| Deioces | 53 years | } 75 years | } 150 years. |
| Phraortes | 22 years | ||
| Cyaxares | 40 years | } 75 years | |
| Astyages | 35 years |
The totals show how the figures are arranged on an artificial system. The duration of the kingdom is exactly a century and a half, divided into two exactly equal portions, each of which is occupied by the reigns of two kings. But further, according to Herodotus, the rule of the Medes over Upper Asia, i.e., the land east of the Halys, lasted one hundred and twenty-eight years, save only (πάρεξ) the twenty-eight years during which the Scythians ruled. It is easy to see that “save only” means “minus,” and that thus the foreign supremacy of the Medes is reckoned at exactly one hundred years, or two-thirds of the total duration of the kingdom. Obviously such figures can at most be only approximately correct. But the names of the kings in Herodotus are now all authenticated, directly or indirectly, by the inscriptions lately discovered. Probably, too, the reckoning of the total duration of the empire at a century and a half is about right. Indeed, such chronological systems sometimes correspond better, on the whole, with the facts than their artificiality would lead us to expect.
We have listened to Herodotus’ naïve story of the foundation of the Median kingdom by Deioces, son of Phraortes, a story in which Greek and oriental colours are charmingly blended. We may assume as certain that Deioces possessed a principality, the central point of which was Ecbatana (or Agbatana; old Persian Hagmatana, now Hamadan), a place which for thousands of years has held the rank of a capital. This principality probably never embraced the whole of Media (i.e., nearly the present provinces of Irak Adjemi and Azerbijan with a portion of Turkish Kurdistan), but by his successors it was enlarged into the great Median empire. Of course there was no smooth and formal constitution, no fixed frontier, no exact determination of the prerogatives of different chiefs in the particular districts. From of old the Assyrians had made frequent attempts to subjugate the country of the Medes, but perhaps never quite possessed the whole land with its numerous inaccessible mountains and warlike robber tribes. Nevertheless they made successful expeditions into the interior of Media even down to the time at which Herodotus regards Media as independent. Neither the liberation of Media nor the foundation of the monarchy is an event which can be limited to a particular year, the thing took place gradually. In the period not long before Deioces, according to Herodotus’ reckoning, very many tributary Median chieftains are mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions; this confirms, in some measure at least, the statement that “anarchy” then prevailed. In 715 B.C. there was carried off as prisoner one Daiaukku; this is certainly the same name, perhaps the same person (for his captivity may have been brief), as Daiokes, which appears in Herodotus in the Ionic form Deiokes. We can certainly identify Herodotus’ first king with the prince whose land, called Bit Daiaukku (i.e., land of Daiaukku), King Sargon of Assyria conquered in 713 B.C. The man who thus gave his name to the land must have occupied a high station. The date is not very remote from that assigned by Herodotus to Deioces; for we get from Herodotus as the date of Deioces 709-656, or, if we correct his error in dating the end of the empire, 700-647. Deioces was not a king of kings; he was forced to bow to the Assyrians repeatedly, but he was the founder of the empire. Three kings followed him. It is possible that there were really more, and that in the summary list the shorter reigns are passed over. Nor can we place much reliance on Herodotus’ assertion that each successive ruler was the son of his predecessor.
[ca. 700-625 B.C.]
