Ancient Media (Medes)

King ********** Herodotus's Dates ***** Length of Reign

Deioces -------------- 700-647 ------------------ 53 years
Phraortes ------------ 647-625 ------------------ 22 years
Cyaxares ------------- 625-585 ------------------ 40 years
Astyages ------------- 585-550 ------------------ 35 years

2 Kings 17:6: In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes

Ancient country of northwestern Iran generally corresponding to the modern regions of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and parts of Kermanshah. Media first appears in the texts of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858 - 824 BC) in which peoples of the land of Mada are recorded. The inhabitants came to be known as Medes ...

Media: (Hebrew Madai) We first hear of this people in the Assyrian cuneiform records under the name of Amada about BC 840. They appear to have been a branch of the Aryans who came from the east bank of the Indus and were probably the predominant race for a while in the Mesopotamian Valley. They consisted for three or four centuries of a number of tribes each ruled by its own chief who at length were brought under the Assyrian yoke. From this subjection they achieved deliverance and formed themselves into an empire under Cyaxares (BC 633). This monarch entered into an alliance with the King of Babylon and invaded Assyria capturing and destroying the city of Nineveh (BC 625) thus putting an end to the Assyrian monarchy. Media now rose to a place of great power, vastly extending its boundaries. But it did not long exist as an independent kingdom. It rose with Cyaxares its first king and it passed away with him; for during the reign of his son and successor Astyages the Persians waged war against the Medes and conquered them, the two nations being united under one monarch, Cyrus the Persian (BC 558). The Cities of the Medes are first mentioned in connection with the deportation of the Israelites on the destruction of Samaria. Soon afterwards Isaiah speaks of the part taken by the Medes in the destruction of Babylon. Daniel gives an account of the reign of Darius the Mede who was made viceroy by Cyrus. The decree of Cyrus, Ezra informs us, was found in the palace that is in the province of the Medes or Ecbatana of the Greeks which is the only Median city mentioned in Scripture ...

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