
+he had misjudged the fitting time for it, or greatly miscalculated its
+difficulties. He was faithful to his friends, but thought treachery
+allowable towards his enemies. He knew how to conquer, but not how to
+organize, an empire; and, if we except his establishment of Magism,
+as the religion of the state, we may say that he did nothing to
+give permanency to the monarchy which he founded. He was a conqueror
+altogether after the Asiatic model, able to wield the sword, but not to
+guide the pen, to subdue his contemporaries to his will by his
+personal ascendency over them, but not to influence posterity by the
+establishment of a kingdom, or of institutions, on deep and stable
+foundations. The Empire, which owed to him its foundation, was the most
+shortlived of all the great Oriental monarchies, having begun and
+ended within the narrow space of three score and ten years--the natural
+lifetime of an individual.
+
+Astyages, who succeeded to the Median throne about B.C. 593, had neither
+his father's enterprise nor his ability. Born to an empire, and bred
+up in all the luxury of an Oriental Court, he seems to have been quite
+content with the lot which fortune appeared to have assigned him, and to
+have coveted no grander position. Tradition says that he was remarkably
+handsome, cautious, and of an easy and generous temper. Although
+the anecdotes related of his mode of life at Ecbatana by Herodotus,
+Xenophon, and Nicolas of Damascus, seem to be for the most part
+apocryphal, and at any rate come to us upon authority too weak to
+entitle them to a place in history, we may perhaps gather from the
+concurrent, descriptions of these three writers something of the general
+character of the Court over which he presided. Its leading features do
+not seem to have differed greatly from those of the Court of Assyria.
+The monarch lived secluded, and could only be seen by those who asked
+and obtained an audience. He was surrounded by guards and eunuchs, the
+latter of whom held most of the offices near the royal person. The Court
+was magnificent in its apparel, in its banquets, and in the number and
+organization of its attendants. The courtiers wore long flowing robes
+of many different colors, amongst which red and purple predominated,
+and adorned their necks with chains or collars of gold, and their wrists
+with bracelets of the same precious metal. Even the horses on which
+they rode had sometimes golden bits to their bridles. One officer of the
+Court was especially called "the King's Eye;" another had the privilege
+of introducing strangers to him; a third was his cupbearer; a fourth his
+messenger. Guards torch-bearers, serving-men, ushers, and sweepers, were
+among the orders into which the lower sort of attendants were divided;
+while among the courtiers of the highest rank was a privileged class
+known as "the King's table-companions". The chief pastime in which
+the Court indulged was hunting. Generally this took place in a park or
+"paradise" near the capital; but sometimes the King and Court went out
+on a grand hunt into the open country, where lions, leopards, bears,
+wild boars, wild asses, antelopes, stags, and wild sheep abounded,
+and, when the beasts had been driven by beaters into a confined space,
+despatched them with arrows and javelins.
+
+Prominent at the Court, according to Herodotus, was the priestly caste
+of the Magi. Held in the highest honor by both King and people, they
+were in constant attendance, ready to expound omens or dreams, and
+to give their advice on all matters of state policy. The religious
+ceremonial was, as a matter of course, under their charge; and it is
+probable that high state offices were often conferred upon them. Of all
+classes of the people they were the only one that could feel they had
+a real influence over the monarch, and might claim to share in his
+sovereignty.
+
+The long reign of Astyages seems to have been almost undisturbed, until
+just before its close, by wars or rebellions. Eusebius indeed relates
+that he, and not Cyaxares, carried on the great Lydian contest; and
+Moses of Chorene declares that he was engaged in a long struggle with
+Tigranes, an Armenian king. But little credit can be attached to these
+statements, the former of which contradicts Herodotus, while the latter
+is wholly unsupported by any other writer. The character which Cyaxares
+bore among the Greeks was evidently that of an unwarlike king. If he had
+really carried his arms into the heart of Asia Minor, and threatened the
+whole of that extensive region with subjugation, we can scarcely suppose
+that he would have been considered so peaceful a ruler. Neither is
+it easy to imagine that in that case no classical writer--not even
+Ctesias--would have taxed Herodotus with an error that must have been
+so flagrant. With respect to the war with Tigranes, it is just possible
+that it may have a basis of truth; there may have been a revolt of
+Armenia from Astyages under a certain Tigranes, followed by an attempt
+at subjugation. But the slender authority of Moses is insufficient to
+establish the truth of his story, which is internally improbable and
+quite incompatible with the narrative of Herodotus.
