the country is an
elevated region inclosed by the offshoots of the Armenian mountains, and
surrounding the basin of the great lake Urumizu, four thousand two hundred
feet above the sea, and the valleys of the ancient Mardus and the Araxes,
the northern boundary of the land. In this mountain region stands Tabris,
the delightful summer seat of the modern Persian shahs. The slopes of the
Tagros furnish excellent pasture; and here were reared the famous horses
which the ancients called Nisaean. The eastern districts are flat and
pestilential, where they sink down to the shores of the Caspian Sea;
rugged and sterile where they adjoin the desert of Iran." The people who
inhabited this country were hardy and bold, and were remarkable for their
horsemanship. They were the greatest warriors of the ancient world, until
the time of the Greeks. They were called Aryans by Herodotus. They had
spread over the highlands of Western Asia in the primeval ages, and formed
various tribes. The first notice of this Aryan (or Arian) race, appears in
the inscriptions on the black obelisk of Nimrod, B.C. 880, from which it
would appear that this was about the period of the immigration into Media,
and they were then exposed to the aggressions of the Assyrians. "The first
king who menaced their independence was the monarch whose victories are
recorded on the black obelisk in the British Museum." He made a raid into,
rather than a conquest of, the Median country. Sargon, the third monarch
of the Lower Empire, effected something like a conquest, and peopled the
cities which he founded with Jewish captives from Samaria, B.C. 710. Media
thus became the most eastern province of his empire, but the conquest of
it was doubtless incomplete. The Median princes paid tribute to the kings
of Nineveh, or withheld it, according to their circumstances.

(M175) According to Ctesias, the Median monarchy commenced B.C. 875; but
Herodotus, with greater probable accuracy, places the beginning of it B.C.
708. The revolt of Media from Assyria was followed by the election of
Deioces, who reigned fifty-three years. The history of this king is drawn
through Grecian sources, and can not much be depended upon. According to
the legends, the seven tribes of the Medes, scattered over separate
villages, suffered all the evils of anarchy, till the reputation of
Deioces made him the arbiter of their disputes. He then retired into
private life; anarchy returned, a king was called f