by modern travellers, just as they attracted the Great King in ancient times during the hot months.  The more southerly province called Persis proper (Faristan) consists also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and plain, abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually down to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry:  the care bestowed both by Medes and Persians on the breeding of their horses was remarkable.  There were doubtless material differences between different parts of the population of this vast plateau of Iran.  Yet it seems that, along with their common language and religion, they had also something of a common character, which contrasted with the Indian population east of the Indus, the Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massagetae and other Nomads of the Caspian and the Sea of Aral—­less brutish, restless and blood-thirsty than the latter—­more fierce, contemptuous and extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two former.  There can be little doubt, at the time of which we are now speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been since European observers have been able to survey it—­especially the north-eastern portion, Bactria and Sogdiana—­so that the invasions of the Nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive at various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that period successfully kept back.

The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of the Median kings.  If we may believe Ctesias, even the distant province of Bactria had been before subject to those kings.  At first it resisted Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of Astyages, as well as master of his person, it speedily acknowledged his authority.

According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus and Croesus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyages, and before the conquest of Bactria.  Croesus was the assailant, wishing to avenge his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian conqueror, and to increase his own dominions.  His more prudent counsellors in vain represented to him that he had little to gain, and much to lose, by war with a nation alike hardy and poor.  He is represented as just at that time recovering from the affliction arising out of the death of his son.

To ask advice of the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a step which no pious king would omit.  But in the present perilous question, Croesus did more—­he took a precaution so extreme, that if his piety had not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary munificence to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the suspicion of a guilty scepticism.  Before he would send to ask advice