+
+There are some grounds for believing that in one direction Astyages
+succeeded in slightly extending the limits of his empire. But he owed
+his success to prudent management, and not to courage or military skill.
+On the north-eastern frontier, occupying the low country now known as
+Talish and Ghilan, was a powerful tribe called Cadusians, probably of
+Arian origin, which had hitherto maintained its independence. This would
+not be surprising, if we could accept the statement of Diodorus that
+they were able to bring into the field 200,000 men. But this account,
+which probably came from Ctesias, and is wholly without corroboration
+from other writers, has the air of a gross exaggeration; and we may
+conclude from the general tenor of ancient history that the Cadusians
+were more indebted to the strength of their country, than to either
+their numbers or their prowess, for the freedom and independence which
+they were still enjoying. It seems that they were at this time under the
+government of a certain king, or chief, named Aphernes, or Onaphernes.
+This ruler was, it appears, doubtful of his position, and, thinking it
+could not be long maintained, made overtures of surrender to Astyages,
+which were gladly entertained by that monarch. A secret treaty was
+concluded to the satisfaction of both parties; and the Cadusians, it
+would seem, passed under the Medes by this arrangement, without any
+hostile struggle, though armed resistance on the part of the people, who
+were ignorant of the intentions of their chieftain, was for some time
+apprehended.
+
+The domestic relations of Astyages seem to have been unhappy. His
+"marriage de convenance" with the Lydian princess Aryenis, if not wholly
+unfruitful, at any rate brought him no son; and, as he grew to old
+age, the absence of such support to the throne must have been felt very
+sensibly, and have caused great uneasiness. The want of an heir perhaps
+led him to contract those other marriages of which we hear in the
+Armenian History of Moses--one with a certain Anusia, of whom nothing
+more is known; and another with an Armenian princess, the loveliest of
+her sex, Tigrania, sister of the Armenian king, Tigranes. The blessing
+of male offspring was still, however, denied him; and it is even
+doubtful whether he was really the father of any daughter or daughters.
+Herodotus, and Xenophon, indeed give him a daughter Mandane, whom they
+make the mother of Cyrus; and Ctesias, who denied in the most positive
+terms the truth of this statement, gave him a daughter, Amytis, whom he
+made the wife, first of Spitaces the Mede, and afterwards of Cyrus the
+Persian. But these stories, which seem intended to gratify the vanity of
+the Persians by tracing the descent of their kings to the great Median
+conqueror, while at the same time they flattered the Medes by showing
+them that the issue of their old monarchs was still seated on the Arian
+throne, are entitled to little more credit than the narrative of the
+Shahnameh, which declares that Iskander (Alexander) was the son of Darab
+(Darius) and of a daughter of Failakus (Philip of Macedon). When an
+oriental crown passes from one dynasty to another, however foreign and
+unconnected, the natives are wont to invent a relationship between the
+two houses, which both parties are commonly quite ready to accept; as
+it suits the rising house to be provided with a royal ancestry, and it
+pleases the fallen one and its partisans to see in the occupants of the
+throne a branch of the ancient stock--a continuation of the legitimate
+family. Tales therefore of the above-mentioned kind are, historically
+speaking, valueless; and it must remain uncertain whether the second
+Median monarch had any child at all, either male or female.
+
+Old age was now creeping upon the sonless king. If he was sixteen
+or seventeen years old at the time of his contract of marriage with
+Aryenis, he must have been nearly seventy in B.C. 558, when the revolt
+occurred which terminated both his reign and his kingdom. It appears
+that the Persian branch of the Arian race, which had made itself a home
+in the country lying south and south-east of Media, between the 32nd
+parallel and the Persian gulf, had acknowledged some subjection to
+the Median kings during the time of their greatness. Dwelling in their
+rugged mountains and high upland plains, they had however maintained the
+simplicity of their primitive manners, and had mixed but little with
+the Medes, being governed by their own native princes of the Achasmenian
+house, the descendants, real or supposed, of a certain Achajmenes. These
+princes were connected by marriage with the Cappadocian kings; and their
+house was regarded as one of the noblest in Western Asia. What the exact
+terms were upon which they stood with the Median monarch is uncertain.
