Medes

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The Medes were an Iranian people of Indo-Iranian origin who lived in the western and north-western portion of present-day Iran. By the 6th century BC (prior to the Persian invasion) the Medes were able to establish an empire that stretched from Aran (the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to Central Asia and Afghanistan. The Kurds of today consider themselves to be descended from the ancient Medes.

Apart from a few personal names, the language of the Medes is entirely unknown, but was undoubtedly quite similar to the Avestan and Scythian languages.

Early historical references to Medes

Mede Empire

The Medes, people of the Mada, (the Greek form "Μηδοί" is Ionian for Madoi), appear in history first in 830s BC. Earliest records show that Assyrian conqueror Shalmaneser II received tribute from the "Amadai" in connection with wars against the tribes of the Zagros. His successors undertook many expeditions against the Medes (Madai). Sargon in 715 BC and 713 BC subjected them up to "the far mountain Bikni," i.e. the Elbruz (Damavand) and the borders of the desert.

An Assyrian military report from 800 BC lists 28 names of Mede chiefs, but only one of these is positively identified as Iranian. A second report from c. 700 BC lists 26 names; of these, 5 seem to be Iranian, the others are not.

At this early stage, the Medes were usually classed together with a kindred Iranian tribe, the Scythians. They were divided into many districts and towns, under petty local chieftains; from the names in the Assyrian inscriptions, it appears they had already adopted the religion of Zoroaster. In spite of repeated rebellions by the early chieftains against the Assyrian yoke, the Medes paid tribute to Assyria under Sargon's successors,Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal, whenever these kings marched in with their fierce armies.

Josephus relates the Medes (OT Heb. Madai) to the biblical character, Madai, son of Japheth. "Now as to Javan and Madai, the sons of Japhet; from Madai came the Madeans, who are called Medes, by the Greeks" Antiquities of the Jews, I:6

Other ancient historians including Strabo, Ptolemy, Herodotus, Polybius, and Pliny, mention names such as Mantiane, Martiane, Matiane, Matiene, to designate the northern part of Media.

We can see how the Iranian element gradually became dominant; princes with Iranian names occasionally occur as rulers of other tribes. But the Gelae, Tapuri, Cadusii, Amardi, Utii and other tribes in northern Media and on the shores of the Caspian may not have been Iranian stock. Polybius (V. 44, 9), Strabo (xi. 507, 5o8, 514), and Pliny (vi. 46), considered the Anariaci to be among these tribes; but their name, meaning the "not-Arians", is probably a comprehensive designation for a number of smaller indigenous tribes.

The six Mede tribes in Herodotus

Herodotus, i. 101, lists the names of six Mede tribes. Some of these are similar to tribal names of the Scythians, suggesting a definitive link between these two groups.

1. The Busae group is thought to derive from the Persian term "buza" meaning indigenous (i.e. not Iranian). Whether this was based on an originally Iranian term, or their own name, is unknown.

2. The second group is called the Paraetaceni, or "Parae-tak-(eni)" in Persian, and denotes nomadic inhabitants of the mountains of Paraetacene. This name recalls the Scythian "Para-la-ti", the people of Kolaxis, believed to represent the common people in general.

3.The third group is called Stru­khat.

4. The fourth group is the Arizanti, whose name is derived from the words Arya (noble), and Zantu (tribe, clan).

5. The fifth group were the Budii, found also among the Black Sea Scythians as Budi-ni. Buddha was of the tribe Budha, the Saka (eastern Scythian) form of the name.

6.The sixth tribe were the Magi, who were actually of Mesopotamian (non-Aryan) origin. They were a hereditary caste of priests, of the Zurvanism religion, that evolved out of Zoroastrianism. The name Magi implies a link with the Sumerians, who called their language Emegir, over time becoming simplified to Magi. Hungarian tradition also traces pre-European Magyar (Hungarian) ancestry back to the Magi. In time, the Sumerian-influenced religion of the Magi was suppressed in favour of a more purely Iranian form of Zoroastrianism, itself evolved from its somewhat dualist beginnings into the monotheistic faith that it is today (also known as Parsi-ism).

The Mede Empire

In the second half of the 7th century BC, the Medes gained their independence and were united by a dynasty. The origin and history of the Mede Empire is quite obscure, as we possess almost no contemporary information, and not a single monument or inscription from Media itself. The story that Ctesias gave (a list of nine kings, beginning with Arbaces, who is said to have destroyed Nineveh about 880 BC, preserved in Diod. ii. 32 sqq. and copied by many later authors) has no historical value whatever; though some of his names may be derived from local traditions.

