The Medes, an Iranian people who live…

The Medes, an Iranian people who live in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran.

In the second half of the seventh century BCE, the Medes had gained their independence and been united by a dynasty.

The kings who established the Mede Empire are generally recognized to be Phraortes and his son Cyaxares, probably chieftains of a nomadic Mede tribe in the desert and on the south shore of the Caspian, the Manda, mentioned by Sargon, and they likely founded the capital at Ecbatana.

According to Herodotus, the conquests of Cyaxares the Mede were preceded by a Scythian invasion and domination lasting twenty-eight years (under Madius the Scythian, 653-625 BCE).

The Mede tribes seem to have come into immediate conflict with a settled state to the West known as Mannae, allied with Assyria.

Assyrian inscriptions state that the early Mede rulers, who had attempted rebellions against the Assyrians in the time of Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal, were allied with chieftains of the Ashguza (Scythians) and other tribes—who had come from the northern shore of the Black Sea and invaded Armenia and Asia Minor; and Jeremiah and Zephaniah in the Old Testament agree with Herodotus that a massive invasion of Syria and Philistia by northern barbarians had taken place in 626 BCE.

Under Cyarxes, the state of Mannae is finally conquered and assimilated by the Medes in the year 616 BCE.

In this year also, …