rich, and art
the lord of many nations; but in respect to that whereon thou
questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou
hast closed thy life happily."

The Median Empire occupied a territory indefinitely extending over
a region south of the Caspian, between the Kurdish Mountains and
the modern Khorassan. The Median monarchy, according to Herodotus,
commenced B.C. 708. The Medes, which were racially akin to the
Persians, had been for fifty years subject to the Assyrian monarchy
when they revolted, setting up an independent empire. Putting aside
the dates given by the Greek historians, we shall perhaps be
correct in considering that the great Median kingdom was
established by Cyaxares, B.C. 633; and that in B.C. 610 a great
struggle of six years between Media and Lydia was amicably ended,
under the terror occasioned by an eclipse, by the establishment of
a treaty and alliance between the contending powers. With the death
of Cyaxares, B.C. 597, the glory of the great Median Empire passed
away, for under his son, Astyages, the country was conquered by
Cyrus.

The rise of the Babylonian Empire seems to have originated B.C.
2234, when the Cushite inhabitants of southern Babylonia raised a
native dynasty to the throne, liberated themselves from the yoke
of the Zoroastrian Medes, and instituted an empire with several
large capitals, where they built mighty temples and introduced the
worship of the heavenly bodies in contradistinction to the
elemental worship of the Magian Medes. The record of Babylonian
kings is full of obscurity, even in the light of recent
archaeological discoveries. We can trace, however, a gradual
expansion of Babylonian dominion, even to the borders of Egypt.
Nabo Polassar, B.C. 625 to B.C. 604, was a great warrior, and at
Carchemish defeated even the almost invincible Egyptians, B.C. 604.

His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604, immediately set about the
fortification of his capital. A space of more than 130 square miles
was enclosed within walls 80 feet in breadth and 300 or 400 in
height, if we may believe the record. Meanwhile, with the
assistance of Cyaxares, King of Media, he captured Tyre, in
Phoenicia, and Jerusalem, in Syria; but fifteen years after Croesus
had been taken prisoner and the Per