Herodotus' "Medes" new proposal

Author: Wang Yixin, Professor, School of History, Nankai University

Abstract: Herodotus' "Medes Story" has always been the basic basis for historians to restore ancient Medes history, and there is no other complete and reliable written historical material, and because some of the key details provided by Herodotus coincide with the Babylonian chronicles, they have been attacked by the international historians for a long time, and Chinese history textbooks have also been repeated. However, Herodotus's "Medes Story" has so far not been accurately corroborated by near Eastern archaeological data, and even contradicts it, forcing some contemporary Near Eastern historians to rethink the historical authenticity of Herodotus's Medes. By combing through the relevant academic history, analyzing the actual archaeological data of Iran and the relevant inscriptions of Assyria, Babylon and Persia, it is not difficult to find the hypocrisy of herodotus's medieval history. With the help of these Near Eastern sources, it is possible to reconstruct some aspects of the early history of the Medes, and also to help analyze the historical sources of Herodotus' "Medes Story" and its Hellenistic components.

Opening our history textbooks, the description of the ancient Iranian country of Media is extremely brief, basically following the records provided by the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 485 BC - about 424 BC). This is also the traditional practice of international academic circles, that is, to relay the story of the Medes kings in Herodotus's Histories as a history of faith. This approach is easy to understand, since the ancient Medes left no written historical documents, and their history was relayed by the Greek historians Herodotus, Ctesias (born in the late 5th century BC) and Xenophon (c. 430 BC – c. 354 BC) in the 5th century BC. Cortesias's account is not to be believed and is clearly inconsistent with the common sense of modern restored history; Xenophon's Cyropaedia deals only with the end of the Medes and is too novel, its Anabasis provides too fragmented information; only Herodotus provides the complete chronology and deeds of the Medean system, and, Details about the Medes king Cyaxares and the neo-Babylonian kingdom's capture of the Assyrian capital nineveh and the destruction of astyages by the last Median monarch Astyages by Persia are confirmed by the chronicles of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, so Near Eastern historians believe that Herodotus's Mêdikos Logos must have had its own reliable historical sources. Efforts were made to find evidence of clues from newly discovered archaeological and inscriptional sources. However, after entering the 1980s, doubts about Herodotus's Medes began to emerge and sparked a heated discussion in the academic community, which continues to this day, and the understanding of Medes has also undergone subversive changes. However, these discussions did not cause a ripple in the field of Chinese historiography, and the textbook statements of Medes still followed the old theory. Therefore, the author feels that it is necessary to introduce the new progress of international scholarship to China and re-understand the history of the ancient Median country.

I. Herodotus' "Medes"

The Clear Law stipulates: "Whoever commits adultery with a wife or concubine, but is found by the adulterer in the place of adultery, shall be killed at the time of denunciation." Herodotus provides a rough picture of the Medes as follows:

The six tribes of the Medes were politically anarchic after they were freed from Assyrian rule. A man named Deioces took the opportunity to unite the tribes and create a unified kingdom with ecbatana as its capital. Herodotus describes the legend of Diokes as a Medes "tyrant". He played the arbiter of disputes among the chaotic Medes, winning the trust of his fellow citizens and refusing to preside over justice for the people on the grounds that he had no time to take care of private matters. The Medes, unwilling to return to anarchy, unanimously elected him king. Diokais took the opportunity to ask the people to build a palace for him and provide a guard of soldiers to protect him. The people granted his request to build the city and palace of Ecpatana for him. Diorques ruled the Medians for 53 years; his son Phraortes succeeded to the throne for 22 years, mainly subjugating the Persians, but was defeated and killed in the attack on Assyria, and his son Kuksaras ascended the throne. Kuksales reorganized his army and once again attacked the Assyrian capital of Ninos (known to the Greeks as Ninos), but was defeated by the invasion of the nomadic Scythians, forced to submit to the latter for 28 years, and finally regained the independence of the Medes by means of cunning feasts to drunk the Scythian leaders and capture them; and then captured Nineveh, occupying all of Assyrian territory except the city of Babylon, and ruling Van for 40 years. Succeeded by his son Asduáchos, who ruled van for 35 years, his kingdom was destroyed by the Persian monarch Cyrus II (born 590–580 BC, died circa 529 BC).