The account of Herodotus does contain more valuable historical elements; if he may be trusted, this dynasty derived its origin from Deioces, a Mede chieftain in the Zagros, who was, along with his kinsmen, transported by Sargon to Hamath (Haniah) in Syria in 715 BC.

The kings who established the Mede Empire are generally recognized to be Phraortes and his son Cyaxares. They were probably chieftains of a nomadic Mede tribe in the desert, the Manda, mentioned by Sargon, and they likely founded the capital at Ecbatana. The Babylonian king Nabonidus also designated the Medes and their kings always as Manda.

From Assyrian inscriptions, it is apparent that these early Mede dynasts, who had attempted rebellions against the Assyrians in the time of Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal, were allied with chieftains of the Cimmerians (who had come from the northern shore of the Black Sea and invaded Armenia and Asia Minor), of the Saparda, Ashguza and other tribes; and Jeremiah and Zephaniah in the Old Testament confirm that a massive invasion of Syria and Palestine by northern barbarians indeed took place in 626 BC.

According to Herodotus, the conquests of Cyaxares the Mede were interrupted by a Scythian invasion lasting twenty-eight years. The only certain fact is that in 612, Cyaxares (with the help of Nabopolasser the Chaldean) succeeded in destroying Nineveh, and by 606, the remaining vestiges of Assyrian control.

From then on, the Mede king ruled over much of Iran, Assyria and northern Mesopotamia, Armenia and Cappadocia. His power was very dangerous to his neighbors, and the exiled Jews expected the destruction of Babylonia by the Medes (Isa. xiii., xiv., xxi.; Jerem. 1. li.). When Cyaxares attacked Lydia, the kings of Cilicia and Babylon intervened and negotiated a peace in 585 BC, whereby the Halys was established as the Medes' frontier with Lydia. Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon married a daughter of Cyaxares, and an equilibrium of the great powers was maintained until the rise of the Persians under Cyrus.

About the internal organization of the Mede Empire, we know that the Greeks adopted many ceremonial elements of the Persian court, the costume of the king, etc., through Media.

Subjection to the Persians

In 553 BC Cyrus, king of Persia, rebelled against his suzerain, the Mede King Astyages, son of Cyaxares; he finally won a decisive victory in 550 BC resulting in Astyages' capture by his own dissatisfied nobles, who promptly turned him over to the triumphant Cyrus. Thus were the Medes subjected to their close kin, the Persians. In the new empire they retained a prominent position; in honor and war, they stood next to the Persians; their court ceremony was adopted by the new sovereigns, who in the summer months resided in Ecbatana; and many noble Medes were employed as officials, satraps and generals. After the assassination of the usurper Smerdis, a Mede Fravartish (Phraortes), claiming to be a scion of Cyaxares, tried to restore the Mede kingdom, but was defeated by the Persian generals and executed in Ecbatana (Darius in the Behistun inscr.). Another rebellion, in 409, against Darius II (Xenophon, Hellen. ~. 2, 19) was of short duration. But the non-Aryan tribes to the north, especially the Cadusii, were always troublesome; many abortive expeditions of the later kings against them are mentioned.

Under Persian rule, the country was divided into two satrapies: the south, with Ecbatana and Rhagae (Rai), Media proper, or Greater Media, as it is often called, formed in Darius' organization the eleventh satrapy (Herodotus iii. 92), together with the Paricanians and Orthocorybantians; the north, the district of Matiane (see above), together with the mountainous districts of the Zagros and Assyria proper (east of the Tigris) was united with the Alarodians and Saspirians in eastern Armenia, and formed the eighteenth satrapy (Herod. iii. 94; cf. v. 49, 52, VII. 72).

When the Persian empire decayed and the Cadusii and other mountainous tribes made themselves independent, eastern Armenia became a special satrapy, while Assyria seems to have been united with Media; therefore Xenophon in the Anabasis always designates Assyria by the name of "Media".

