BABYLON AND PERSIA

268 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.highlands, where they became a ruling class, a mili¬tary aristocracy, which held the " natives," the"owners of the soil " (of different, mostly Turanian,race), in subjection.The .seven-fold belt of defence,with which the foreign royalty enclosed itself, mayhave been at first a necessary precaution against pos¬sible risings.In the course of time, as the distinc¬tion grew less marked, and the enmity of the racesbecame merged in a common national feeling, theconquerors' name was adopted by the rest of thepopulation, and they all called themselves " Medes "together. As to the " nomads " and the " tentdwellers" (shepherds), this designation probablycovers a large proportion of still fluctuating popula¬tion in the steppes of Central and Western Eran, com¬posed mainly of Eranian elements ;for the MedianEmpire at this period of its greatest extension cov¬ered an area reaching from the Halys and Araxes onone side, across a vast tract of desert and mountainwilds on the other, some say, as far as the Indus it¬self. But its eastern boundaries were never very welldefined.It seems certain, however, that most coun¬tries composing Eastern EranHyrcania, Parthia,Bactria, and several more which figure on ancientmaps, were subject and paid tribute to Media ;someof them probably were ruled by Median governors.8. The sixth Median tribe on Herodotus' listbears the name of Magi. That these were thepriests, forming a separate body, there is no shadowof a doubt. It is the name and the only oneunder which the Eranian priesthood has been knownto foreign nations.Yet, as we have seen, it is not