Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/61

Rh It is now certain that the border districts of the Assyrian empire were always inclined to revolt, and were not intimidated by failure. The Median boundaaries were on the extreme east of the empire, and Media is continually designated as " far distant " ($Mât$ Mada-a-a rû-ḳû-ti). From the reports about the Median expeditions of Shalmaneser II. (859–825), Ramman-nirari III. (811–783), Tiglath-Pileser III. (745–727), Sargon II. (722-705), and Sennacherib (705–681), we learn that the Median tribes were always in a state of rebellion, and that scarcely a decade passed without an Assyrian invasion of Media.

The first Assyrian king who subdued certain Median races—e. g., the Amada-a—was Shalmaneser II. (859–825), and after his reign the Medes waged unbroken war against the Assyrians. This continual resistance to foreign intrusion may have contributed to a closer union of the scattered tribes. The Median tradition about the heroic battles for freedom would of course sound entirely different from the Assyrian accounts of the same. If Herodotus derived his statements about Assyrian history chiefly from Medo-Persian sources, we can understand why he puts the beginning of Median independence in the second half of the eighth century, although that period represents nothing but a series of struggles for independence which were finally crowned with success.

It remains to enquire how Herodotus arrives at the five hundred and twenty years of Assyrian sovereignty? If we go back five hundred and twenty years from the year 750, we reach the year 1270 B. C.—i. e.', the