sia Minor a similar cause had recently
exercised a unifying influence, the necessity of combining to resist
Cimmerian immigrants having tended to establish a hegemony of Lydia over
the various tribes which divided among them the tract west of the Halys.
It is evidently not improbable that the sufferings endured at the hands
of the Scyths may have disposed the nations east of the river to adopt
the same remedy and that, so soon as Media had proved her strength,
first by shaking herself free of the Scythic invaders and then
conquering Assyria. the tribes of these parts accepted her as at once
their mistress and their deliverer.

Another quite distinct cause may also have helped to bring about the
result above indicated. Parallel with the great Median migration from
the East under Cyaxares, or Phraortes (?), his father, an Arian influx
had taken place into the countries between the Caspian and the Halys.
In Armenia and Cappadocia during the flourishing period of Assyria,
Turanian tribes had been predominant. Between the middle and the end of
the seventh century these tribes appear to have yielded the supremacy to
Arians. In Armenia, the present language which is predominantly
Arian, ousted the former Turaman tongue which appears in the cuneiform
inscriptions of Van and the adjacent regions. In Cappadocia, the Moschi
and Tibareni had to yield their seats to a new race--the Katapatuka, who
were not only Arian but distinctly Medo-Persic, as is plain from their
proper names, and from the close connection of their royal house
with that of the kings of Persia. This spread of the Arians into the
countries lying between the Caspian and the Halys must have done much to
pave the way for Median supremacy over those regions. The weaker Arian
tribes of the north would have been proud of their southern brethren, to
whose arms the queen of Western Asia had been forced to yield, and
would have felt comparatively little repugnance in surrendering their
independence into the hands of a friendly and kindred people.

Thus Cyaxares, in his triumphant progress to the north and the
north-west, made war, it is probable, chiefly upon the Scyths, or upon
them and the old Turanian inhabitants of the countries, while by
the Arians he was welcomed as a champion come to deliver them from
a grievous oppression. Ranging themselves under his standard, they
probably helped him to expel from Asia the barbarian hordes which had
now for many years tyrannized