Herodotus also refers to Kuksales' war with the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor in his Historia. The war lasted for 5 years, and the two sides won and lost each other. In the sixth year, when the eclipse occurred, the day turned to night, and the two sides called off the army and made peace, and formed a family of children and daughters. The Harris River became the border between the two countries. According to Herodotus, the eclipse was predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus of Miletus, and is now inferred to have occurred on May 28, 585 BC. According to the chronology provided by Herodotus, the age of Diokes's ascension to the throne should be around 700 BC. In other words, as early as the end of the 8th century BC, the Medes had become a unified kingdom, with its capital at Exebatana. Extrapolating from the number of years of the Medes provided by Herodotus and the chronology of the late Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (circa 556 BC – 539 BC), the four Medes reigned in the years of 53 years (700/699 BC – 647/646 BC), Praoretus 22 years (647/646 BC – 625/624 BC), and Kuksázales reigned for 40 years (625/624 BC – 585/584 BC) and Asduángeus reigned for 35 years (585/584 BC – 550/549 BC). The above is an overview of the History of the Medes provided by Herodotus.

II. "Evidence" Provided by Wedge Information

The second half of Herodotus's "Medes" is corroborated by the Neo-Babylonian Chronicles at least two key points: the first is the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian founding monarch Nabopolassar (reigned c. 626 BC – 605 BC), which records the combined attacks of the Babylonians and the Medians on Assyria; the second is the Nabonidus chronicle of the historical events of the last neo-Babylonian monarch, Nabonidus Chronicle), which chronicles the historical events of Cyrus's conquest of the Medes.

According to the former, in 615 BC, the 11th year of the reign of Napopalachal, the Medes arrived in Arrapha to fight Assyria with the Neo-Babylonian army. The following year, the Medes approached Nineveh and captured the Assyrian city of Tarbisu, which then besieged and destroyed Ashur. Reinforcements from Napoparachal arrived after the Medians captured the city of Assyria and met with the Medes, Umaki tar, the King of the Medes, and concluded a pact. Two years later, in 612 BC, the two kings again besieged Nineveh with their troops, which lasted three months. Thereafter, the Babylonians continued to fight in Assyria, and Uma Kishtar returned with his army. In 610 BC, neo-Babylon and the Median formed an alliance to capture the Syrian Assyrian stronghold of Haran, Uma Kishtar withdrew to the mainland, and the Babylonians garrisoned Haran and continued to fight. In this account, the Ma-da-a-a, also known as the "umman-mānda", first appears in Neo-Babylonian inscriptions, and their leader Uma Kishtar, the "king of the Umanmandas" (ar umman-mānda), is equated with the Medes king Kuksaras recorded by Herodotus. He commanded the Medes' armies, not those of a certain Medes city or tribe, and is often seen by contemporary historians as the true founder of the Medes. In addition, the Behistun Inscription of Darius I (reigned c. 522 BC – 486 BC) also mentions a Medean rebel, Fravartish, who claimed to be Khshathrita, a descendant of Kuaxares, indicating that Kuaxalez was indeed a celebrity in the ancient history of the Medes. Rebels present themselves as their descendants in order to demonstrate their legitimacy.

According to the Annals of Nabonid, in the sixth year of Nabonid's reign (550 BC), the Umanmanda king I tumegu gathered an army to conquer Kura, the king of Anju, and was captured due to an army mutiny. Gürash captured Agamtanu and transported the looted treasure back to his country. Istumaku is equated with Asduahais, the king of Anju, Cyrus II, the founder of the Persian Empire, and Agamutanu, the Median capital of Exebatana, a war that is perfectly consistent with Herodotus' account. A Naponid inscription unearthed by Sipal also speaks of Cyrus's conquest of the Medes, describing it as revenge of the gods against the Medes, who had plundered and destroyed the local temple of Sin after capturing Haran with the Babylonian army in 611 BC, and Naponid had repaired the temple at the behest of the god Marduk and the god Sin.

In view of this, scholars of the history of the Near East and Iran believe that Herodotus' history of the Medes is not an empty story, but has a historical basis, and thus adopt a generally accepting attitude, including the early Medes recorded by Herodotus. Although the wedges unearthed in the Near East contradict each other with Herodotus' records, scholars have spared no effort to find evidence to confirm the reliability of their records. This effort was indeed fruitful, and the two kings of the early Medes seem to have been confirmed by historical records.

