568.  The well-known story of Solon’s warning to [Greek:  Croesus] was full of ominous import with regard to the ultimate downfall of the Lydian Empire:  “For thyself, O Croesus,” said the Greek sage in answer to the question, “Who is the happiest man?” I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art the lord of many nations; but in respect to that whereon thou questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou hast closed thy life happily.”

The Median Empire occupied a territory indefinitely extending over a region south of the Caspian, between the Kurdish Mountains and the modern Khorassan.  The Median monarchy, according to Herodotus, commenced B.C. 708.  The Medes, which were racially akin to the Persians, had been for fifty years subject to the Assyrian monarchy when they revolted, setting up an independent empire.  Putting aside the dates given by the Greek historians, we shall perhaps be correct in considering that the great Median kingdom was established by Cyaxares, B.C. 633; and that in B.C. 610 a great struggle of six years between Media and Lydia was amicably ended, under the terror occasioned by an eclipse, by the establishment of a treaty and alliance between the contending powers.  With the death of Cyaxares, B.C. 597, the glory of the great Median Empire passed away, for under his son, Astyages, the country was conquered by Cyrus.

The rise of the Babylonian Empire seems to have originated B.C. 2234, when the Cushite inhabitants of southern Babylonia raised a native dynasty to the throne, liberated themselves from the yoke of the Zoroastrian Medes, and instituted an empire with several large capitals, where they built mighty temples and introduced the worship of the heavenly bodies in contradistinction to the elemental worship of the Magian Medes.  The record of Babylonian kings is full of obscurity, even in the light of recent archaeological discoveries.  We can trace, however, a gradual expansion of Babylonian dominion, even to the borders of Egypt.  Nabo Polassar, B.C. 625 to B.C. 604, was a great warrior, and at Carchemish defeated even the almost invincible Egyptians, B.C. 604.

His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604, immediately set about the fortification of his capital.  A space of more than 130 square miles was enclosed within walls 80 feet in breadth and 300 or 400 in height, if we may believe the record.  Meanwhile, with the assistance of Cyaxares, King of Media, he captured Tyre, in Phoenicia, and Jerusalem, in Syria; but fifteen years after Croesus had been taken prisoner and the Persian Empire extended to the shores of the AEgean, the Empire of Babylon fell before the conquering armies of Cyrus, the Persian.

The Ionic and AEolic Greeks on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and made tributary by the Lydian king Croesus:  “Down to that time (says Herodotus) all Greeks had been free.”  Their conqueror, Croesus, who ascended the throne in 560 B.C., appeared