It was not from Assyria that the trouble threatened. That great empire had come to an end some years before, under circumstances of which the details do not directly affect the Greeks. A Scythian incursion, so prolonged that it seemed likely to terminate in permanent settlement, had broken it. #MEDO-LYDIAN WAR.# The final death-blow had been inflicted by two peoples—the Medes, who inhabited the mountainous uplands beyond the Zagros chain which bounds the plain of the Tigris on the east and north-east, and the Babylonians, who had ever chafed under Assyrian rule. Within a short period the Medes had pushed their frontier westward beyond the Taurus, and had reduced to subjection the country between that range and the Halys, a region which at times came within the sphere of Assyrian influence, but cannot be said to have formed part of that empire. With all the vigour inspired by recent success, the Mede sought to push his way westward; and a fierce frontier war seems to have been waged for several years upon the Halys between Alyattes and Cyaxares, the Median king. Pteria, a town whose position renders it the chief strategic point in the Halys region, commanding, as it does, the middle portion of the cleft-like valley through which the river flows, formed the _point d’appui_ of the Lydian defence, and was the immediate object of the Median attack. Of the war itself but little is known, except the important fact that it came to an end in a remarkable way. The opposing armies were drawn up for a battle, when an eclipse of the sun took place, which caused both sides to shrink from the engagement. It is calculated that such eclipses took place in Asia Minor in the years 610 and 585, of which the latter seems to be the more probable date of this unfought fight. ◆H. i. 74.◆ A peace was concluded through the mediation of a Babylonian whose name Herodotus gives as Labynetos; but in what capacity he acted as mediator is not known. The celebrated Nebuchadrezzar was ruling in Babylon at the time. Lydia apparently sacrificed Pteria and the region east of Halys, and that river became the definite frontier between the two States. The story of this Median kingdom has come down to posterity in a form so imperfect that it is difficult to extract the small historical from the large mythical element contained in it. Its chief importance in history is that its kings are the first of that series of Iranian dynasties which, whether Median, Persian, or Parthian, were paramount in the eastern world for many centuries. From this time forward the Iranian took the place of the Semite as the suzerain of the East; for the Babylonian realm of Nebuchadrezzar was but of comparatively brief splendour, and was soon absorbed by the less civilized but more virile power which became heir to its partner in the destruction of Assyria.