In 1869, G. Smith Smith) found a governor of Mania named Daiukku in the chronicles of the Assyrian king Sargon II (reigned c. 721 BC – 705 BC) and his The Display Inscription, inferring that he was the prototype of Theokes. Mannea was the old kingdom of northwestern Iran, and became an Assyrian vassal during the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (reigned c. 744 BC – 727 BC). In 715 BC, the seventh year of Sargon's reign, the Uraltu king Rusa (r. 735–713 BC) seized 22 fortresses in Mania and lured Dai uku, aknu, a governor of Mania, to rebel against Assyria. Sargon II recaptured the fortress, quelled the unrest, and sent the entire Deouku family to Hamath in Syria. Sargon's list of Assyrian conquests in the ninth year of his reign (713 BC) also included the place name "Bīt-Daiukki", which was translated by H. Winckler as "The House of Deioces". The Deukau in Sargon's inscription has since been identified as the "prototype" of Herodotus's Theokes, although he was only an exiled Mania rebel. This view is widely accepted by the academic community, and it has been followed for a long time, and it is almost conclusive. The "House of Dioquez" is interpreted as a legacy left by Diokais to his successors. They built on this and eventually achieved the future glory of the Median Empire.

The second king of the Medes, Praores, son of Diocles, also seems to have a "prototype" to be found. This "archetype" appears in the divination texts of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (reigned c. 680 BC – 669 BC). This man was the local ruler of the Zagles region, named Kashtaritu, the lord of the city of Kar Kayi, a figure of special vigilance of the Assyrian kings, fearing that he would unite with other Medes to attack Assyria. He also proposed to Escalhadon the conclusion of a peace treaty, which was wary. The dating of divination documents is uncertain, but is generally inferred to be during the late reign of Essarhadon, sometime after 675 BC. The main basis is that darius' Behestown inscription mentions a Medes rebel whose Ancient Persian name was Flavartish, in its Hellenistic form, "Praorets". This man presented himself as a descendant of the Kuksales family and called himself "Khshathrita (Ancient Persian)". The name is both a throne name and a personal name, corresponding to the Medes in Khshāyathiya ("king") and the Akkadian form as "Kashtaritu". Thus some scholars have deduced that the dangerous man Kashtaritu in Essarhadon's divination texts was actually the name of the king of Plaoretus.

From the above analysis, it seems that some of the key details of herodotus's Middesian history are confirmed by the Neo-Babylonian chronicles, and its early kings seem to be able to obtain some corroboration from Assyrian sources, so at first glance it seems that Herodotus's Median story is basically reliable. However, if the wedges of the same generation are examined in detail, it is not difficult to find that Herodotus's Medes story, especially its early parts, is highly questionable.

3. Evidence of contradictory references in Assyrian sources

If examined closely, the evidence in support of Herodotus's History of the Medes is very limited, and the evidence to contradict it abounds in the Assyrian and Babylonian literature. Let's look first at the contradictory evidence provided by the Assyrian imperial documents.

According to Herodotus, as early as 700 BC, Dioquez unified the 6 Tribes of the Medes, fixed the capital of Ecpatana, and established a centralized kingdom. However, K. Radenell Radner's investigation reveals: "The Assyrian sources do not support Herodotus' account of the rise of the Median Empire at all. "The Assyrians were completely unaware that the Medes were a territorially unified state, similar to their contemporaries Elam, Mania, and Uraltu.

According to the archives of the Assyrian Empire, as early as 835 BC, Shalmaneser III (reigned c. 858 BC – 824 BC) invaded KUR a-ma-da-a-a, plundered and destroyed their towns, and accepted the 27th King of the Medes. Later, Shamshi-Adad V (reigned c. 823 BC – 811 BC) and Adad-nirari III (reigned c. 810 BC – 783 BC) used troops on Medes territory several times, with historical records recording as many as 10 times. From these sources, the Medes were "clearly not nomads", but settlers in towns (ālu) or villages (kapru), who were good at cavalry warfare. Assyrian military operations were aimed at claiming tribute, mainly horses, to meet the needs of Assyrian chariot soldiers, while controlling trade routes with the East (the Great Khorasan Passage).