+Herodotus regards Persia as absorbed into Media at this time, and the
+Achsemenidse as merely a good Persian family. Nicolas of Damascus makes
+Persia a Median satrapy, of which Atradates, the father of Cyrus, is
+satrap, Xenophon, on the contrary, not only gives the Achajmenidae their
+royal rank, but seems to consider Persia as completely independent of
+Media; Moses of Chorene takes the same view, regarding Cyrus as a great
+and powerful sovereign during the reign of Astyages. The native records
+lean towards the view of Xenophon and Moses. Darius declares that eight
+of his race had been kings before himself, and makes no difference
+between his own royalty and theirs. Cyrus calls himself in one
+inscription "the son of Cambyses, the powerful king." It is certain
+therefore that Persia continued to be ruled by her own native monarchs
+during the whole of the Median period, and that Cyrus led the attack
+upon Astyages as hereditary Persian king. The Persian records seem
+rather to imply actual independence of Media; but as national vanity
+would prompt to dissimulation in such a case, we may perhaps accord so
+much weight to the statement of Herodotus, and to the general tradition
+on the subject, as to believe that there was some kind of acknowledgment
+of Median supremacy on the part of the Persian kings anterior to Cyrus,
+though the acknowledgment may have been not much more than a formality
+and have imposed no onerous obligations. The residence of Cyrus at the
+Median Court, which is asserted in almost every narrative of his life
+before he became king, inexplicable if Persia was independent, becomes
+thoroughly intelligible on the supposition that she was a great Median
+feudatory. In such cases the residence of the Crown Prince at the
+capital of the suzerain is constantly desired, or even required by the
+superior Power, which sees in the presence of the son and heir the best
+security against disaffection or rebellion on the part of the father.
+
+It appears that Cyrus, while at the Median Court, observing the
+unwarlike temper of the existing generation of the Medes, who had not
+seen any actual service, and despising the personal character of the
+monarch, who led a luxurious life, chiefly at Ecbatana, amid eunuchs,
+concubines, and dancing-girls, resolved on raising the standard of
+rebellion, and seeking at any rate to free his own country. It may be
+suspected that the Persian prince was not actuated solely by political
+motives. To earnest Zoroastrians, such as the Achgemenians are shown
+to have been by their inscriptions, the yoke of a Power which had so
+greatly corrupted, if it had not wholly laid aside, the worship of
+Ormazd, must have been extremely distasteful; and Cyrus may have wished
+by his rebellion as much to vindicate the honor of his religion--as to
+obtain a loftier position for his nation. If the Magi occupied really
+the position at the Median Court which Herodotus assigns to them--if
+they "were held in high honor by the king, and shared in his
+sovereignty"--if the priest-ridden monarch was perpetually dreaming and
+perpetually referring his dreams to the Magian seers for exposition, and
+then guiding his actions by the advice they tendered him, the religious
+zeal of the young Zoroastrian may very naturally have been aroused, and
+the contest into which he plunged may have been, in his eyes, not so
+much a national struggle as a crusade against the infidels. It will be
+found hereafter that religious fervor animated the Persians in most
+of those wars by which they spread their dominion. We may suspect,
+therefore, though it must be admitted we cannot prove, that a religious
+motive was among those which led them to make their first efforts after
+independence.
+
+According to the account of the struggle which is most circumstantial,
+and on the whole most probable, the first difficulty which the would-be
+rebel had to meet and vanquish was that of quitting the Court. Alleging
+that his father was in weak health, and required his care, he requested
+leave of absence for a short time; but his petition was refused on the
+flattering ground that the Great King was too much attached to him to
+lose sight of him even for a day. A second application, however, made
+through a favorite eunuch after a certain interval of time, was more
+successful; Cyrus received permission to absent himself from Court for
+the next five months; whereupon, with a few attendants, he left Ecbatana
+by night, and took the road leading to his native country.
+
+The next evening Astyages, enjoying himself as usual over his
+wine, surrounded by a crowd of his concubines, singing-girls, and
+dancing-girls, called on one of them for a song. The girl took her lyre
+and sang as follows: "The lion had the wild boar in his power, but let
+him depart to his own lair; in his lair he will wax in strength, and
+will cause the lion a world of toil; till at length, although the
+weaker, he will overcome the stronger." The words of the song greatly
+disquieted the king, who had been already made aware that a Chaldaean
+prophecy designated Cyrus as future king of the Persians. Repenting of
+the indulgence which he had granted him, Astyages forthwith summoned an
+officer into his presence, and ordered him to take a body of horsemen,
+pursue the Persian prince, and bring him back, either alive or dead.
