of complaints brought before him continually increasing as people learnt more and more the justice of his judgments, Deiokes, finding himself now all-important, announced that he did not intend any longer to hear causes, and appeared no more in the seat in which he had been accustomed to sit and administer justice. “‘It was not to his advantage,’ he said, ’to spend the whole day in regulating other men’s affairs to the neglect of his own.’  Hereupon robbery and lawlessness broke out afresh and prevailed throughout the country even more than heretofore; wherefore the Medes assembled from all quarters and held a consultation on the state of affairs.  The speakers, as I think, were chiefly friends of Deiokes.  ’We cannot possibly,’ they said, ’go on living in this country if things continue as they now are; let us, therefore, set a king over us, so that the land may be well governed, and we ourselves may be able to attend to our own affairs, and not be forced to quit our country on account of anarchy.’  After speaking thus, they persuaded themselves that they desired a king, and forthwith debated whom they should choose.  Deiokes was proposed and warmly praised by all, so they agreed to elect him.”  Whereupon Deiokes had a great palace built, and enrolled a bodyguard to attend upon him.  He next called upon his subjects to leave their villages, and “the Medes, obedient to his orders, built the city now called Ecbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles one within the other.  The walls are concentric, and so arranged that they rise one above the other by the height of their battlements.  The nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favoured this arrangement.  The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries standing within the last.  The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same as that of Athens.  Of this wall the battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, of the fifth orange.  The two last have their battlements coated respectively with silver and gold.  All these fortifications Deiokes caused to be raised for himself and his own palace; the people he required to dwell outside the citadel.  When the town was finished, he established a rule that no one should have direct access to the king, but that all communications should pass through the hands of messengers.  It was declared to be unseemly for any one to see the king face to face, or to laugh or spit in his presence.  This ceremonial Deiokes established for his own security, fearing lest his compeers who had been brought up with him, and were of as good family and parts as he, should be vexed at the sight of him and conspire against him:  he thought that by rendering himself invisible to his vassals they would in time come to regard him as quite a different sort of being from themselves.”

Two or three facts stand out from this legendary background.  It is probable that Deiokes was an actual person; that the empire of the Medes first took shape under his auspices; that he formed an important kingdom at the foot of Mount Elvend, and founded Ecbatana the Great, or, at at any rate, helped to raise it to the rank of a capital.*