Media
was incorporated with Persia. Henceforth the Medes and Persians are
spoken of as virtually one nation, similar in religion and customs, and
furnishing equally the best cavalry in the world. Under Cyrus they
became the ascendent power in Asia, and maintained their ascendency
until their conquest by Alexander. The union between Media and Persia
was probably as complete as that between Burgundy and France, or that of
Scotland with England. Indeed, Media now became the residence of the
Persian kings, whose palaces at Ecbatana, Susa, and Persepolis nearly
rivalled those of Babylon. Even modern Persia comprises the
ancient Media.

The reign of Cyrus properly begins with the conquest of Media, or rather
its union with Persia, B.C. 549. We know, however, but little of the
career of Cyrus after he became monarch of both Persia and Media, until
he was forty years of age. He was probably engaged in the conquest of
various barbaric hordes before his memorable Lydian campaign. But we are
in ignorance of his most active years, when he was exposed to the
greatest dangers and hardships, and when he became perfected in the
military art, as in the case of Caesar amid the marshes and forests of
Gaul and Belgium. The fame of Caesar rests as much on his conquests of
the Celtic barbarians of Europe as on his conflict with Pompey; but
whether Cyrus obtained military fame or not in his wars against the
Turanians, he doubtless proved himself a benefactor to humanity more in
arresting the tide of Scythian invasion than by those conquests which
have given him immortality.

When Cyrus had cemented his empire by the conquest of the Turanian
nations, especially those that dwelt between the Caspian and Black seas,
his attention was drawn to Lydia, the most powerful kingdom of western
Asia, whose monarch, Croesus, reigned at Sardis in Oriental
magnificence. Lydia was not much known to distant States until the reign
of Gyges, about 716 B.C., who made war on the Dorian and Ionian Greek
colonies on the coast of Asia Minor, the chief of which were Miletus,
Smyrna, Colophon, and Ephesus. His successor Ardys continued this
warfare, but was obliged to desist because of an invasion of the
Cimmerians,--barbarians from beyond the Caucasus, driven away from
their homes by the Scythians. His grandson Alyattes, greatest of the
Lydian monarchs, succeeded in expelling the Cimmerians from Lydia. After
subduing some of the maritime cities of Asia Minor, this