[450] In the most recent times it has been maintained that the Medes were of Turkish-Tatar (Altaic) family, but this view rests simply on the assumption that the inscriptions of the second class in the inscriptions of the Achæmenids must have been written in the language of the Medes. This hypothesis contradicts everything that has come down to us of Median names and works, and the close relationship between the Medes and Persians. Whether the Arians, on immigrating into Media, found there Turkish-Tatar tribes, overpowered, expelled or subjugated them, is another question. If this were the case, the fragments of the population could hardly have exercised any influence worth mentioning on the Arian Medes. [451] Paraetacene is derived no doubt from _parvata_, mountain, or _parvataka_, mountainous. Strabo remarks that when the Persians had conquered the Medes, they took some land from them. The distance between Persepolis and Ecbatana was twenty marches; Alexander reached the borders of Media on the twelfth day after leaving Persepolis. Arrian, "Anab." 3, 19. [452] Strabo, p. 73; 509. [453] Under the Sassanids Media (Mah) consisted of four regions: Aderbeijan, Rai (Rhagiana), Hamadan (Ecbatana), Isfahan. [454] Herodotus allows the Matieni a considerable extent, for he includes under the name the Armenians and the inhabitants of Atropatene. Later authors confine the Matieni to the region round the lake of Urumiah; in this sense, Polybius, quoted above in the text, limits Media in the North by the Cadusians and Matieni. [455] Herod. 3, 106; 7, 40. [456] Strabo, p. 525; Diod. 17, 110; Arrian, "Anab." 7, 13. [457] Behist. 1, 13. Strabo's [Greek: Nêsaia] (p. 509, 511), the Nisiaea of Pliny (6, 29), the Parthaunisa of Isidore of Charax, must be sought in the neighbourhood of Nishapur, which was built by Shapur II. The Avesta puts Niça between Merv and Balkh. [458] Diod. 19, 44. Alexander in eleven forced marches advanced from Ecbatana to Ragha. [459] Isid. Ch. "M. P." c. 5. [460] Mordtmann, "B. d. Bair. Akademie," 1876, s. 364. [461] Diod. 2, 13; 17, 110. The city of Baptana, which Isidore (c. 5) mentions "as situated on a mountain in Cambadene," is in any case Bagistana (Behistun). [462] Herodotus, 1, 95-101. [463] Herod. 1, 102. [464] Vol. III. 257 ff. According to the reigns which Herodotus allows to Deioces and his successors, 150 years before the overthrow of Astyages, which took place 558 B.C., _i.e._ 708, but, according to the total given by Herodotus--156 years, 714 B.C. [465] Volney, "Recherches," 1, 144 ff. [466] In order to remove this objection, the dates of Deioces and Phraortes must be transposed, and the 22 years of Phraortes given to the former, the 53 years of Deioces to the latter. Phraortes would then have marched out against the Assyrians in extreme old age, and fallen in the battle. [467] Herod. 1, 96. [468] Vol. III. Bk. 4; Chaps. 1, 4, 5-8. [469] According to Von Gutschmid. Cf. _supr._ p. 278.