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Bible Encyclopedias
Media
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (מָדִי ). The same Hebrew word is used in the O.T. as the name of a son of Japhet, of the nation which he founded, and of their country. Hence we find it rendered in four different -ways in our AV. In most cases these renderings are arbitrary, and tend to confuse rather than explain
(1.) Madai, the proper rendering (Genesis 10:2; Μαδοί; Alex. Μαδαί Madai; 1 Chronicles 1:5, Μαδαϊ v μ );
(2.) Medes (Μήδοι . 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11; Esther 1:19; Isaiah 13:17; Jeremiah 25:25; Daniel 9:1; Daniel 5:28; Μήδεια, Ezra 6:22; Medo;
(3.) Media (Μήδοι, Medoi, Esther 1:3; Esther 10:2; Isaiah 21:2; Daniel 8:20);
(4.) Mede, only in Daniel 11:1. In the following account we chiefly refer of course to ancient territorial distributions and descriptions.
I. Geography. The general situation of the country is abundantly clear, though its limits may not be capable of being precisely determined. Media lay northwest of Persia Proper, south and south-west of the Caspian, east of Armenia and Assyrian west and north-west of the great salt desert of Iran. Its greatest length was from north to south, and in this direction it extended from the 32d to the 40th parallel, a distance of 550 miles. In width it reached from about long. 450 to 53°; but its,average breadth was not more than from 250 to 300 miles. Its area may be reckoned at about 150,000 square miles, or three fourths of that of modern France. The natural boundary of Media on the north was the river Aras; on the west Zagros, and the mountain-chain which connects Zagros with Ararat; on the south Media was probably separated from Persia by the desert which now forms the boundary between Farsistan and Irak Ajemi; on the east its natural limit was the desert and the Caspian Gates. West of the gates it was bounded, not (as is commonly said) by the Caspian Sea, but by the mountain range south of that sea, which is the natural boundary btween the high and the low country. It thus comprised the modern provinces of Irak Ajemi, Persian Kurdistai., part of Luristan, Azerbijan, perhaps Talish and Ghila a, but not Mazanderan or Asterabad.
The division of Media commonly recognised by the Greeks and Romans was that into Media Magna and Media Atropatene (Strabo, 11:13, § 1; comp. Polyb. v. 44; Pliny, H. N. 6:13; Ptolem. 6:2, etc.).
1. Media Atropatene, so named from the satrap Atropates, who became independent monarch of the province on the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander (Arrian, Exped. Alex. iii,8; 6:29; Diod. Sic. 18:3), corresponded nearly to the modern Azerbijan, being the tract situated between the Caspian and the mountains which run north from Zagros, and consisting mainly of the rich and fertile basin of Lake Urumiyeh, with the valleys of the Aras,and the Sefid Rud. This is chiefly a high tract, varied between mountains and plains, and lying mostly three or four thousand feet above the sea level. The basin of Lake Urumiyeh (the Spanta of Strabh ) has a still greater elevation, the surface of the lake itself, into which all the rivers run, being as much as 4200 feet above the ocean. The country is fairly fertile, ell-watered in most places, and favorable to agriculture its climate is temperate, though occasionally severe in winter; it produces rice, corn of all kinds, wine, silk, white wax, and all mariner of delicious fruits. Tabriz, is modern capital, forms the summer residence of the Persian kings, and is a beautiful place, situated in a forest. of orchards. The ancient Atropatene may have included also the countries of Ghilan and Talish, together with the plain of Moghan, at the mouth of the combined Kur and Aras rivers. These tracts are low and flat; that of Moghan is sandy and sterile; Talish is more productive; while Ghilan (like Mazanderan) is rich and fertile in the highest degree. The climate of Ghilan, however, is unhealthy, and at times pestilential; the streams perpetually overflow their banks; and the waters which escape stagnate in marshes, whose exhalations spread disease and death among the inhabitants.