Tiglat Palashar III changed the way the Medians ruled through two eastern wars (744 BC and 737 BC). After the battle in 744 BC, he established two eastern provinces, Parsua and Bt-amban, which brought the Zaglees and the Medes under the administration of the Assyrian Empire. These newly annexed local rulers of the eastern mountains, including the Medes chieftains, were referred to in Assyrian texts of the time as "lords of the city (bēl-āli)". In 716 BC, Sargon II arrived in the Median territory to receive tribute from "the 28 powerful lords of the Medes", and in the following years he used his troops several times to build two more provinces, namely Kār-arrukīn and Kār-Nergal. With regard to the peoples of the eastern Zagles, Assyria adopted a dual-track policy of rule, establishing a provincial administration system while retaining the privileges of small local rulers, the so-called "lords of the city", allowing them to enjoy the status of princes, declaring allegiance to the Assyrian kings, paying tribute, and protecting their interests and security. Archaeology confirms that they lived in fortified castles and palaces, while their people were scattered in the countryside. This dual-track system continued after the 7th century BC and seemed well suited to Assyrian rule over the east. During the reign of Essarhadon, three of the "distant Medians" who were not included in the Assyrian provincial system paid tribute to him and asked the king for assistance in attacking hostile cities, and the name of one of the city lords appeared on the clay tablet of the Oath of Allegiance (ad). These clay tablets list 7 lords who swore allegiance, 3 of whom can be identified as medes. Such clay tablets were once regarded as an oath of allegiance to Assyria, but their content was devoid of the tribute and conscription obligations that the princes were obliged to fulfill, but rather an oath to ensure the life and well-being of the crown prince, Ashurbanipal. Thus, the new view is that the Medes at this time fulfilled their obligations as an army of the Assyrian court and provided the crown prince with a personal guard. During the reign of Assyrian Banibal (c. 668 BC – 630 BC), he also used troops against three rebellious Median cities, plundering their cities and capturing their lords, dating from about 656 BC. From this point of view, at least from the late 8th century BC to the middle of the 7th century BC, that is, during the reign of Herodotus' so-called Middesy-founding monarch Dioques, the Medes were in a state of division among small states and showed no signs of a unified state, and Herodotus's statement was clearly inconsistent with the facts.

As for the aforementioned Dai Uku, it has long been regarded by the academic community as the prototype of Diokais, in fact, it is also a subsidiary of catching wind and shadows, which is not enough to rely on. Sargon's chronicles never indicate that Deuku was a Medes. His identity was governor of Mania, and his jurisdiction must have been in the north of the country, next to Uraltu, far from the Medes. Brown deduced that he had only briefly served in the northern province of Uishdish in the kingdom of Mania in 715 BC, and that his predecessor Bagdatti had been executed by Sargon the year before for rebellion, and that he and his entire family had been immediately exiled to Syria by Sargon. Moreover, according to R. Schmidt Schmitt) argues that Deutsch/Diokais is actually a common nickname, "Dahyu-ka-" in Medes or Old Persian, and its root "Dahyu" means "land", and that people who use this or similar name are not uncommon in ancient Near Eastern literature. In addition, this Deukau served in 715 BC, while Herodotus' Dioques reigned from 700/699 BC to 647/646 BC, which is not chronologically consistent, although Herodotus's chronology itself is problematic. Brown concludes that although the possibility of a Medes serving as Governor of the Kingdom of Mania cannot be completely ruled out, "however, it is highly unlikely that a Medes who had served as Governor of the Province of Mania for less than a year and who was politically and geographically distant from Exe battana was interrelated with the creation of the Medes, both historically and folklorically." "It is too far-fetched to insist that this Manian, who has been short-lived in the political arena, is the Founder of the Medes. In addition, the so-called "House of Dioques" that Sargon II conscripted in 1927 proved to be a mistranslation of Winkler, mistranslating "the state of the Medes ([Kur Ma]-da-a-a-a-a)" as "the homeland of Dioquez ([KUR b t]-Da-a-a-uk-ki)". In other words, Sargon's conquest was the land of the Medes, and the "House of Dioces" was originally a fiction.

The second Medean king given by Herodotus was Praores, son of Dioques, who, according to his account, ruled from about 647/646 BC to 625/624 BC. Assyrian historical sources of this period are scarce, and the Medes are even more rare. Whether the Medes are moving toward a unified nation-state is unknown, but it is likely to continue the political division of the past.

