ad risen in rebellion against their
rulers--Assyria was broken in pieces, and several minor kingdoms rose
on her ruins.

Of these the chief were Media and Babylonia in the east, and Lydia in
the west. Babylonia rose to a great height of power and splendor under
Nebuchadnezzar, as we have seen in our sketch of that king's life. The
Medes, a brave and warlike people, never attained to so high a degree
of civilization as the Babylonians, nor did they ever have a monarch
whose fame equalled that of Sardanapalus, the King of Assyria; of
Nebuchadnezzar; or of Croesus, King of Lydia; but under a succession
of astute and hardy warriors, who held the throne for something over
one hundred and fifty years, their dominion was gradually extended
until it stretched from the Indus to the centre of Asia Minor. Their
greatest achievement had been the destruction of Nineveh in B.C. 606.

Lydia, the remaining province, touched the Median kingdom on the east,
and on the west was only separated, in the beginning, from the
Mediterranean by the narrow strip of territory occupied by the Greek
colonies, which for a time acted as a bar to the encroachments of the
Lydian monarchs and their conquerors.

When Cyrus came to manhood, these kingdoms, the successors of the
Assyrian monarchy, were all flourishing in wealth and power. Media was
ruled by Astyages, his grandfather--to accept the legendary history as
it has come down to us; Babylonia the greatest of the three was
governed by Nebuchadnezzar, while Lydia was ruled by Croesus, a
monarch wise above his peers, whose name has long been a synonym for
unbounded wealth, and whose story, though not beyond the bounds of
credibility, reads more like a fable of romance than a tale of sober
fact.

Croesus was the brother-in-law of Astyages, and in close alliance not
only with the Medes, but with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the
Greeks; and he was at the height of his power and was looking forward
to still greater increase of his dominions, when in an evil hour he
struck against the growing greatness of Cyrus, and was crushed in the
encounter. Had he been less arrogant, the doom he wrought for himself
might have been delayed, but it could not have been wholly averted.
Nothing could have long withstood the greed of Cyrus for universal
dominion.

We have seen what good cause Harpagus had to hate Astyages. But he
nursed his revenge with crafty wisdom, and knowing himself powerless
to act openly