The Medes: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Iranians Who Helped Destroy the Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Neo-Assyrian Empire collapsed in shocking fashion near the end of the 7th century B.C., and much of the blame is attributable to an enigmatic civilization known as the Medes. The Medes had already inhabited parts of Iran for since the end of the 2nd millennium B.C., but for roughly a century, they built one of the ancient Near East's most consequential empires, only to vanish into the shadow of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The Medes left behind no surviving documents, no royal inscriptions to rival the cuneiform of their Neo-Assyrian rivals, and no ruins on the scale of the Persian palaces at Persepolis. As a result, what survives are descriptions of the Medes assembled almost entirely by outsiders, notably the 5th century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus and a few references in Babylonian chronicles.

According to Herodotus, the fractious Median tribes were initially united by a village judge named Deioces, a man whose reputation for fairness was so widespread that the surrounding communities eventually begged him to serve as king over all of them rather than settle disputes one village at a time. Deioces accepted on the condition that his authority was absolute, and he marked his rise by ordering the construction of a new capital at Ecbatana, which Herodotus claimed was ringed by seven concentric walls of different colors, each taller than the one before it. Like many things the Greek historian wrote, proving the historicity of Deioces will likely never be possible, but some of the details about him are so specific that they were likely not made up out of thin air. The archaeological record beneath modern Hamadan has never confirmed the seven-walled city described by Herodotus, but his account does indicate the Medes gradually accepted a royal authority strong enough to form the kingdom of Media and challenge the Neo-Assyrian Empire.