king of Babylon, who had succeeded his father about 605, held the
greater share of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by
means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians
had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the
Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and
subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across
the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had
now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of
the lost empire of Assyria seems to have enjoyed a rare interval of
peace under native client princes who ruled more or less on Assyrian
lines. The only fenced places which made any show of defiance were Tyre
and Jerusalem, which both relied on Egypt. The first would outlast an
intermittent siege of thirteen years; but the other, with far less
resources, was soon to pay full price for having leaned too long on the
"staff of a broken reed."

About the east and north a different story would certainly have to be
told, if we could tell it in full. But though Greek traditions come to
our aid, they have much less to say about these remote regions than the
inscribed annals of that empire, which had just come to its end, have
had hitherto: and unfortunately the Median inheritors of Assyria have
left no epigraphic records of their own--at least none have been found.
If, as seems probable, the main element of Kyaxares' war strength was
Scythian, we can hardly expect to find records either of his conquest or
the subsequent career of the Medes, even though Ecbatana should be laid
bare below the site of modern Hamadan; for the predatory Scyth, like the
mediaeval Mongol, halted too short a time to desire to carve stones, and
probably lacked skill to inscribe them. To complete our discomfiture,
the only other possible source of light, the Babylonian annals, sheds
none henceforward on the north country and very little on any country.