+The officer obeyed, overtook Cyrus, and announced his errand; upon which
+Cyrus expressed his perfect willingness to return, but proposed, that,
+as it was late, they should defer their start till the next day. The
+Medes consenting, Cyrus feasted them, and succeeded in making them
+all drunk; then mounting his horse, he rode off at full speed with his
+attendants, and reached a Persian outpost, where he had arranged with
+his father that he should find a body of Persian troops. When the Medes
+had slept off their drunkenness, and found their prisoner gone, they
+pursued, and again overtaking Cyrus, who was now at the head of an armed
+force, engaged him. They were, however, defeated with great loss, and
+forced to retreat, while Cyrus, having beaten them off, made good his
+escape into Persia.
+
+When Astyages heard what had happened, he was greatly vexed; and,
+smiting his thigh, he exclaimed, "Ah! fool, thou knewest well that it
+boots not to heap favors on the vile; yet didst thou suffer thyself to
+be gulled by smooth words; and so thou hast brought upon thyself this
+mischief. But even now he shall not get off scot-free." And instantly
+he sent for his generals, and commanded them to collect his host, and
+proceed to reduce Persia to obedience. Three thousand chariots, two
+hundred thousand horse, and a million footmen (!) were soon brought
+together; and with these Astyages in person invaded the revolted
+province, and engaged the army which Cyrus and his father Cambyses
+had collected for defence. This consisted of a hundred chariots, fifty
+thousand horsemen, and three hundred thousand light-armed foot, who were
+drawn up in in front of a fortified town near the frontier. The first
+day's battle was long and bloody, terminating without any decisive
+advantage to either side; but on the second day Astyages, making skilful
+use of his superior numbers, gained a great victory. Having detached one
+hundred thousand men with orders to make a circuit and get into the
+rear of the town, he renewed the attack; and when the Persians were all
+intent on the battle in their front, the troops detached fell on the
+city and took it, almost before its defenders were aware. Cambyses, who
+commanded in the town, was mortally wounded and fell into the enemy's
+hands. The army in the field, finding itself between two fires, broke
+and fled towards the interior, bent on defending Pasargadse, the
+capital. Meanwhile Astyages, having given Cambyses honorable burial,
+pressed on in pursuit.
+
+The country had now become rugged and difficult. Between Pasargadse and
+the place where the two days' battle was fought lay a barrier of lofty
+hills, only penetrated by a single narrow pass. On either side were two
+smooth surfaces of rock, while the mountain towered above, lofty and
+precipitous. The pass was guarded by ten thousand Persians. Recognizing
+the impossibility of forcing it, Astyages again detached a body of
+troops, who marched along the foot of the range till they found a place
+where it could be ascended, when they climbed it and seized the heights
+directly over the defile. The Persians upon this had to evacuate their
+strong position, and to retire to a lower range of hills very near to
+Pasargadge. Here again there was a two days' fight. On the first day
+all the efforts of the Medes to ascend the range (which, though low,
+was steep, and covered with thickets of wild olive) were fruitless. Their
+enemy met them, not merely with the ordinary weapons, but with great
+masses of stone, which they hurled down with crushing force upon their
+ascending columns. On the second day, however, the resistance was weaker
+or less effective Astyages had placed at the foot of the range, below
+his attacking columns, a body of troops with orders to kill all who
+refused to ascend, or who, having ascended, attempted to quit the
+heights and return to the valley. Thus compelled to advance, his men
+fought with desperation, and drove the Persians before them up the
+slopes of the hill to its very summit, where the women and children
+had been placed for the sake of security. There, however, the tide of
+success turned. The taunts and upbraidings of their mothers and wives
+restored the courage of the Persians; and, turning upon their foe, they
+made a sudden furious charge. The Medes, astonished and overborne, were
+driven headlong down the hill, and fell into such confusion that the
+Persians slew sixty thousand of them. Still Astyages did not desist from
+his attack. The authority whom we have been following here to a great
+extent fails us, and we have only a few scattered notices from which to
+reconstruct the closing scenes of the war. It would seem from these
+that Astyages still maintained the offensive, and that there was a
+fifth battle in the immediate neighborhood of Pasargadse, wherein he was
+completely defeated by Cyrus, who routed the Median army, and pressing
+upon them in their flight, took their camp. All the insignia of Median
+royalty fell into his hands; and, amid the acclamations of his army,
+he assumed them, and was saluted by his soldiers "King of Media and
+Persia." Meanwhile Astyages had sought for safety in flight; the greater
+part of his army had dispersed, and he was left with only a few friends,
+who still adhered to his fortunes. Could he have reached Ecbatana, he
+might have greatly prolonged the struggle; but his enemy pressed him
+close; and, being compelled to an engagement, he not only suffered a
+complete defeat, but was made prisoner by his fortunate adversary.
