with the closing years of Nineveh; I do
not consider them all to be equally probable, but though
they may be mere stop-gap solutions, they have at least the
merit of reproducing in many cases the ideas current among
those races of antiquity who had been in direct
communication with the Medes and with the last of their
sovereigns.

[Illustration: 269.jpg NISAEAN HOUSES HARNESSED TO A ROYAL CHARIOT]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the bas-relief from
Persepolis now in the British Museum.

The first person to conceive the idea of establishing one was, perhaps,
a certain Fravartish, the Phraortes of the Greeks, whom Herodotus
declares to have been the son and successor of Deiokes.*

* The ancient form of the name, Fravartish or Frawarti, has
been handed down to us by a passage in the great inscription
of Behistun; it means the man who proclaims faith in Ahura-
mazda, the believer.

[Illustration: 280.jpg THE PERSIAN REALM]

He came to the throne about 655 B.C. at a time when the styar of
Assur-bani-pal was still in the ascendant, and at first does not seem
to have thought of trying to shake off the incubus of Assyrian rule. He
began very wisely by annexing such of the petty neighbouring states as
had hitherto remained independent, and then set himself to attack the
one other nation of Iranian blood which, by virtue of the number and
warlike qualities of its clans, was in a position to enter into rivalry
with his own people. The Persians, originally concentrated in the
interior, among the steep valleys which divide the plateau on the south,
had probably taken advantage of the misfortunes of Elam to extend their
own influence at its expense. Their kings were chosen from among the
descendants of a certain Akhamanish, the Achaemenes of the Greeks, who at
the time of the Iranian invasion had been chief of the Pasargadae, one
of the Persian clans. Achaemenes is a mythical hero rather than a real
person; he was, we are told, fed during infancy by an eagle--that mighty
eagle whose shadow, according to a Persian belief in mediaeval times,
assured the sovereignty to him on whom it chanced to fall. Achaemenes
would seem to have been followed by a certain Chaispi--or Teispes--a
less fabulous personage, described in the legends as his son. It was,
doubtless, during his reign that Assur-bani-pal, in hot pursuit of
Tiumman and Khumban-khaldash, completed the downf