BABYLON AND PERSIA

MEDIA AND TIIE RISE OF PERSIA.28lamong the allies or vassal princes who helped Ky¬axares to overwhelm Assyria.There is no doubt,at all events, that Persia stood towards Media inthe position of a subject and tributary country,since the beginning of its greatness dates from itsrevolt against the Median rule under Kyros II. andthe overthrow of the Median Empire by that King.l6. None of the histories we inherit from antiquity,either entire or in fragments, nor, consequently, ofthe modern histories compiled from those materials,gives us the facts crowded into the last few para¬graphs. No one had the remotest idea of Kyroshaving been any thing but a king of Persia, or of, theAkhaemenians having reigned in a double line, andthe very name of Anshan was unknown. Two setsof monuments accidentally discovered at varioustimes and in various places revealed these facts,which, standing forth in the uncompromising sim¬plicity and stubbornness of Contemporary evidence,overthrew the familiar structure raised out of thestories half fabulous as they now turn out to bewhich the Greek writers took on trust from Medianand Persian sources, epical ballads, most of them,not untainted with myth. Of these monumentssome are Persian and three are Babylonian cylindersrecording some of the acts of Nabonidus, the lastking of Babylon, and the capture of that city byKyros, who on both cylinders is called and callshimself " King of Anshan," not of Persia. It is wellestablishedthat Kyros, at the time of the conquestof Babylon, was already king of Persia ; but thatcountry was rather distant and probably little known