of the empire--The conquest of the Hapta-Hindu and the prospect of war
with Greece._

[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]




CHAPTER I--THE IRANIAN CONQUEST


Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving in Coste and Flandin.
The vignette, drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a statuette in
terra-cotta, found in Southern Russia, represents a young
Scythian.

_The Iranian religions--Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt
--Darius and the organisation of the empire._


The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a
time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this
is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldæan
empire of Nebuchadrezzar lasted for a period quite as brief, and yet the
main outlines of its history can be established with some certainty in
spite of large blanks and much obscurity. Whereas at Babylon, moreover,
original documents abound, enabling us to put together, feature by
feature, the picture of its ancient civilisation and of the chronology
of its kings, we possess no contemporary monuments of Ecbatana to
furnish direct information as to its history. To form any idea of