Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

I30
HISTORY OF PERSIA
horseback, these hardy horsemen, like the Parthians of
a later date, kept just out of reach of their enemy and
poured in a ceaseless stream of arrows which was demoralizing
even to the best-trained veterans. Cyaxares, while
organizing his army, trained it to war by stubbornly
resisting the Assyrians ; and at length a victory was
won over the generals of Assurbanipal and Assyria was
invaded for the second time.
The First Siege of Nineveh.— Nineveh, it might be
thought, was too strongly
fortified for the Medes to
attempt to capture it. Nevertheless Cyaxares laid siege
to it while his troops devastated the fertile plain, and
the feelings inspired by his attempt to overthrow Assyria
may be read in the book of Nahum. " The burden of
and who
Nineveh," begins this splendidly realistic book,
does not feel the spell of its burning lines
"
? The noise
of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and
of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The
horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the
glitter-
ing spear : and there is a multitude of slain, and a
great
number of carcases and there is none end of their ;
corpses ;
they stumble upon their corpses." -^
The Scythian Invasion.— Just when it seemed probable
that the great robber nation would at last be dealt with
as it deserved, a horde of Scythians, possibly as allies of
Assyria, flung themselves on Media and compelled Cyax-|
ares to raise the
siege of Nineveh and to return to
defend]
his own country. There he was defeated, to the north of
Lake Urumia, and forced to accept the victors' terms.
The Scythians, intoxicated by success and aware of
the]
weakness of Assyria, which had succumbed to the power!
they had themselves vanquished, overran the whole!
country. The fortresses alone resisted the tempestuous!
charge of these wild horsemen, who destroyed everything!
they could capture. Meeting with little resistance and!
finding insufficient booty in Assyria, they swept through]
it like a cyclone and then overran province after province,
as far as the Mediterranean Sea. It is to this invasion
that the prophet Jeremiah referred when he wrote : "They
^ Nahum iii. 2 and 3.