HISTORY OF ANCIENT NATIONS. 



-tribes or villages, under the special name of the 

 Medes, the country which they inhabited being 

 thence called Media. South from Media, and 

 nearer the sea, was another district of Iran, called 

 Persis or Persia, inhabited also by an association 

 of tribes calling themselves the Persians. Other 

 nations of Iran were the Parthians, the Bac- 

 trians, &c. all originally subject to the Assyrian 



empire. 



Median history begins with Cyaxares (for the 

 list of her kings, beginning with Deioces, given by 



classical historians, is a fabulous one), who con- 

 solidated into an empire a heterogeneous mass of 

 tribes, and extended the Median dominion as far 

 westward into Asia Minor as the river Halys. 

 He was engaged in an attempt against Nineveh, 

 when he was called away to defend his kingdom 



.against a great roving population, called Scythians, 

 by whom he was defeated, and who continued to 

 hold him tributary and plunder Media for twenty- 



eight years. At length, having assassinated their 

 chiefs by a stratagem, Cyaxares drove the invaders 

 back into the north. He then renewed his attempt 

 against Nineveh ; took it, and shared the Assyr- 

 ian dominions with the monarch of Babylon. 

 The Median empire, thus formed, he bequeathed 



.(593 B.C.) to his son Astyages, having reigned, 

 according to Herodotus, 40 years. 



The circumstances which led to the revolt of 

 the Persians under Cyrus* against the Medes, and 

 the dethronement by him of Astyages (560 B.C.), 

 had been woven into a romance resembling the 

 story of Romulus, even so early as the age of 

 Herodotus (408 B.C.), so that that historian 

 could not ascertain the actual facts of the case. 

 'The native Persians,' says Mr Grote, 'whom 

 Cyrus conducted, were an aggregate of seven 

 agricultural and four nomadic tribes, all of them 

 rude, hardy, and brave, dwelling in a mountainous 

 region, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, 

 or of any of the commonest luxuries of life, and 

 despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their 

 tribes were very unequal in point of dignity ; first 

 in estimation among them stood the Pasargadae ; 

 and the first clan among the Pasargadae were the 

 Achoemenidas, to whom Cyrus belonged. Whether 

 his relationship to the Median king whom he 

 dethroned was a fact or a politic fiction, we can- 

 not well determine ; but Xenophon gives us to 

 understand that the conquest of Media by the 

 Persians was reported to him as having been an 

 obstinate and protracted struggle.' 



.Master of Media, the Persian chief, in his turn, 

 became a great oriental conqueror ; indeed, all 

 the oriental conquests bear the same character. 

 A nomadic race, led by a chief of great abilities, 

 invades the more organised states, and conquers 

 them ; the chief assumes the government, and 

 founds a dynasty, which, after a rule of several 

 generations, becomes enervated, and gives way 

 before some new nomadic incursion. The first 

 power against which Cyrus turned his arms, after 

 having subdued the Medes, was the famous 

 Lydian kingdom, which then subsisted in Asia 

 Minor under the great Crcesus. And here, there- 

 fore, we must give some account of the ancient 

 condition of Asia Minor and its principalities. 



'_ The Persian form of the word is Khosru, meaning ' the Sun," 

 which was corrupted by the Greek writers into Kurot (lord), the 

 Latin form of which is Cyrus. 



States of Asia Minor The Lydians. 



The river Halys divided Asia Minor into two 

 parts. East of the Halys, or near its source, were 

 various nations of the Semitic stock, Cappado- 

 cians, Cilicians, Pamphylians, &c. each organ- 

 ised apart, but all included under the Assyrian, 

 and latterly, as we have seen, under the Median 

 empire. West of the Halys, the inhabitants were 

 apparently of the Indo-Germanic race, although 

 separated by many removes from the Indo-Ger- 

 mans of Persia. They are considered as belonging 

 to what has been called the Pelasgic stock of the 

 Indo-Germanic or European family, of which the 

 inhabitants of Italy and Greece are also members. 

 Overspreading this part of Asia Minor, as well as 

 Thrace and other parts of South-eastern Europe, 

 this great race had been broken up into fragments 

 distinguished by characteristic differences. To 

 enumerate these various nations, assigning to each 

 its exact geographical limits, is impossible ; the 

 chief, however, were the Bithynians, a sort of 

 Asiatic Thracians on the southern coast of the 

 Euxine ; the Lydians and Carians in the south- 

 west ; and, intermediate between the two, geo- 

 graphically as well as in respect of race and lan- 

 guage, the Mysians and Phrygians. These were 

 the native states ; but along the whole ^gasan 

 shore was diffused a large Greek population, 

 emigrants, it is believed, from European Greece, 

 chiefly gathered into cities. These Greeks of 

 Asia Minor were of three races the^Eolic Greeks 

 in the north, and the Ionian and Dorian Greeks 

 in the south ; and perhaps the earliest manifesta- 

 tions of Greek genius, political or literary, were 

 among these Greeks of Asia. The intercourse of 

 these Greeks with the native Lydians, Phrygians, 

 c. gave rise to mixture of population as well as 

 to interchange of habits ; the native music espe- 

 cially of the Lydians and Phrygians became in- 

 corporated with that of the Greeks. 



When Lydia, with its capital Sardis, first began 

 to be a powerful state, is not known ; it is remark- 

 able, however, that the Lydians are not mentioned 

 in Homer. According to Herodotus, the Lydians 

 traced their history back through three dynasties. 

 ist, The Atyadas, from the earliest times to 1221 

 B.C. ; 2d, the Heracleidas, from 1221 B.C. to 716 

 B.C.; and 3^, the Mermnadae. Only the last 

 dynasty is historic. 



The first king of the Mermnad dynasty was 

 Gyges (716-678 B.C.); the second, Ardys (678-629 

 B.C.), in whose reign the Cimmerians, from Scythia, 

 invaded Asia Minor; the third, Sadyattes (629- 

 617 B.C.); the fourth, Alyattes (617-560 B.C.). 

 Each of these Lydian kings was engaged in wars 

 both with the Asiatic Greeks of the coast and the 

 native states of the interior. The growth of the 

 Lydian power was impeded by the Cimmerian 

 invasion ; but those savage nomads were at 

 length expelled by Alyattes ; and Crcesus, the 

 son of Alyattes by an Ionian wife, having suc- 

 ceeded his father 560 B.C. soon raised himself to 

 the position of a great potentate, ruling over nearly 

 the whole country westward of the Halys, com- 

 prehending jColian, Ionian, and Dorian Greeks ; 

 Phrygians ; Mysians, Paphlagonians, Bithynians, 

 Carians, Pamphylians, &c. At Sardis, the capital 

 of this extensive dominion, was accumulated an 

 immense treasure, composed of the tribute which 



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