d through Syria to the
Euphrates, attacked and took Carchemish, the strong city which guarded
the ordinary passage of the river. Idumea, Palestine, Phoenicia, and
Syria submitted to him, and for three years he remained in undisturbed
possession of his conquest. Then, however, the Babylonians, who had
received these provinces at the division of the Assyrian Empire, began
to bestir themselves. Nebuchadnezzar marched to Carchemish, defeated the
army of Neco, recovered all the territory to the border of Egypt, and
even ravaged a portion of that country. It is probable that in this
expedition he was assisted by the Medes. At any rate, seven or eight
years afterwards, when the intrigues of Egypt had again created
disturbances in this quarter, and Jehoiakim, the Jewish king, broke
into open insurrection, the Median monarch sent a contingent, which
accompanied Nebuchadnezzar into Judaea, and assisted him to establish
his power firmly in South-Western Asia.

This is the last act that we can ascribe to the great Median king. He
can scarcely have been much less than seventy years old at this time;
and his life was prolonged at the utmost three years longer. According
to Herodotus, he died B.C. 593, after a reign of exactly forty years,
leaving his crown to his son Astyages, whose marriage with a Lydian
princess was above related.

We have no sufficient materials from which to draw out a complete
character of Cyaxares. He appears to have possessed great ambition,
considerable military ability, and a rare tenacity of purpose, which
gained him his chief successes. At the same time he was not wanting in
good sense, and could bring himself to withdraw from an enterprise, when
he had misjudged the fitting time for it, or greatly miscalculated its
difficulties. He was faithful to his friends, but thought treachery
allowable towards his enemies. He knew how to conquer, but not how to
organize, an empire; and, if we except his establishment of Magism,
as the religion of the state, we may say that he did nothing to
give permanency to the monarchy which he founded. He was a conqueror
altogether after the Asiatic model, able to wield the sword, but not to
guide the pen, to subdue his contemporaries to his will by his
personal ascendency over them, but not to influence posterity by the
establishment of a kingdom, or of institutions, on deep and stable
foundations. The Empire, which owed to him its foundation, was the most
shortlived of all t