ECBATANA. 
97 
authority of native patriarchal chiefs, or the residence of dele¬ 
gated rulers. When Arbaces kept his viceroy-court there, we 
may suppose that the ambitious spirit which afterwards com¬ 
passed the dominion of Assyria, would, meanwhile, make his 
provincial capital imitate the style of an independent princi¬ 
pality. But when he became sovereign in fact, he left the lesser 
grandeur for the greater, and, quitting Ecbatana, took up his 
royal residence at Nineveh. The Median city then fell again 
into the hands of deputies ; reserving for his reputed descendant, 
the brave and virtuous Dejoces, to free that fine country from 
the Assyrian bondage, and to begin the career of Ecbatana’s 
real greatness. No expence of money, no exertion of the arts, 
were now spared, to render the capital of the Medes the noblest 
city in the world. Its palaces, public edifices, and circuits of 
walls, became the envy of the neighbouring kingdoms. Year 
after year added to its grandeur ; and Amytis, the queen of Ne¬ 
buchadnezzar, drew the model of her celebrated hanging gardens 
at Babylon, from the magnificent mountain-terraces of Ecbatana. 
Nay, even a thousand years after this its recorded time of high¬ 
est glory, in A.D. 303, when Tyridates, king of Armenia, became 
possessed of Antropatia (Azerbijan), he lavished the most enor¬ 
mous sums on Tauris (Tabreez), its capital, to make it equal, if 
not transcend, the boasted metropolis of Media; and so trans¬ 
ported was his admiration of that splendid city, he even changed 
the name of Tauris to that of Ecbatana. Herodotus, in writing 
of the ancient capital of the Medes, describes it as “ built on a 
gentle ascent, about 12 stadia (3 miles) from the foot of Mount 
Orontes, and in compass 150 stadia, (about 36 miles.) It had no 
surrounding walls, but possessed a strong citadel, bulwarked by 
seven circles of them, each varying in material and elevation, 
VOL. II. 
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