In perfect harmony with the conditions of development of a small state into a great power is the statement of Herodotus that the second king of the Medes, Phraortes (Frawarti; according to Herodotus’ reckoning 656-634 [647-625]), extended his sway beyond the limits of Media, and first of all subjugated Persis, or Persia proper, the secluded mountain-land southeast of Media. During all this time indeed, as we learn from Darius’ great inscription, Persis had kings of its own; but these were simply vassals of the sultan who had his seat in Ecbatana. After conquering the Persians, Phraortes, says Herodotus, subjugated piece after piece of Asia, until he was discomfited and slain in the attempt to conquer the Assyrians in Nineveh, whose empire was by that time completely lost. Allowing for some exaggerations with respect to the extent of the empire, there is nothing in these statements that need excite suspicion. Independent evidence seems to show that towards the middle of the seventh century the Assyrian empire had fallen very low; and that the inhabitants of the cluster of vast cities to which Nineveh belonged were able to repel the first attack of an enemy who could hardly have been their match in the art of siege-warfare is perfectly natural. Besides, the stability of the Median military, political, and court institutions, which were afterwards taken over unaltered by the Persians, must surely have required for its development a longer time than some modern inquirers, following exclusively the cuneiform inscriptions, have assumed for the actual duration of the Median empire.
Phraortes’ successor, Cyaxares (Huwakhshatara; according to Herodotus’ reckoning 634-594 [625-585]), brought the empire to the highest pitch of power. He is said to have introduced fixed tactical arrangements into the army. It was to him that the pretenders whom Darius had to overcome traced their descent, as he tells us himself. Cyaxares, according to Herodotus, took the field successfully against Nineveh, but as he was besieging the city the inroad of the “Scythians” compelled him to forego for a time all the fruits of victory. Who these Scythians were is unknown. Herodotus took them for the people tolerably familiar to the Greeks, whose true name was Scolotæ; but his evidence does not go for much, since he often falls into the popular misuse of the term “Scythian” as a name for all the peoples of the steppes, and brings the inroads of these Scythians into a most unlikely connection with the desolating raids of Thracian tribes (the Trares or Treres, commonly called Cimmerians) in Asia Minor. We must content ourselves with assuming that we have here one of those irruptions of northern barbarians into Iran of which we hear so often in later times. Probably these nomads came, as Herodotus indicates, through the natural gate between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, the pass of Derbend, though it is quite possible that they came from the east of the Caspian, from the steppes of Turkestan. Whether these Scythians are really the same people who made their way as far as Palestine and Egypt is, indeed, far from being as certain as is commonly supposed, nor can the date of the irruption into these countries be determined. At any rate, the barbarians overthrew the Medes and flooded the whole empire. From what we know of the doings of Huns, Khazars, Turks, and Mongols in later times we can infer how these Scythians behaved in Iran. Cyaxares must have come to some sort of terms with them: and at last he rid himself of them in a truly Eastern fashion, by inviting most of them (i.e., of their chiefs) to a feast, where he made them drunk and slew them at their wine. It is not in the least surprising that Cyaxares afterwards had Scythians in his service; savages like these have no steady national feeling, and serve any potentate for pay.
[ca. 625-600 B.C.]
With the Scythian disorders we might combine the contests which, according to Ctesias, the Parthians and Sacæ (i.e., the inhabitants of the Turkoman desert, who are also called “Scythians” by the Greeks) waged with Cyaxares, or Astibaras, as Ctesias calls him. But it is not safe to do so, as the whole narrative is only the framework for a pretty romance.
Cyaxares marched a second time against Nineveh and destroyed it about 607. Not only Ctesias but also Berosus asserts that the king of the Medes achieved this great success in league with the king of Babylon. In order to protect himself against his ally, who by the fall of the Assyrian empire had grown too powerful, the Chaldean had recourse to a double precaution: he married his son, afterwards the potent Nebuchadrezzar, to Amyite or Amyitis, daughter of the Median king; but he also erected extensive fortifications. After the fall of Nineveh, Nebuchadrezzar made himself master of Syria and Palestine, and Cyaxares acquired most of the rest of the Assyrian territory. Probably Assyria proper belonged to him also, and we can thus explain Xenophon’s error that the Assyrian cities before their destruction belonged to the Medes (Anab., III, 4, 7-10). When Cyaxares afterwards began the war with the Lydians he was already master of Armenia and Cappadocia, though he probably did not acquire them until after he had got rid of the Scythians and destroyed Nineveh.
[ca. 600-550 B.C.]