As mentioned earlier, Praortes conquered Persia and died without success in attacking Assyria; the Medes king seems to have his historical archetype, namely Kashtaritu, the lord of the city of Karkash, who appears in the assyrian king Essar hadtung divination texts. Essar Hadong feared that the man would join forces with other lords of the Zagles region to attack the Assyrian city. However, this statement also does not stand up to scrutiny. First, the geographical location of the city of Karkash is unknown, and the identity of the Medes in Kaštaritu is questionable; second, Kashtaritu is only a dangerous figure feared by Assyria, and there is no evidence that he actually formed a real anti-Assyrian alliance; third, the chronology is inconsistent, and in the Herododian chronology, the divination date is still under the reign of Diokes; and finally, the rebels in the Darius inscription call themselves the usual king name, and there is no evidence that this name is his royal ancestor Praortes. Thus, the identification of Kashtaritu, a potential enemy in Essar haden's divination texts, was not well founded as the prototype of Plaorets, and was also a shadow catcher.

Praoretus's main achievement, according to Herodotus, was the conquest of the Persians, which is equally doubtful. The Persians lived in the parsua region south of the Medes, with numerous tribes and separate tribes. During the reign of King Salmanisel III of Assyria, he accepted the Nagan of Parsua's 27 chiefs. It is inconceivable that a scattered Median rule over scattered Persian tribes. For three generations, before Cyrus the Great founded his empire, the Ahemenids ruled the Anglo-Persian region of southwestern Iran, which was once the ancient capital of Elam. According to the assyrian king Assyrian king Assyrian Banibal, the King of Parsumash learned of Assyrian Banipal's conquest of Elam (639 BC) and sent his eldest son Arukku to Nineveh as Chennagon. Scholars generally believe that this Jalash was the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus I, king of Anju, a contemporary of Praoretus. His kingdom was subordinate to Elam, which in turn was subordinate to Assyria, not to the Princes of the Medes. There is no contemporary evidence of Herodotus's claim that Persia was subordinated to the Medes, and the same is true of Praoretus's defeat and death in Battle by Assyria.

According to Herodotus, Ecpatana was the capital of the unified kingdom built by Diokes, but it seems that the literature of the Assyrian Empire is never mentioned. As the ancient capital of the Medes, it was supposed to have left a wealth of ruins from the 7th to the 6th centuries BC, but early archaeological surveys yielded little. Since 1983, excavations of "Exbatanachu" organized by the "Iranian Archaeological Center" have found the remains of streets, houses, defensive walls and towers, but no inscriptions have been excavated, and the age of the site is still in doubt, and it is not yet possible to provide accurate and reliable evidence.

Evidence of disparities in Neo-Babylonian sources

In the chronicles of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Kuksales is a proven historical figure who, in collaboration with the neo-Babylonian empire founder Napoparachal, conquered the Assyrian Empire. However, Herodotus's description of him still has a lot of seemingly absurd content. He reigned for 40 years, 28 of which were subordinate to the Scythians who occupied their territory. This tyrant, who eventually destroyed Asia's most powerful empire, Assyria, had long submitted to the Scythians who were scattered and brave, and finally relied on cunning such as the "Feast of the Hongmen" to destroy their leaders, so as to drive the alien race out of the country and restore their national strength. This plot is simply bizarre, and it has not been documented in other literature. Brown speculates that Herodotus's story may have a historical basis, because the Assyrian kings did indeed employ the Scythians to fight, and Kuksales may have been defeated by these mercenaries. But this historical core is obviously infinitely exaggerated, causing chronological problems for modern scholars, and perhaps the story of the Scythians' accession to the Medes is itself a fabrication.

