ts it was easy to compile lists of Median
kings which had no real connection with each other as far as their
names, order of succession, or duration of reign were concerned. The
Assyrian chronicles have handed down to us, in place of these dynasties
which were alleged to have exercised authority over the whole territory,
a considerable number of noble houses scattered over the country, each
of them autonomous, and a rival of its neighbour, and only brought into
agreement with one another at rare intervals by their common hatred of
the invader. Some of them were representatives of ancient races akin
to the Susians, and perhaps to the first inhabitants of Chaldaea; others
belonged to tribes of a fresh stock, that of the Aryans, and more
particularly to the Iranian branch of the Aryan family. We catch
glimpses of them in the reign of Shalmaneser III., who calls them the
Amadai; then, after this first brush with Assyria, intercourse and
conflict between the two nations became more and more frequent every
year, until the "distant Medes" soon began to figure among the regular
adversaries of the Ninevite armies, and even the haughtiest monarchs
refer with pride to victories gained over them. Ramman-nirari waged
ceaseless war against them, Tiglath-pileser III. twice drove them
before him from the south-west to the north-east as far as the foot
of Demavend, while Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, during their
respective reigns, kept anxious watch upon them, and endeavoured to
maintain some sort of authority over the tribes which lay nearest to
them. Both in the personal names and names of objects which have
come down to us in the records of these campaigns, we detect
Iranian characteristics, in spite of the Semitic garb with which the
inscriptions have invested them: among the names of countries we find
Partukka, Diristanu, Patusharra, Nishaia, Urivzan, Abiruz, and Ariarma,
while the men bear such names as Ishpabarra, Eparna, Shitirparna,
Uarzan, and Dayaukku. As we read through the lists, faint resemblances
in sound awaken dormant classical memories, and the ear detects familiar
echoes in the names of those Persians whose destinies were for a time
linked with those of Athens and Sparta in the days of Darius and of
Xerxes: it is like the first breath of Greek influence, faint and almost
imperceptible as yet, wafted to us across the denser atmosphere of the
East.

The Iranians had a vague remembrance of a bygone epoch, during