. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . was stillcelebrated at the beginning of the Byzantine era. Horses are mentionedamong the tribute paid by the Medic chiefs to the kings of Assyria. 2 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the bas-relief from Persepolisnow in the British Museum. ^ The history of the Medes remains shrouded in greater obscurity thanthat of any other Asiatic race. We possess no original documents whichowe their existence to this nation, and the whole of our information con-cerning its history is borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions,and from
. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . was stillcelebrated at the beginning of the Byzantine era. Horses are mentionedamong the tribute paid by the Medic chiefs to the kings of Assyria. 2 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the bas-relief from Persepolisnow in the British Museum. ^ The history of the Medes remains shrouded in greater obscurity thanthat of any other Asiatic race. We possess no original documents whichowe their existence to this nation, and the whole of our information con-cerning its history is borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions,and from the various legends collected by the Greeks, especially by Herodotusand Ctesias, from Persian magnates in Asia Minor or at the court of theAchsemenian kings, or from fragments of vanished works such as the writingsof Berosus. And yet modern archaeologists and philologists have, during 280 THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDtEAN EMPIRE The first person to conceive the idea of establishing onewas, perhaps, a certain Fravartish, the Phraortes of the Greeks, whom. Herodotus de-clares to havebeen the sonand successor ofDeiokes.^ Hecame to thethrone about , at a timewhen the star ofAssur - bani - palwas still in theascendant, and atfirst does notseem to havethought of tryingto shake off the incubus of Assyrian rule. He began the last thirty years, allowed their critical faculties, and often theirimagination as well, to run riot when dealing with this very period. Aftercarefully examining, one after another, most of the theories put forward, Ihave adopted those hypotheses which, while most nearly approximating tothe classical legends, harmonise best with the chronological framework—fartoo imperfect as yet—furnished by the inscriptions dealing with the closingyears of Nineveh ; I do not consider them all to be equally probable, butthough they may be mere stop-gap solutions, they have at least the merit ofreproducing in many cases the ideas current among those races of antiquitywh
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