ess must have been even more conspicuous. It was then
especially that Media deserved to be called, as she is in Scripture,
"the mighty one of the heathen"--"the terrible of the nations."

Her valor, undoubtedly, was of the merciless kind. There was no
tenderness, no hesitancy about it. Not only did her armies "dash
to pieces" the fighting men of the nations opposed to her, allowing
apparently no quarter, but the women and the children suffered
indignities and cruelties at the hands of her savage warriors, which the
pen unwillingly records. The Median conquests were accompanied by the
worst atrocities which lust and hate combined are wont to commit when
they obtain their full swing. Neither the virtue of women nor the
innocence of children were a protection to them. The infant was slain
before the very eye of the parent. The sanctity of the hearth was
invaded, and the matron ravished beneath her own roof-tree. Spoil, it
would seem, was disregarded in comparison with insult and vengeance;
and the brutal soldiery cared little either for silver or gold, provided
they could indulge freely in that thirst for blood which man shares with
the hyena and the tiger.

The habits of the Medes in the early part of their career were
undoubtedly simple and manly. It has been observed with justice that the
same general features have at all times distinguished the rise and fall
of Oriental kingdoms and dynasties. A brave and adventurous prince, at
the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy, overruns
a vast tract, and acquires extensive dominion, while his successors,
abandoning themselves to sensuality and sloth, probably also to
oppressive and irascible dispositions, become in process of time victims
to those same qualities in another prince and people which had enabled
their own predecessor to establish their power. It was as being braver,
simpler, and so stronger than the Assyrians that the Medes were able to
dispossess them of their sovereignty over western Asia. But in this,
as in most other cases of conquest throughout the East, success was
followed almost immediately by degeneracy. As captive Greece captured
her fierce conqueror, so the subdued Assyrians began at once to corrupt
their subduers. Without condescending to a close imitation of Assyrian
manners and customs, the Medes proceeded directly after their conquest
to relax the severity of their old habits and to indulge in the delights
of soft and luxurious liv