The Historians' History of the World 02

Such was the status of the “true Medes.” There is nothing in their condition or history to distinguish them from many other insignificant peoples whose destiny it was to come in contact with the world-empires of antiquity. Their influence on history has been nothing, and their political condition—that of a number of petty independent principalities—naturally worked against the attainment of any great degree of importance. Such information as we have of the rulers and cities of this land that had no central government and was never completely a portion of the Assyrian empire, comes from the inscriptions of the Ninevite kings. Esarhaddon tells of three, Uppis of Partakka, Sanasana of Partukka, and Ramateya of Urakazabarna, who asked his help against the invading nomads.

Sargon II seems to have had the country under heavy tribute, and we may read how, after a rebellion in the north had been put down, there arrived at the conqueror’s new city of Kar-Sharrukin no less than twenty-eight princes from different parts of Media bringing rich presents. But beyond these and a few other citations there is nothing in the story of Media to attract the attention of even a close student of world-history.

Southeast of Urartu was the little kingdom of Man or Minni, whose people were the Manna of the Assyrian texts. We hear of it at the close of the eighth century B.C. when Iranzu was king, and Rusas, the sovereign of Urartu, attacked it, taking two cities. Sargon II came to the rescue of his small neighbour, and Rusas gave up his spoil. After Iranzu’s death, his son Aza was promptly slain by Rusas, but another son, Ullusunu, who gave oath of fidelity to Assyria, was put on the throne by Sargon. Ullusunu, however, soon broke his vows, and there ensued the bloody conflict whose story has been related in the history of Assyria. The Manna, with the Cimmerians and the people of Urartu, formed a great coalition against Esarhaddon of which the nomad chief Kashtariti was head; but this fell to pieces through internal dissension.

Only one other matter of interest concerning these countries need detain us, and that is the fact that they are the nations which Jeremiah believed would work the vengeance of the Lord upon Babylon. The prophet undoubtedly thought that a period of greatness was in store for these peoples, and he looked to them, and not to Elam and Persia, to fulfil his prophecies.

“Make bright the arrows; gather the shields; the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.… Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her [Babylon], call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat [Urartu], Minni, and Ashchenaz.[28] … Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, the captains thereof and all the rulers thereof.…” (Jeremiah li. 11, 27, 28.)

It is clear that Jeremiah had the “true Medes” in mind when he uttered these words, since he speaks of the “kings of the Medes,” whereas the Manda, as we shall presently see, had a strongly organised government under one king.

Modern investigation is tending to establish the fact that this prophecy of Jeremiah is one originally uttered against Nineveh and subsequently changed to apply to the capital of Nebuchadrezzar, since the mention of Urartu and Minni with at least a possible future describes conditions that could scarcely have existed at a date much later than the fall of Nineveh. There are other examples of this sort of adaptation in the Bible; for example, Isaiah’s prophecy of Moab’s doom.

We come now to that recently discovered people, of great importance as the first of the Indo-European family to affect the current of world-history in Western Asia, but of whose story the modern world has remained in complete ignorance until the present day.

By the time of Esarhaddon the wave of Indo-European migration had begun to assume threatening proportions to the Semitic nations of Mesopotamia, although from southern Russia the tide had been pouring in for many centuries. Media was populated, and then the nomadic stream parted, one great mass moving westward into Asia Minor, and another to the east, and then south as far as Elam, neither making any disturbance in the Assyrian empire. Nevertheless the Semites soon found themselves surrounded, peacefully but positively, by an alien race.