The Historians' History of the World 02

We have listened to Herodotus’ naïve story of the foundation of the Median kingdom by Deioces, son of Phraortes, a story in which Greek and oriental colours are charmingly blended. We may assume as certain that Deioces possessed a principality, the central point of which was Ecbatana (or Agbatana; old Persian Hagmatana, now Hamadan), a place which for thousands of years has held the rank of a capital. This principality probably never embraced the whole of Media (i.e., nearly the present provinces of Irak Adjemi and Azerbijan with a portion of Turkish Kurdistan), but by his successors it was enlarged into the great Median empire. Of course there was no smooth and formal constitution, no fixed frontier, no exact determination of the prerogatives of different chiefs in the particular districts. From of old the Assyrians had made frequent attempts to subjugate the country of the Medes, but perhaps never quite possessed the whole land with its numerous inaccessible mountains and warlike robber tribes. Nevertheless they made successful expeditions into the interior of Media even down to the time at which Herodotus regards Media as independent. Neither the liberation of Media nor the foundation of the monarchy is an event which can be limited to a particular year, the thing took place gradually. In the period not long before Deioces, according to Herodotus’ reckoning, very many tributary Median chieftains are mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions; this confirms, in some measure at least, the statement that “anarchy” then prevailed. In 715 B.C. there was carried off as prisoner one Daiaukku; this is certainly the same name, perhaps the same person (for his captivity may have been brief), as Daiokes, which appears in Herodotus in the Ionic form Deiokes. We can certainly identify Herodotus’ first king with the prince whose land, called Bit Daiaukku (i.e., land of Daiaukku), King Sargon of Assyria conquered in 713 B.C. The man who thus gave his name to the land must have occupied a high station. The date is not very remote from that assigned by Herodotus to Deioces; for we get from Herodotus as the date of Deioces 709-656, or, if we correct his error in dating the end of the empire, 700-647. Deioces was not a king of kings; he was forced to bow to the Assyrians repeatedly, but he was the founder of the empire. Three kings followed him. It is possible that there were really more, and that in the summary list the shorter reigns are passed over. Nor can we place much reliance on Herodotus’ assertion that each successive ruler was the son of his predecessor.

[ca. 700-625 B.C.]

In perfect harmony with the conditions of development of a small state into a great power is the statement of Herodotus that the second king of the Medes, Phraortes (Frawarti; according to Herodotus’ reckoning 656-634 [647-625]), extended his sway beyond the limits of Media, and first of all subjugated Persis, or Persia proper, the secluded mountain-land southeast of Media. During all this time indeed, as we learn from Darius’ great inscription, Persis had kings of its own; but these were simply vassals of the sultan who had his seat in Ecbatana. After conquering the Persians, Phraortes, says Herodotus, subjugated piece after piece of Asia, until he was discomfited and slain in the attempt to conquer the Assyrians in Nineveh, whose empire was by that time completely lost. Allowing for some exaggerations with respect to the extent of the empire, there is nothing in these statements that need excite suspicion. Independent evidence seems to show that towards the middle of the seventh century the Assyrian empire had fallen very low; and that the inhabitants of the cluster of vast cities to which Nineveh belonged were able to repel the first attack of an enemy who could hardly have been their match in the art of siege-warfare is perfectly natural. Besides, the stability of the Median military, political, and court institutions, which were afterwards taken over unaltered by the Persians, must surely have required for its development a longer time than some modern inquirers, following exclusively the cuneiform inscriptions, have assumed for the actual duration of the Median empire.