We need not point out how widely these accounts of Ctesias and Herodotus differ from each other. In Ctesias the Assyrian kingdom is in the fulness of vigour, with an unbroken organisation. It is an effeminate ruler whose weakness rouses the viceroys of two provinces of the kingdom to rebellion, in which this effeminate ruler confronts them with the most masculine energy; and finally succumbs after the bravest resistance and marvellous changes of fortune in the struggle. The empire, the metropolis, the king of Assyria perish simultaneously. The viceroy of Media takes the place of the king of Asshur as the lord of Asia. In the narrative of Herodotus the empire of the Assyrians is first overthrown; in the struggle against this the Medes win back their freedom; the remaining nations, who were subject to the Assyrians, follow their example, and also attain independence. Then out of the anarchy of the Medes there springs up a monarchy, of which Phraortes is the inheritor. He subdues one nation of Asia after the other. When this object has been obtained, he advances to the attack upon the Assyrians, and in the struggle against these he perishes. After this the Scythians conquer the Medes, and overthrow the dominion of the Medes over the nations of Asia, which Phraortes had won. For twenty-eight years they devastate Asia as far as the borders of Egypt, till the Median Cyaxares becomes their master by treachery, and again overthrows the Assyrians and conquers Nineveh. According to this, Assyria did not receive the death-blow till the Medes and the other nations were liberated from her dominion, and the Medes had twice established their supremacy over the rest of the nations. In Ctesias it is Arbaces who overthrows the kingdom of the Assyrians; in Herodotus it is Phraortes who founds the empire of the Medes, and Cyaxares, the father of Astyages, who conquers Nineveh. The dates of the overthrow, no less than the authors of it, differ widely in Herodotus and Ctesias. In Herodotus, Cyaxares, the conqueror of Nineveh, reigns 40 years, his son Astyages 35 years. As the latter was defeated by Cyrus in 558 B.C., the reign of Cyaxares, and the invasion and conquest of the Scythians, the re-establishment of the Median kingdom, the war with the Lydians, the marriage of Astyages with the daughter of the king of Lydia, the conquest of Nineveh, must fall in the period between 633 and 593 B.C. On the other hand, according to the dates which Ctesias gives for Aspadas and his predecessors, up to the rebellion of Arbaces, Arbaces destroyed the kingdom and metropolis of Assyria in the year 878 B.C.[524]