For a distance of 50 miles from the Persian Gulf it is flat, swampy, and unhealthful. Then it rises to a system of mountain ranges that average five thousand feet in height, broken up with valleys, lakes, and countless streams. It was a country admirably adapted to rear a hardy and industrious race of men and fine breeds of cattle and horses. The Aryans seem to have always been cattle breeders, from which fact is supposed to be derived the reverence of the cow, which still exists in India. They were also great lovers of the horse and it was not until after 1700 <small>B.C.</small> when advanced posts of the Aryan migration came in touch with the Semitic nations of the West, that the horse made its appearance in Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece. But, while the bas-reliefs of the Egyptians after this date show the horse used only in chariots, its general use among the Persians was for riding purposes. So the love of the modern Aryan races for the horse and horse exercise is an inherited instinct that knits them like their language to their earliest ancestors. Of the Assyrian Kings, Shalmaneser II was the first to come in conflict with the Medes, and from this date (836 <small>B.C.</small>), the Medes are frequently mentioned in Assyrian records as paying tribute. Finally, in 626 <small>B.C.</small>, the fortunes of war began to be reversed. The Median King, Cyaxares, as we have seen in a previous chapter, formed an alliance with Nabopolassar that resulted in the ousting of the Assyrian domination from Babylon and the establishment of the New Babylonian Empire. The Medes followed this up by a vigorous campaign against Assyria which resulted, in 606 <small>B.C.</small> in the taking and destruction of Nineveh. New capitals were built at Susa and Ecbatana and the sway of the Medes extended over Northern Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Cappadocia. Then in 550 <small>B.C.</small> the Median supremacy ceased. Cyrus, King of Persia, of the clan Achæmenian, rebelled against his suzerain, Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, conquered him in battle and became the founder of the Persian Empire. He captured Babylon in 538 <small>B.C.</small> and gradually extended his sway from the Indus River to the Ægean Sea and the borders of Egypt. In his homeland of Persia he founded the city of Pasargadae, the modern Murghab, where he built himself a palace and a tomb. For it was here that his Persians, urged on by their women-folk, had struck the final blow that conquered the Medes. Accordingly, each king of the Achæmenian dynasty was here, in the temple of the warrior goddess, invested with the garb of Cyrus and partook of a meal of figs, terebinth, and sour milk; and, whenever he visited the city, gave a gold piece to every woman.