+By this capture the Median monarchy was brought abruptly to an end.
+Astyages had no son to take his place and continue the struggle. Even
+had it been otherwise, the capture of the monarch would probably have
+involved his people's submission. In the East the king is so identified
+with his kingdom that the possession of the royal person is regarded as
+conveying to the possessor all regal rights. Cyrus, apparently, had no
+need even to besiege Ecbatana; the whole Median state, together with its
+dependencies, at once submitted to him, on learning what had happened.
+This ready submission was no doubt partly owing to the general
+recognition of a close connection between Media and Persia, which made
+the transfer of empire from the one to the other but slightly galling
+to the subjected power, and a matter of complete indifference to the
+dependent countries. Except in so far as religion was concerned,
+the change from one Iranic race to the other would make scarcely a
+perceptible difference to the subjects of either kingdom. The law of
+the state would still be "the law of the Medes and Persians." Official
+employments would be open to the people of both countries. Even the fame
+and glory of empire would attain, in the minds of men, almost as much
+to the one nation as the other. If Media descended from her preeminent
+rank, it was to occupy a station only a little below the highest, and
+one which left her a very distinct superiority over all the subject
+races.
+
+If it be asked how Media, in her hour of peril, came to receive no
+assistance from the great Powers with which she had made such close
+alliances--Babylonia and Lydia--the answer would seem to be that Lydia
+was too remote from the scene of strife to lend her effective aid, while
+circumstances had occurred in Babylonia to detach that state from her
+and render it unfriendly. The great king, Nebuchadnezzar, had he been
+on the throne, would undoubtedly have come to the assistance of his
+brother-in-law, when the fortune of war changed, and it became evident
+that his crown was in danger. But Nebuchadnezzar had died in B.V. 561,
+three years before the Persian revolt broke out. His son, Evil-Merodach,
+who would probably have maintained his father's alliances, had survived
+him but two years: he had been murdered in B.C. 559 by a brother-in-law,
+Nergalsharezer or Neriglissar, who ascended the throne in that year and
+reigned till B.C. 555. This prince was consequently on the throne at
+the time of Astyages' need. As he had supplanted the house of
+Nebuchadnezzar, he would naturally be on bad terms with that monarch's
+Median connections; and we may suppose that he saw with pleasure the
+fall of a power to which pretenders from the Nebuchadnezzar family would
+have looked for support and countenance.
+
+In conclusion, a few words may be said on the general character of the
+Median Empire, and the causes of its early extinction.
+
+The Median Empire was in extent and fertility of territory-equal if not
+superior to the Assyrian. It stretched from Rhages and the Carmanian
+desert on the east to the river Halys upon the west, a distance of
+above twenty degrees, or about 1,300 miles. From north to south it
+was comparatively narrow, being confined between the Black Sea, the
+Caucasus, and the Caspian, on the one side, and the Euphrates and
+Persian Gulf on the other. Its greatest width, which was towards the
+east, was about nine, and its least, which was towards the west, was
+about four degrees. Its area was probably not much short of 500,000
+square miles. Thus it was as large as Great Britain, France, Spain, and
+Portugal put together.
+
+In fertility its various parts were very unequal. Portions of both
+Medias, of Persia, of Armenia, Iberia, and Cappadocia, were rich and
+productive; but in all these countries there was a large quantity of
+barren mountain, and in Media Magna and Persia there were tracts of
+desert. If we estimate the resources of Media from the data furnished by
+Herodotus in his account of the Persian revenue, and compare them with
+those of the Assyrian Empire, as indicated by the same document, we
+shall find reason to conclude, that except during the few years when
+Egypt was a province of Assyria, the resources of the Third exceeded
+those of the Second Monarchy.
+
+The weakness of the Empire arose chiefly from its want of organization.
