than Babylon, and is described as an oblong, three days' journey round—that is, upwards of 60 miles.
The Medes and Persians. Extending, as we have said, from the
Mediterranean to the Indus, the Assyrian empire had included not only
the chief Semitic nations of western Asia, but also that portion of the
Indo-Germanic family which was contained between Mount Zagros and
the river Indus. Essentially a prolongation of the great race which inhabited
Hindoostan, the nature of their country—a vast table-land, here
and there rising into hills, or presenting spots of great fertility—had
made them quite different in character and habits from the settled and
stereotyped Hindoos. All parts of this plateau of Iran, as it was called,
including the present countries of Persia, Cabool, and Belochistan, were
not alike; in some portions, where the soil was fertile, there existed a
dense agricultural population; in others, the inhabitants were nomadic
horse-breeders, cattle-rearers, and shepherds. All the tribes, however,
were bound together by the ties of a common Indo-Persic language, quite
distinct from that spoken by their Semitic neighbors and masters, and by
a common religion. This religion, called the Religion of Zend, a modification
probably of some more ancient form, from which Hindooism may
also have sprung, was taught by Zerdusht or Zoroaster, a great native
reformer and spiritual teacher, who lived six or seven centuries before
Christ. The principal doctrine of his religion was that of the existence
of two great emanations from the Supreme and perfect Deity—the one a
good spirit (Ormuzd), who created man, and fitted him for happiness;
the other an evil spirit, named Ahriman, who has marred the beauty of
creation by introducing evil into it. Between these two spirits and their
adherents there is an incessant struggle for the mastery; but ultimately
Ormuzd will conquer, and Ahriman and evil will be banished from the
bosom of creation into eternal darkness. The worship annexed to this
doctrine was very simple, dispensing with temples or images, and consisting
merely of certain solemn rites performed on mountain tops, etc. Fire,
and light, and the sun, were worshiped either as symbols or as inferior
deities. A caste of priests, called the Magi, answering in some respects
to the Brahmins of India or the Chaldæans of Babylon, superintended
these ceremonies, and commented on the religion of Zoroaster.
Various of the tribes of Iran, associating themselves together, constituted little nations. Thus adjacent to Assyria, and separated from it by Mount Zagros, was an agglomeration of seven tribes or villages, under the special name of the Medes, the country which they inhabited being thence called Media. South from Media, and nearer the sea, was another district of Iran, called Persis or Persia, inhabited also by an association of tribes calling themselves the Persians. Other nations of Iran were the Parthians, the Bactrians, etc.—all originally subject to the Assyrian empire.
Median history begins with a hero king called Deiokes (B. C. 710-657), who effected some important changes in the constitution of the nation, and founded the Median capital Ekbatana in one of the most pleasant sites in the world. His son, Phraortes (B. C. 657-635), pursued a career of conquest, subjugated Persia and other districts of Iran, and perished in an invasion of Assyria. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares, who continued his designs of conquest, and extended the Median dominion as far westward into Asia Minor as the river Halys. He was engaged in a repeti-