2. Media Magna lay south and east of Atropatene. Its northern boundary was the range of Elburz from the Caspian Gates to the Rudbar pass, through which the Sefid Rud reaches the low country of Ghilan. It then adjoined upon Atropatene, from which it may be regarded as separated by a line running about south-west by west from the bridge of Menjil to Zagros. Here it touched Assyria, from which it was probably divided by the last line of hills towards the west, before the mountains sink down upon the plain . On the south it was bounded by Susiana and Persia Proper, the former of which it met in the modern Luristan, probably about lat. 33° 30', while it struck the latter on the eastern side of the Zangros range, in lat. 32° or 32° 30'. Towards the east it was closed in by the great salt desert, which Herodotus reckons to Sagartia, and later writers to Parthia and Carmania. Media Magna thus contained a great part of Kurdistan and Luristan, with all Ardelan and Irak Ajemi. The character of this tract is very varied. Towards the west, in Ardelan, Kurdistan, and Luristan, it is highly mountainous, but at the same time wellwatered and richly wooded, fertile and lovely; on the north, along the flank of Elburz, it is less. charming, but still pleasant and tolerably productive; while towards the east and south-east it is bare, arid, rocky, and sandy supporting with difficulty a spare and wretched population. The present productions of Zagros are cotton, tobacco, hemp, Indian corn, rice, wheat, wine, and fruits of every variety; every valley is a garden; and besides valleys, extensive plains are often found, furnishing the most excellent pasturage. Here were nurtured the valuable breed of horses called Nisaean, which the Persians cultivated with such especial care, and from which the horses of the monarch were always chosen. The pasture grounds of Khawah and Alishtar, between Behistun and Khorram-abad, probably represent the " Nisean plain" of the ancients, which seems to have taken its name from a town Nisaea (Nisaya), mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions.
Although the division of Media into these two provinces can only be distinctly proved to have existed from the time of Alexander the Great, yet there is reason to believe that it was more ancient, dating from the settlement of the Medes in the country, which did not take place all at once, but was first in the more northern and afterwards in the southern country. It is indicative of the division, that there were two Ecbatanas-one, the northern, at Takht-i-Suleiman; the other, the southern at Hamadan, on the flanks of Mount Orontes (Elwand) -respectively the capitals of the two districts. (See ECBATANA).
Next to the two Ecbatanas, the chief town in Media was undoubtedly Rhages-the Raga of the inscriptions. Hither the rebel Phraortes fled on his defeat by Darius Hystaspis, and hither. too, came Darius Codomannus after the battle of Arbela, on his way to the eastern provinces (Arrian, Exped. Alex. 3:20). The only other place of much note was Bagistana, the modern Behistun, which guarded the chief pass connecting Media with the Mesopotamian plain.
No doubt both parts of Media were further subdivided into provinces, but no trustworthy account of these minor. divisions has come down to us. The tract about Rhages was certainly called Rhagiana, and the mountain tract adjoining Persia seems to have been known' as Paraetacene; or the country of the Parsetacae. Ptolemy gives as Median'districts Elymais, Choromithrene, Sigrina, Daritis, and Syromedia; but these names are little known to other writers, and suspicions attach to some of them. On the whole, it would seem that we do not possess materials for a minute account of the ancient geography of the country, which is very imperfectly described by Strabo, and almost omitted by Pliny.
In Great Media lay the metropolis of the country, the Ecbatana of that district (Pliny, Hist. Nat. 6:17), as well as the province of Rhagiana and the city Rhagae, with the above Nissean plain, celebrated in the time off the Persian empire for its horses and horse-races (Herod. 3:106; Arrian, 7:13; Heeren, Ideen, 1:1. 305). This plain was near the city Nisaea, around which were fine pasture lands producing excellent clover (Herba Medica). The horses were entirely white, and of extraordinary height and beauty, as well as speed. They constituted a part of the luxury of the great, and a tribute in kind was paid from them to the monarch, who, like all Eastern sovereigns, used to delight in equestrian display. Some idea of the opulence of the country may be had when it is known that, independently of imposts rendered in money, Media paid a yearly tribute of not less than 3000 horses, 4000 mules, and nearly 100,000 sheep. The breeds, once celebrated through the world, appear to exist no more; but Ker Porter saw the shah ride on festival occasions a splendid horse of pure white. Cattle abounded, as did the richest fruits, as pines, citrons, oranges, all of peculiar excellence, growing as in their native land. Here also was found the silphium (probably assafoetida), which formed a considerable article in the commerce of the ancients, and was accounted worth its weight in. gold.