According to the Chronicles of Neo-Babylon, Kuksales led the Medians in a battle alongside the Neo-Babylonians and captured the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. He was clearly not the lord of some Median city. He commanded the Median army, not the army of a city. In Herodotus' Historia and babylonian chronicles, he appears to be the leader of the Medes nation. Although Herodotus' description of the early Medes kings and the empires they ruled proved to be untrustworthy, the figure of Kuksáres was seen by academics as the true founder of the Median unified empire. According to Herodotus, after the capture of Nineveh, Kuaksales captured all of Assyrian territory except Babylon, and then sent troops to War of Asia Minor to engage the kingdom of Lydia, and later withdrew due to a solar eclipse, but had pushed the empire's borders westward to the Harris River in central Anatolia. In Herodotus' view, Babylon was only a powerful city, not an empire. After the fall of Assyria, the Medes were the true hegemons of Western Asia and established a vast empire. Contemporary historians have reconstructed the historical picture of the Medes and the Neo-Babylonian Empire jointly attacking Assyria and dividing up its territory, the Medes inheriting Assyria itself, and the New Babylon gaining Syria and Palestine. However, the chronicles of the Neo-Babylonian Empire clearly state that after the fall of Nineveh, the Babylonian army continued to fight in Assyria and expand its gains, while the Medes returned home with the spoils of war. Later, when Neo-Babylon attacked the Assyrian stronghold of Halan in northern Syria, the Medes sent troops to assist, but did not occupy territory. Kurt (A. Kurt) Khurt's research shows that the Assyrian mainland and its eastern and western peripheries (the area around Arafpha in the east and Syria and southern Anatolia in the west) were firmly under the control of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Curtis (J. Curtius's archaeological survey of the ruins of major Assyrian cities also shows: "There is not a single indication that the Medes appeared in the Assyrian region after 612 BC. "There were no inscriptions, no pottery, no Medes featured artifacts left, and the Medes disappeared ever since. Julsa (M. Jursa's investigation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire also shows: "The Babylonian data verified in this article does not support the claim that the Median Empire passed on the assyrian governmental and administrative system to the Ahemenides Empire, and that direct evidence of the Median archives on the Medians is extremely scarce and cannot be derived from it." More importantly, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, by the 6th century BC, encompassed not only most of Syria but also the core of ancient Assyria, thus reducing the territory left to the Medes 'Empire'. Thus, M. Riverani (M. Liverani concludes: "The idea that the two winners (Babylon and the Medes) shared the territory of the Assyrian Empire was completely wrong. The Medes played the dirty role of the destroyers, and the Babylonians played the role of restorers. Almost all of Assyria's territory was inherited by Babylon, leaving the Medians with the Zagles, which Had previously lost. ”

After his glorious appearance in the joint military campaign against Assyria, Kuksales retreated to his home in the Medes, where he disappeared from the neo-Babylonian Empire, while Herodotus recorded the history of Kuksales' expansion to the west and the war with the Lydian kingdom. However, R. Rollinger (R. Rollinger) Rollinger's new investigation confirms Coulter's conclusion that both the Euphrates and the upper reaches of the Tigris were under neo-Babylonian control, thus blocking the Passage of the Medes' expansion into central Anatolia; moreover, the Medes' war with Lydia was only a herodotus's word, and lacked contemporary historical evidence. Therefore, the Middes' advance westward to the Harris River seems to be a figment of the matter. Herodotus' statement may have stemmed from the Greek conception of imperial succession. They believed that the Medes were the successors of the Assyrian Empire and Persia was the successor of the Medes. Cyrus the Great of Persia's expedition to Asia Minor was merely a continuation of the inherent territory of the Median Empire.

Archaeological evidence also does not seem to support the traditional impression that the Medes empire was unified internally and flourished externally in the early 6th century BC. The ruins of the Medes, such as Nush-I Jan, Godin Tepe, Baba Jan, etc., have been booming since the late 8th century BC and throughout the 7th century, and the scale and number of buildings have continued to increase. This seems to indicate that during the Assyrian period, the local vassal regimes of the Medes flourished, which was the result of the Assyrian threat, the Nagam system, and the stimulus of trade demand. However, this trend has not continued. With the fall of Nineveh and the fall of Assyria, in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, although the Medes were militarily superior, the cities were peacefully abandoned. This phenomenon suggests that the Median local vassal regime, which had originally arisen under the stimulus of Assyria, gradually abandoned urban life and returned to the primitive nomadic life with the demise of Assyria. The Medes, who militarily conquered their arch-enemy Assyria, instead, almost disappeared from the historical record in the following 60 years, that is, between 610 and 550 BC, and entered the so-called "Dark Age", until they were conquered by Cyrus in Persia and reappeared in the Babylonian history.

