MEDIA MEDIATISATION. 



751 



she had Meilos. From Athens, also, she was ban- 

 ished as a sorceress. She finally returned to her 

 home, whrre she reinstated her father, who had been 

 dethroned by his brother 1'erses, after which she 

 died. According to later accounts, she became 

 reconciled with Jason, and was deified by the Col- 

 chians. Medos is said to have taken possession of 

 the kingdom of his grandfather, and to have called 

 it, from himself, Media. The story of Medea has 

 often been a subject of poetry, especially of tragic 

 poetry. The tragedies of this name, by ./Eschylus and 

 Ovid, have perished, as well as the Colchides of So- 

 phocles. The Medeas of Euripides and Seneca are 

 alone extant. The story has lately been made the 

 subject of a tragedy by Grillparzer. 



MEDIA; the largest and most important province 

 of the ancient Persian empire, bounded east by Hyr- 

 cania and Parthia, south by Persis and Susiana, west 

 by Assyria and Armenia, and north by the Caspian 

 sea ; so that it comprised the modern Iran, Aderbid- 

 shan. Ghilan, and the western half of Mazanderan. 

 According to Hammer, it belonged to Aria, or 

 Ariana, of the Zend, the land of the Medes, in its 

 widest extent. This Aria is bounded by the ancient 

 Bactria, the centre of the great national intercourse 

 of Asia, of the religion of the Magi, and of the an- 

 cient Persian civilization. (See Zoroaster.) Media, 

 on account of its mountains, was not easily accessi- 

 ble, was inhabited by warlike people, and, in part, 

 well cultivated. Even before the Persian period, it 

 was an independent kingdom. Its history begins 

 with Dejoces,who, according to Herodotus, collected 

 the people in villages and towns, and accustomed them 

 to laws. He is said to have conquered Ecbatana. Ninus, 

 the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, conquered this 

 country. After the downfall of the Assyrian empire, 

 a governor of the province of Media succeeded in 

 rendering it once more independent, and it soon be- 

 came the most powerful of the states which had arisen 

 from the ruins of the Assyrian monarchy. Accord- 

 ing to tradition, as given by Herodotus, another De- 

 jores begins a series of Median kings at Ecbatana, 

 which continues uninterrupted from 700 B. C. to 

 500 B. C. The last were Phraortes, Cyaxares, and 

 Astyages. Respecting the then existing connexion 

 of Media with Bactria and India, nothing certain is 

 known. Cyrus (q. v.) subjected the Medes to the Per- 

 sians. This latter people had, till then, been consid- 

 ered by the former as of little importance, on account 

 of their poverty. The conquered soon became the 

 teachers of the conquerors, not only in the arts and 

 manners of private life, but also in their public 

 policy. After Cyrus, Media remained connected 

 with the other parts of the Persian empire, excepting 

 that the north-western parts, which, before the 

 time of Cyrus, seem to have belonged to Assyria, 

 were separated, for a time, from the Persian mon- 

 archy. When Alexander had conquered the Persian 

 empire, he gave to Media a native governor, named 

 Atropates, who maintained himself in the northern 

 mountains, even after the death of Alexander, when 

 Media had received a Macedonian governor. His 

 posterity inherited his power, and, in spite of their 

 dangerous neighbours, the Parthians, Armenians, and 

 Romans, maintained possession of it, partly by pru- 

 dence, partly by arms. In the time of the first 

 Roman emperors, Media was still independent ; at a 

 later period, it came under the yoke of the Parthians. 

 Media consisted of Southern, or Proper Media, also 

 called Great Media, whose capital was Ecbatana ; of 

 the country of Atropates, (Atropatene), and of the 

 northern parts, along the shores of the Caspian sea, 

 called North Media. 



MEDIAN WALL, in ancient geography, also 

 called frail of Semiramis (not built, however, by 



Semiramis), is reported to have been 300 feet high, 

 about 140 miles long, and twenty feet thick, in Me- 

 sopotamia, running north-west from the Tigris, about 

 thirty miles distant from the present Bagdad ; erected 

 against the invasions of the Medians. It was built 

 of brick and asphaltum. 



MEDIATION, MEDIATOR. In international 

 politics, a power which endeavours to prevent, by 

 peaceable interference, an approaching war, or close 

 one which has broken out, is called a mediator. 

 Mediation is essentially different from arbitration, 

 which takes place if two powers submit points in dis- 

 pute between them to the decision of a third power, 

 which is to confine itself strictly to the points at issue, 

 a proviso which often affords a dissatisfied party 

 a pretext for rejecting the decision. Mediation 

 generally takes place in consequence of a re- 

 quest. In 1818, Spain asked the mediation of the 

 powers assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle in her quarrel 

 with her American colonies, which, however, was 

 refused, on the ground that the aid desired would 

 amount to assistance in making a re-conquest. The 

 Poles, in 1831, sought for the mediation of Britain 

 between themselves and Russia. France has been, 

 very often, the mediator between Russia and Turkey, 

 or Austria and Turkey, from interested motives, to 

 prevent Russia or Austria from becoming too power- 

 ful. Several powers may act jointly as mediators. 

 Mediation, particularly of late, has often been per- 

 formed by congresses, as, for instance, in the case of 

 the treaty of London (July 6, 1827) for the pacifica- 

 tion of Greece, or the late mediation of the con- 

 gress at London between Holland and Belgium. 

 This kind of mediation, however, was introduced by 

 a most arbitrary declaration at Aix-la-Chapelle, that 

 the five great powers of Europe, Austria, France, 

 Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia, would be the 

 mediators in all disputes between minor powers. 

 Their ministers in Paris, Frankfort, and Vienna were 

 provided with the necessary authorities. This led to 

 the adoption of the principle of armed intervention at 

 Laybach and Verona. (See Intervention.) Napo- 

 leon took the title of mediator of Switzerland. (See 

 Switzerland.) By a law of the German empire, 

 disputes between the members were left to the deci- 

 sion of a third member a proceeding called Austra- 

 galinstanz. (See German Empire.) The same rule 

 has been established in the Germanic confederacy. 



Mediator, in theology, is an appellation which is 

 given in a peculiar sense to Jesus Christ, the In- 

 structer and Saviour of mankind. Divines, however, 

 have differed in their sentiments in respect to the 

 nature and extent of this office, and the mode of its 

 accomplishment. 



MEDIATISATION. When the German empire, 

 whose unity and power had been long before de- 

 stroyed, was formally dissolved (in 1806), it would 

 have been impossible to suffer such a number of 

 small sovereignties to exist by the side of each other 

 as remained in Suabia, Franconia, Bavaria, and on 

 the Rhine, even after the secularizations of the ec- 

 clesiastical governments in 1803. It was a work of 

 necessity and of duty to the subjects, to aggregate 

 them in large masses ; and, in the previous history 

 of the empire, good precedents were found for 

 changing smaller estates from immediate members of 

 the empire to mediate, that is, to dependencies on 

 the larger governments. The number of the estates 

 of the empire formerly exempted in this manner WHS 

 very considerable, especially in the Austrian coun- 

 tries. But what made this proceeding odious in 

 1806 was, partly, the want of a principle ; for large 

 possessions, like Furstenberg, with 74,000 inhabi- 

 tants, Leiningen, with 83,OOO, were mediatised, 

 while much smaller ones retained their sovereignty ; 



