Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

Iranians fighting Scythians.
(From R. A. S. Journal, vol. Hi.)
CHAPTER X
THE RISE OF MEDIA AND THE FALL OF ASSYRIA
And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from
thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste : who will bemoan her ? whence shall I
seek comforters for thee ?—Nahum iii. 7.
A Description of Media.—The Aryan empire of the
Medes came into being earlier than that of the kindred
Persians, owing to their closer proximity to the predominant
Semitic power of Assyria, and the fact that the
one great
natural route from Mesopotamia to the Iranian
plateau runs across the Zagros range, through the heart of
the country occupied by this tribe. We read of Assyrian
expeditions traversing Media for generation after generation,
apparently with ease, and again we hear of the tribute
which was paid ; and nothing seemed more unlikely than
that the loose congeries of tribes should, within a few years,
develop into a formidable power.
The kingdom of the Medes arose in the centre of the
Zagros range and the fertile plains
to the east of it. It^
was formed, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, by the
union of the six most important tribes under one rule.
At first the district around Hamadan was organized ; but
the rising power soon extended its territories until its
northern boundary was the Caspian Sea. To the northwest
it included the modern province of Azerbaijan ; to
the east there was the Lut, with a scanty nomadic popula-
and on the west and south the kingdom touched the
tion ;
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