Scholars therefore strongly question the internal unity of the Medes during the reign of Kuksásáres and the grandeur of the empire on the outside. Perhaps Kuksázáres was the leader of a tribal confederation who had been temporarily supported in the Medes' military struggle to free themselves from Assyrian rule, and he led anti-Assyrian military campaigns aimed at fighting for national freedom and independence, revenge and looting former oppressors. His allies with neo-Babylon may have led him to the latter's financial support, and to some extent he acted as a mercenary for the latter. When Nineveh fell and the Medians received rich spoils of war, they had no desire to fight and returned to their homeland, without the imperial consciousness and motivation to expand their territory. Kuksales, as the leader of the alliance, seemed to lack arbitrary authority, and was unable to persuade the Medians to stay in battle, seize territory, and expand their gains, leaving the Neo-Babylonian Empire to monopolize the Assyrian legacy. The Medes in the early 6th century BC may still have been a loose tribal confederation, without the establishment of a true state administration, and the local state system and accompanying urban life that had previously been stimulated by Assyria were abandoned with the disintegration of Assyria and returned to the primitive and extensive nomadic life. They have not left behind a distinctive cultural heritage, nor have they left a written system and historical archives that are compatible with the state management system. But the Medes in the early 6th century BC were still a considerable military force, and the Old Testament book of Jeremiah mentions that among the foreign forces that subverted the Babylonian Empire at the call of Jehovah included the "Medes kings." In the Jewish view at the time, the Median Remnant, who had destroyed Assyria, was still alive and was a tool of God's revenge on Babylon, but it did not seem to be centralized enough, and its leaders, Kuksales and Asduahais, were also subject to tribal chiefs, the so-called "Medes kings" in the Book of Jeremiah. In the Napoleonic inscription of Sipar, the god Malduk said to Nabonid, "The Umanmanda you mentioned (i.e., the Median king Asduahais), he, his kingdom, and the kings around him will be destroyed." Again, the "kings" (chiefs) of the Medes are mentioned. It seems that the Medes were constrained by the chiefs of the various tribes in the country, and his position was similar to that of Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army in Homer's epic.

V. Historical Sources of Herodotus

The previous discussion shows that Herodotus's Medes history is generally contradicted by ancient wedge data and archaeological evidence, which is obviously not a history of faith, but it is too much to infer that Herodotus was a liar. In fact, the historical authenticity of Herodotus's story depends to a large extent on its historical sources. The unreliability of his Medes story implies that its historical sources are not reliable official archives. In fact, the Medes did not establish a sound state administration system, nor did they have a typical artistic heritage and written archives. So where did Herodotus come from? This is a fascinating question.

Helm argues that Herodotus' Medes story is derived from "popular Iranian legends and propaganda from the Ahelmonid royal family" and is not a history of faith and cannot be used to reconstruct the early history of the Medes. He speculates that with the fall of Assyria and the formation of the Medes' unified nation-state, it was likely that an oral heroic epic with the theme of national liberation was created in the early 6th century BC. It absorbs the stories of unrelated local heroes (sagas) of the different peoples of the Zagres region of the past, blending them into one, including the legends of the Manian Dai uku and the lord of the city of Karkash, Kastaritu, transforming it into an early Medes king. This is the Medes story that Herodotus learned, and he gave these stories a chronological framework, so that the Eastern countries such as Lydia, Assyria, and the Medes coincided with the chronology of Greek mythology. Admittedly, Herodotus' Medes, especially the early parts, are likely to come from Iranian local legends, but the origin and evolution of the legends remain obscure. Whether local figures in Assyrian histories, such as Dai uku and Kashtaritu, constitute archetypes of the early Medes kings is highly questionable due to weak evidence.

Brown argues that Herodotus's Medes story does derive from the oral epics of the Medians, but that oral epics can also preserve a reliable history. Herodotus' Medes chronology largely coincides with the Wedge historical record, and his story reflects the evolution of a chiefdom into a state centered on Exebatana in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, that is, the transformation of a secondary state from a chiefdom to a kingdom under the stimulation and influence of Assyria, and the basis of its socio-political system also shifted from blood relations to royal power. It was only because Expatana was located east of the pass in the Alvand Mountains, guarded the key east-west trade route, and was not under the control of the Assyrian Empire, that it gained geographical advantages and opportunities for development, and thus began to evolve into a secondary state, but did not arouse the alarm of Assyria and did not see Assyrian literature. The Median Kingdom was not a state that suddenly formed at the end of the 7th century BC, but underwent a long evolution. Herodotus' account of the two early Medes kings should be a history of faith, but they are not related to the Assyrian history of Deuku and Kashtaritu. Although this theory of "secondary state formation" can explain the social development of the Medians from the 8th to the 7th century BC, and it is true that many small local states attached to or opposed Assyria did appear at that time, the hypothesis of a unified Median kingdom centered on Exebatana is not supported by any historical data. The archaeology of Exebatana has failed to provide physical evidence of the formation of the secondary state. The hypothesis that the Median emirate of Exebatana was outside the Assyrian sphere of influence and therefore undetected by the latter was purely imaginary and difficult to agree with by most scholars.

