Herodotus - The Histories.pdf

The Histories–Book One V 111
On the death of Phraortes his son Cyaxares
ascended the throne. Of him it is reported that he
was still more war-like than any of his ancestors,
and that he was the first who gave organisation to
an Asiatic army, dividing the troops into companies,
and forming distinct bodies of the spearmen,
the archers, and the cavalry, who before his time
had been mingled in one mass, and confused
together. He it was who fought against the
Lydians on the occasion when the day was
changed suddenly into night, and who brought
under his dominion the whole of Asia beyond the
Halys. This prince, collecting together all the
nations which owned his sway, marched against
Nineveh, resolved to avenge his father, and cherishing
a hope that he might succeed in taking the
town. A battle was fought, in which the Assyrians
suffered a defeat, and Cyaxares had already
begun the siege of the place, when a numerous
horde of Scyths, under their king Madyes, son of
Prtotohyes, burst into Asia in pursuit of the
Cimmerians whom they had driven out of
Europe, and entered the Median territory.