After the expulsion of the Scythians from Asia, the full extent and power of the Median empire was reëstablished; and Kyaxarês was enabled again to besiege Nineveh. He took that great city, and reduced under his dominion all the Assyrians except those who formed the kingdom of Babylon. This conquest was achieved towards the close of his reign, and he bequeathed the Median empire, at the maximum of its grandeur, to his son Astyagês, in 595 B. C.[487] [487] Herodot. i. 106. Mr. Clinton fixes the date of the capture of Nineveh at 606 B. C. (F. H. vol. i. p. 269), upon grounds which do not appear to me conclusive: the utmost which can be made out is, that it was taken during the last ten years of the reign of Kyaxarês. As the dominion of the Scythians in Upper Asia lasted twenty eight years before they were expelled by Kyaxarês, so also the inroads of the Cimmerians through Asia Minor, which had begun during the reign of the Lydian king Ardys, continued through the twelve years of the reign of his son Sadyattês (629-617 B. C.), and were finally terminated by Alyattês, son of the latter.[488] Notwithstanding the Cimmerians, however, Sadyattês was in a condition to prosecute a war against the Grecian city of Milêtus, which continued during the last seven years of his reign, and which he bequeathed to his son and successor. Alyattês continued the war for five years longer. So feeble was the sentiment of union among the various Grecian towns on the Asiatic coast, that none of them would lend any aid to Milêtus except the Chians, who were under special obligations to Milêtus for previous aid in a contest against Erythræ: and the Milesians unassisted were no match for the Lydian army in the field, though their great naval strength placed them out of all danger of a blockade; and we must presume that the erection of those mounds of earth against the walls, whereby the Persian Harpagus vanquished the Ionian cities half a century afterwards, was then unknown to the Lydians. For twelve successive years the Milesian territory was annually overrun and ravaged, previous to the gathering in of the crop. The inhabitants, after having been defeated in two ruinous battles, gave up all hope of resisting the devastation, so that the task of the invaders became easy, and the Lydian army pursued their destructive march to the sound of flutes and harps. They ruined the crops and the fruit-trees, but Alyattês would not allow the farm-buildings or country-houses to be burnt, in order that the means of production might still be preserved, to be again destroyed during the following season. By such unremitting devastation the Milesians were reduced to distress and famine, in spite of their command of the sea; and the fate which afterwards overtook them during the reign of Crœsus, of becoming tributary subjects to the throne of Sardis, would have begun half a century earlier, had not Alyattês unintentionally committed a profanation against the goddess Athênê.