Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/243

 MEDIANS. FIRST KING DIOKLES. 227 chiefs became independent of Nineveh : and the catalogue of Median kings, which Herodotus begins with Dei'okes, about TOO- TH B. c., is commenced by Ktesias more than a century earlier, moreover, the names in the two lists are different almost from first to last. For the historian of Greece, the Medes first begin to acquire importance about 656 B. c., under a king whom Herodotus calls Phraortes, son of Dei'okes. Respecting Dei'okes himself, He- rodotus recounts to us how he came to be first chosen king.' The seven tribes of Medes dwelt dispersed in separate villages, with- out any common authority, and the mischiefs of anarchy were painfully felt among them : Deiokes having acquired great repu- tation in his own village as a just man, was invoked gradually by all the adjoining villages to settle their disputes. As soon as his efficiency in this vocation, and the improvement which he brought about, had become felt throughout all the tribes, he art- fully threw up his post and retired again into privacy, upon which the evils of anarchy revived in a manner more intolerable than before. The Medes had now no choice except to elect a king, the friends of Deiokes expatiated warmly upon his virtues, and he was the person chosen. 2 The first step of the only : -vhcn we come to apply them to illustrate real or supposed matters of fact, drawn from other sources, they only create a new embarrassment, for even the names of the kings as reported by different authors do not agree and Mr. Clinton informs us (p. 277): " In tracing the identity of Eastern kings, the times and the transactions are better guides than the names ; for these. from many Avell-known causes (as the changes which they undergo in passing through the Greek language, and the substitution of a title or an epithet for the name), are variously reported, so that the same king frequently appears under many different appellations:' 1 Here, then, is a new problem : we are to employ " the times and transactions" to identify the kings : but unfortunately the times are marked only by the succession of kings, and the transactions are known only by statements always scanty and often irreconcilable with each orhcr. So that our means of identifying the kings are altogether insufficient, and whoever will examine the process of identification as it appears in Mr. Clinton's chapters, will see that it is in a high degree arbitrary ; more arbi- trary still arc the processes which he employs for bringing about a forced harmony between discrepant authorities. Nor is Volncy (Chronologic d'- Herodote, vol. i, pp. 383-429) more satisfactory in his chrc nological results, 1 Herodot. i, 96-100.
 * Herodot. i, 97. t>f ifa>i t eta