or, and Deioces was
elected. He organized a despotic power, which had its central seat in
Ecbatana, which he made his capital, built upon a hill, on the summit of
which was the royal palace, where the king reigned in seclusion,
transacting all business through spies, informers, petitions, and decrees.
Such is the account which Rawlinson gives, and which Smith follows.

(M176) The great Median kingdom really began with Cyaxares, about the year
B.C. 633, when the Assyrian empire was waning. He emerges from the
obscurity like Attila and Gengis Khan, and other eastern conquerors, at
the head of irresistible hordes, sweeps all away before him, and builds up
an enormous power. This period was distinguished by a great movement among
the Turanian races (Cimmerians), living north of the Danube, which,
according to Herodotus, made a great irruption into Asia Minor, where some
of the tribes effected a permanent settlement; while the Scythians, from
Central Asia, overran Media, crossed the Zagros mountains, entered
Mesopotamia, passed through Syria to Egypt, and held the dominion of
Western Asia, till expelled by Cyaxares. He only established his new
kingdom after a severe conflict between the Scythian and Aryan races,
which had hitherto shared the possession of the tablelands of Media.

(M177) From age to age the Turanian races have pressed forward to occupy
the South, and it was one of these great movements which Cyaxares opposed,
and opposed successfully--the first recorded in history. These nomads of
Tartary, or Scythian tribes, which overran Western Asia in the seventh
century before Christ, under the new names of Huns, Avari, Bulgarians,
Magyars, Turks, Mongols, devastated Europe and Asia for fifteen successive
centuries. They have been the scourge of the race, and they commenced
their incursions before Grecian history begins.

(M178) Learning from these Scythian invaders many arts, not before
practiced in war, such as archery and cavalry movements, Cyaxares was
prepared to extend his empire to the west over Armenia and Asia Minor, as
far as the river Halys. He made war in Lydia with the father of Croesus.
But before these conquests were made, he probably captured Nineveh and
destroyed it, B.C. 625. He was here assisted by the whole force of the
Babylonians, under Nabopolassar, an old general of the Assyrians, but who
had rebelled. In reward he obtained for his son, Nebuchadnezzar, the hand
of the daughter of Cyaxares. The l