Media and Hellenistic Greece

Alexander occupied Media in the summer of 330 BC. In 328 he appointed Atropates, a former general of Darius (Arrian iii. 8, 4), as satrap (iv. 18, 3, Vi. 29, 3), whose daughter was married to Perdiccas in 324 (Arrian vu. 4, ~). In the partition of his empire, southern Media was given to the Macedonian Peithon; but the north, which lay far off and was of little importance to the generals fighting over Alexander's inheritance, was left to Atropates.

While southern Media with Ecbatana passed to the rule of Antigonus, and afterwards (about 310) to Seleucus I, Atropates maintained himself in his satrapy and succeeded in founding an independent kingdom. Thus the partition of the country, that Persia had introduced, became lasting; the north was named Atropatene (in Plin. Vi. 42, Atrapatene; in. Ptolem. Vi. 2, 5, Tropatene; in Pniyb, V. 44 and 55 corrupted in r?. isarpajr a KaXouu~va), after the founder of the dynasty, a name still preserved in the modern Azerbaijan; cf. Nldeke, Atropatene, in Zeitschrif.t der deutschen morgeni. Geselisclzaft, 34, 692 sqq. and Marquart, Eranshahr, p. 108 sqq.

The capital was Gazaca in the central plain, and the strong castle Phraaspa (Dio Cass. xlix. 26; Plut. 4nlon. 38; Ptol. Vi. 2, 10) or Vera (Strabo xi. 523), probably identical with the great ruin Takhti Suleiman, where are remains of Sassanid fire-altars and a later palace. The kings had a strong and warlike army, especially cavalry (Polyb. v. 55; Strabo xi. 253). Nevertheless, King Artabazanes was forced by Antiochus the Great in 220 BC to conclude a disadvantageous treaty (Polyb. v. 55), and in later times, the rulers became in turn dependent on the Parthians, on Tigranes of Armenia, and in the time of Pompey who defeated their king Darius (Appian, Mithr. 108), on Antonius (who invaded Atropatene) and on Augustus of Rome. In the time of Strabo (AD 17), the dynasty still existed (p. 523); later the country seems to have become a Parthian province.

Atropatene is that country of western Asia which was least of all other countries influenced by Hellenism; there exists not even a single coin of its rulers. But the opinion of modern authors that it had been a special refuge of Zoroastrianism, is based on a wrong etymology of the name (falsely explained as "country of fire-worship"), and has no foundation whatever. There can be no doubt that the kings adhered to the Persian religion; but it is not probable that it was deeply rooted among their subjects, especially among the non-Aryan tribes.

Southern Media remained a province of the Seleucid Empire for a century and a half, and Hellenism was introduced everywhere. Media is surrounded everywhere by Greek towns, in pursuance of Alexander's plan to protect it from neighboring barbarians, says Polybius (x. 27). Only Ecbatana retained its old character. But Rhagae became the Greek town Europus; and with it Strabo (xi. 524) names Laodicea, Apamea Heraclea or Achais (cf. Pun. Vi. 48). Most of them were founded by Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I.

In 221, the satrap Molon tried to make himself independent (there exist bronze coins with his name and the royal title), together with his brother Alexander, satrap of Persis, but they were defeated and killed by Antiochus the Great. In the same way, the Mede satrap Timarchus took the diadem and conquered Babylonia; on his coins he calls himself the great king Timarchus; but again the legitimate king, Demetrius I, succeeded in subduing the rebellion, and Timarchus was slain. But with Demetrius I. the dissolution of the Seleucid Empire begins, which was brought on chiefly by the intrigues of the Romans, and shortly afterwards, about 150, the Parthian king, Mithradates I. (q.v.), conquered Media (Justin xli. 6).

From this time Media remained subject to the Arsacids or Parthians, who changed the name of Rhagae, or Europus, into Arsacia (Strabo xi. 524), and divided the country into five small provinces (Isidorus Charac.). From the Parthians, it passed in AD 226 to the Sassanids, together with Atropatene.

By this time the older tribes of Aryan Iran had lost their distinct character and had been amalgamated into one people, the Iranians. The revival of Zoroastrianism, enforced everywhere by the Sassanids, completed this development. It was only then that Atropatene became a principal seat of fire-worship, with many fire-altars. Arsacia (Rhagae) now became the most sacred city of the empire and the seat of the head of the Zoroastrian hierarchy; the Sassanid Avesta and the tradition of the Parsees therefore consider Rhagae as the home of the family of the Prophet Zoroaster.

See also

• List of Kings of the Medes
• Full list of Iranian Kingdoms