Sanchez-Weidenberg acknowledges that certain oral sources can convey certain true historical information under certain conditions (although most have difficulty maintaining long-term accurate historical memories). But she argues that Herodotus's "Medes" is a different story; only the contents of Asduarchus and Cyrus the Great have oral mythological and folktale characteristics. In addition to the previous content, the narrative of Kuksásáres's wise killing of the Scythian leader has the characteristics of folk tales, often lacking common story elements such as dreams, divine signs, and signs. These are very credible, like chronicles: some of the narratives are very concise and dry, such as the conquest of Persia by Praoretus; some are very accurate and corroborated by the chronicles of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Thus, Herodotus' Medes are not local oral stories, but are derived from Babylonian chronicles. From the 6th to the 5th century BC, the Greeks had very close contact with Babylonia, and ancient historical legends were constantly processed and re-recorded locally, which was accessible to the Greeks of Babylon and was the source of the History of Herodod Medes. However, the chronicles of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, although sporadically recorded by the Medes, are mainly contemporary events contained in the Chronology of the Chaldean kings, rather than a retrospective of ancient history. As discussed earlier, the early Medes empire is not found in the Assyrian literature of the same era, it is purely illusory, and of course it is impossible to see the Babylonian literature of the same generation. Late Babylonian chronicles, if recorded, can only be collected from and historicized by Medes folklore circulated by the Persians.

Thus, as the new edition of the 21st Century History of the Ancient Near East speculates: "His (Herodotus's) history of the Medes reads like a smooth and detailed report, but it seems to be mostly fictional, based on the Medes stories told by the Persians." Thus, classical writers were not reliable sources of near Eastern history, which had to be restored on the basis of local evidence. In addition, Herodotus' Medes contains not only foreign information, but also elements of the Greek mainland. Many scholars believe that the Medes story is also the work of the Greeks, with a strong Greek character, reflecting the customs, institutions and concepts of the Greeks. For example, the story of Diokes' rise to power is considered a replica of the story of the Greek tyrant. Sanches-Weidenberg points out: "Although Diokais is indeed an Iranian name, and the rules he laid down in Herodotus's story are very similar to the later Ahemenides court practices, the plot development of the story is clearly a Greek interpretation, reflecting the Greek experience of tyrants." The story of Dioquez's rise to power provides a model for the late 5th-century view of the origins of tyranny. ”

Conclusions

In summary, Herodotus' "Medes Story," while the most comprehensive and fruitful written account of the Medes in antiquity, in many respects contradicts first-hand accounts of the historical archives of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, although well in some key details. Contemporary historians' understanding of Medes is often based on Herodotus' "Medes Story", and strives to use wedges and archaeological data to justify it, which has already faced great doubts. Most of today's Iranian historians believe that the use of Herodotus's "Median story" to restore the ancient history of the Medes will no longer work. Herodotus' history of the Medes, especially the early parts, does not reflect historical truth, but is misleading. Although Herodotus' Medes is not a history of faith, it must be emphasized that Herodotus was not a liar, and the authenticity of his historical narrative depends on his historical sources, historical concepts (such as the idea of the rise and fall of empires), and intentional or unintentional Hellenistic processing. Therefore, Herodotus's narrative of oriental history must be treated with caution, carefully screened and criticized, and its historical sources and the concepts and beliefs of ancient historians can be correctly restored. The research progress of the international academic community on the history of the Medes also sets off the relative lag and imbalance of research in relevant fields in China, which must arouse sufficient attention from the academic community.

Comments are omitted from.

Source: Ancient Civilizations, No. 2, 2020