+Nicolas of Damascus, indeed, in the long passage from which our account
+of the struggle between Cyrus and Astyages has been taken, represents
+the Median Empire as divided, like the Persian, into a number of
+satrapies but there is no real ground for believing that any such
+organization was practised in Median times, or to doubt that Darius
+Hystaspis was the originator of the satrapial system. The Median Empire,
+like the Assyrian, was a congeries of kingdoms, each ruled by its own
+native prince, as is evident from the case of Persia, where Cambyses was
+not satrap, but monarch. Such organization as was attempted appears to
+have been clumsy in the extreme. The Medes (we are told) only claimed
+direct suzerainty over the nations immediately upon their borders;
+remoter tribes they placed under these, and looked to them to collect
+and remit the tribute of the outlying countries. It is doubtful if they
+called on the subject nations for any contingents of troops. We never
+hear of their doing so. Probably, like the Assyrians, they made their
+conquests with armies composed entirely of native soldiers, or of
+those combined with such forces as were sent to their aid by princes in
+alliance with them.
+
+The weakness arising from this lack of organization was increased by a
+corruption of manners, which caused the Medes speedily to decline in
+energy and warlike spirit. The conquest of a great and luxurious empire
+by a hardy and simple race is followed, almost of necessity, by a
+deterioration in the character of the conquerors, who lose the warlike
+virtues, and too often do not replace them by the less splendid virtues
+of peace. This tendency, which is fixed in the nature of things, admits
+of being checked for a while, or rapidly developed, according to the
+policy and character of the monarchs who happen to occupy the throne.
+If the original conqueror is succeeded, by two or three ambitious and
+energetic princes, who engage in important wars and labor to extend
+their dominions at the expense of their neighbors, it will be some time
+before the degeneracy becomes marked. If, on the other hand, a prince of
+a quiet temper, self-indulgent, and studious of ease, come to the throne
+within a short time of the original conquests, the deterioration will
+be very rapid. In the present instance it happened that the immediate
+successor of the first conqueror was of a peaceful disposition,
+unambitious, and luxurious in his habits. During a reign which lasted
+at least thirty-five years he abstained almost wholly from military
+enterprises; and thus an entire generation of Medes grew up without
+seeing actual service, which alone makes the soldier. At the same
+time there was a general softening of manners. The luxury of the Court
+corrupted the nobles, who from hardy mountain chieftains, simple if not
+even savage in their dress and mode of life, became polite courtiers,
+magnificent in their apparel, choice in their diet, and averse to all
+unnecessary exertion. The example of the upper classes would tell on the
+lower, though not perhaps to any very large extent. The ordinary Mede,
+no doubt, lost something of his old daring and savagery; from disuse
+he became inexpert in the management of arms; and he was thus no longer
+greatly to be dreaded as a soldier. But he was really not very much less
+brave, nor less capable of bearing hardships, than before; and it only
+required a few years of training to enable him to recover himself and to
+be once more as good a soldier as any in Asia.
+
+But in the affairs of nations, as in those of men, negligence often
+proves fatal before it can be repaired. Cyrus saw his opportunity,
+pressed his advantage, and established the supremacy of his nation,
+before the unhappy effects of Astyages' peace policy could be removed.
+He knew that his own Persians possessed the military spirit in its
+fullest vigor; he felt that he himself had all the qualities of a
+successful loader; he may have had faith in his cause, which, he would
+view as the cause of Ormazd against Ahriman, of pure Religion against a
+corrupt and debasing nature-worship. His revolt was sudden, unexpected,
+and well-timed. He waited till Astyages was advanced in years, and so
+disqualified for command; till the veterans of Cyaxares were almost all
+in their graves; and till the Babylonian throne was occupied by a king
+who was not likely to afford Astyages any aid. Ho may not at first have
+aspired to do more than establish the independence of his own country.
+But when the opportunity of effecting a transfer of empire offered
+itself, he seized it promptly; rapidly repeating his blows, and allowing
+his enemy no time to recover and renew the struggle. The substitution
+of Persia for Media as the ruling power in Western Asia was due less to
+general causes than to the personal character of two men. Had Astyages
+been a prince of ordinary vigor, the military training of the Medes
+would have been kept up; and in that case they might easily have hold
+their own against all comers. Had their training been kept up, or had
+Cyrus possessed no more than ordinary ambition and ability, either
+he would not have thought of revolting, or he would have revolted
+unsuccessfully. The fall of the Median Empire was due immediately to
+the genius of the Persian Prince; but its ruin was prepared, and its
+destruction was really caused, by the shortsightedness of the Median
+monarch.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media, by George Rawlinson
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