Cyaxares.
The great Median kingdom really began with Cyaxares, about the year B.C. 633, when the Assyrian empire was waning. He emerges from the obscurity like Attila and Gengis Khan, and other eastern conquerors, at the head of irresistible hordes, sweeps all away before him, and builds up an enormous power. This period was distinguished by a great movement among the Turanian races (Cimmerians), living north of the Danube, which, according to Herodotus, made a great irruption into Asia Minor, where some of the tribes effected a permanent settlement; while the Scythians, from Central Asia, overran Media, crossed the Zagros mountains, entered Mesopotamia, passed through Syria to Egypt, and held the dominion of Western Asia, till expelled by Cyaxares. He only established his new kingdom after a severe conflict between the Scythian and Aryan races, which had hitherto shared the possession of the tablelands of Media.
The irruption of the Turanian races.
From age to age the Turanian races have pressed forward to occupy the South, and it was one of these great movements which Cyaxares opposed, and opposed successfully—the first recorded in history. These nomads of Tartary, or Scythian tribes, which overran Western Asia in the seventh century before Christ, under the new names of Huns, Avari, Bulgarians, Magyars, Turks, Mongols, devastated Europe and Asia for fifteen successive centuries. They have been the scourge of the race, and they commenced their incursions before Grecian history begins.
Conquests of Cyaxares.
Learning from these Scythian invaders many arts, not before practiced in war, such as archery and cavalry movements, Cyaxares was prepared to extend his empire to the west over Armenia and Asia Minor, as far as the river Halys. He made war in Lydia with the father of Crœsus. But before these conquests were made, he probably captured Nineveh and destroyed it, B.C. 625. He was here assisted by the whole force of the Babylonians, under Nabopolassar, an old general of the Assyrians, but who had rebelled. In reward he obtained for his son, Nebuchadnezzar, [pg 091] the hand of the daughter of Cyaxares. The last of the Assyrian monarchs, whom the Greeks have called Sardanapalus, burned himself in his palace rather than fall into the hands of the Median conqueror.
War with Lydia.
The fall of Nineveh led to the independence of Babylon, and its wonderful growth, and also to the conquests of the Medes as far as Lydia to the west. The war with Lydia lasted six years, and was carried on with various success, until peace was restored by the mediation of a Babylonian prince. The reason that peace was made was an eclipse of the sun, which happened in the midst of a great battle, which struck both armies with superstitious fears. On the conclusion of peace, the son of the Median king, Astyages, married the daughter of the Lydian monarch, Alyattes, and an alliance was formed between Media and Lydia.
The Lydian monarchy.
At this time Lydia comprised nearly all of Asia Minor, west of the Halys. The early history of this country is involved in obscurity. The dynasty on the throne, when invaded by the Medes, was founded by Gyges, B.C. 724, who began those aggressions on the Grecian colonies which were consummated by Crœsus. Under the reign of Ardys, his successor, Asia Minor was devastated by the Cimmerians, a people who came from the regions north of the Black Sea, between the Danube and the Sea of Azov, being driven away by an inundation of Scythians, like that which afterward desolated Media. These Cimmerians, having burned the great temple of Diana, at Ephesus, and destroyed the capital city of Sardis, were expelled from Lydia by Alyattes, the monarch against whom Cyaxares had made war.