who were not only Arian but distinctly Medo-Persic, as is plain from their proper names, and from the close connection of their royal house with that of the kings of Persia.  This spread of the Arians into the countries lying between the Caspian and the Halys must have done much to pave the way for Median supremacy over those regions.  The weaker Arian tribes of the north would have been proud of their southern brethren, to whose arms the queen of Western Asia had been forced to yield, and would have felt comparatively little repugnance in surrendering their independence into the hands of a friendly and kindred people.

Thus Cyaxares, in his triumphant progress to the north and the north-west, made war, it is probable, chiefly upon the Scyths, or upon them and the old Turanian inhabitants of the countries, while by the Arians he was welcomed as a champion come to deliver them from a grievous oppression.  Ranging themselves under his standard, they probably helped him to expel from Asia the barbarian hordes which had now for many years tyrannized over them; and when the expulsion was completed, gratitude or habit made them willing to continue in the subject position which they had assumed in order to effect it.  Cyaxares within less than ten years from his capture of Nineveh had added to his empire the fertile and valuable tracts of Armenia and Cappadocia—­never really subject to Assyria—­and may perhaps have further mastered the entire region between Armenia and the Caucasus and Euxine.

The advance of their western frontier to the river Halys, which was involved in the absorption of Cappadocia into the Empire, brought the Medes into contact with a new power—­a power which, like Media, had been recently increasing in greatness, and which was not likely to submit to a foreign yoke without a struggle.  The Lydian kingdom was one of great antiquity in this part of Asia.  According to traditions current among its people, it had been established more than seven hundred years at the time when Cyaxares pushed his conquests to its borders.  Three dynasties of native kings—­Atyadse, Heraclidse, and Mermnadae—­had successively held the throne during that period.  The Lydians could repeat the names of at least thirty monarchs who had borne sway in Sardis, their capital city, since its foundation.  They had never been conquered.  In the old times, indeed, Lydus, the son of Atys, had changed the name of the people inhabiting the country from Maeonians to Lydians—­a change which to the keen sense of an historical critic implies a conquest of one race by another.  But to the people themselves this tradition conveyed no such meaning; or, if it did to any, their self-complacency was not disturbed thereby, since they would hug the notion that they belonged not to the conquered race but to the conquerors.  If a Ramcsos or a Sesostris had ever penetrated to their country, he had met with a brave resistance, and had left monuments indicating his respect for their