**** The name of Artykas is also found in the secondary form
     Kardikoas, which is nearer the Khartukka of the Assyrian
     texts.

There were in these archives, at the disposal of scribes and strangers inclined to reconstruct the history of Asia, a supply of materials of varying value—­authentic documents inscribed on brick tablets, legends of fabulous exploits, epic poems and records of real victories and conquests, exaggerated in accordance with the vanity or the interest of the composer:  from these elements it was easy to compile lists of Median kings which had no real connection with each other as far as their names, order of succession, or duration of reign were concerned.  The Assyrian chronicles have handed down to us, in place of these dynasties which were alleged to have exercised authority over the whole territory, a considerable number of noble houses scattered over the country, each of them autonomous, and a rival of its neighbour, and only brought into agreement with one another at rare intervals by their common hatred of the invader.  Some of them were representatives of ancient races akin to the Susians, and perhaps to the first inhabitants of Chaldaea; others belonged to tribes of a fresh stock, that of the Aryans, and more particularly to the Iranian branch of the Aryan family.  We catch glimpses of them in the reign of Shalmaneser III., who calls them the Amadai; then, after this first brush with Assyria, intercourse and conflict between the two nations became more and more frequent every year, until the “distant Medes” soon began to figure among the regular adversaries of the Ninevite armies, and even the haughtiest monarchs refer with pride to victories gained over them.  Ramman-nirari waged ceaseless war against them, Tiglath-pileser III. twice drove them before him from the south-west to the north-east as far as the foot of Demavend, while Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, during their respective reigns, kept anxious watch upon them, and endeavoured to maintain some sort of authority over the tribes which lay nearest to them.  Both in the personal names and names of objects which have come down to us in the records of these campaigns, we detect Iranian characteristics, in spite of the Semitic garb with which the inscriptions have invested them:  among the names of countries we find Partukka, Diristanu, Patusharra, Nishaia, Urivzan, Abiruz, and Ariarma, while the men bear such names as Ishpabarra, Eparna, Shitirparna, Uarzan, and Dayaukku.  As we read through the lists, faint resemblances in sound awaken dormant classical memories, and the ear detects familiar echoes in the names of those Persians whose destinies were for a time linked with those of Athens and Sparta in the days of Darius and of Xerxes:  it is like the first breath of Greek influence, faint and almost imperceptible as yet, wafted to us across the denser atmosphere of the East.