II. History. —
1. Its Early Stages. In Genesis 10:2 we are told that Madai was the third son of Japhet (comp. 1 Chronicles 1:5). The names in that invaluable ethnological summary were not merely those of individuals but of the nations which descended from them; for the historian says, "By these Were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations" (1 Chronicles 1:5). For a period of fifteen centuries the Medes are not again mentioned in Scripture. Then Isaiah, in pronouncing the prophetic doom of Babylon, says, "I will stir up the Medes against them" (Isaiah 13:17). This prophecy was uttered about BC. 720. There is no direct evidence connecting Madai, the son of Japhet, and the nation he founded, with the Medes (Madai) of whom Isaiah speaks; but the names are identical in Hebrew; and the genealogical tables of Genesis appear to have been intended to show the origin of those nations which afterwards bore an important part in the history of God's people.
Berosus, the Babylonian priest and historian, states that at a very remote period (BC. cir. 2000) the Medes ruled in Babylon (Eusebius, Chron. 1:4). Though we may not be able to rely upon either his dates or his facts, yet we may infer from his words and references that the Medes were one of the great primeval races which established themselves in Central Asia. Herodotus gives a very graphic and circumstantial account of the early history of the Medes, and the establishment of the empire: "The Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; but when Medda, the Colchian, came to them from Athens, they changed their name. Such is the ‘ account which they themselves give" (vii. 62). This is opposed to what appears to be the opinion of the sacred writers; but there can be no doubt that during the time of ascendency of Greek arms, literature, and -art, Eastern nations were all anxious to claim some sort of connection with Greece, and this may account for Herodotus's story (comp. Rawlinson's Herod. 4:61, 1st ed.).
The Medes appear, however, to have been a branch of the Arian family, who probably had their primitive seat on the east bank of the Indus, and thence sent their colonies eastward into India, and westward to Media, Persia, Greece, etc. (Muller, Science of Language). There are independent grounds for thinking that an Arian element existed in the population of the Mesopotamian valley, side by side with the Cushite and Shemitic elements, at a very early date. It is therefore not at all impossible that the Medes may have been the predominant race there for a time, as Berosus states, and may afterwards have been overpowered and driven to the mountains, whence they may have spread themselves eastward, northward, and westward, so as to occupy a vast number of localities from the banks of the Indus to those of the middle Danube. The term Arians, which was by the universal consent of their neighbors applied to the Medes in the time of Herodotus (Herod. 7:62), connects them with the early Yedic settlers in Western Hindustan; the Matieni of Mount Zagros. the Sauro Matae of the steppe-country between the Caspian and the Euxine, and the Maetae or Maeotae of the Sea of Azov, mark their progress towards the north; while the Maedi or Medi of Thrace seem to indicate their spread westward into Europe, which was directly attested by the native traditions of the Sigynnae (Herod. v. 9). It has been supposed by some that there was a Scythic tribe of Madai who conquered and held Babylonia long previous to the irruption of the Arian family, and that it is to them Berosus alludes. There are no good grounds for this belief; and it is worthy of note as tending to disprove the theory that the name "Mede" does not appear upon the Assyrian monuments before the year BC. 880 (Rawlinson's Commentary on A ssyrian Inscriptions). To that date is assigned the inscription. on the famous black obelisk, discovered by Layard at Nimrud, which contains a record of the victories of Temen-bar, the Assyrian monarch. In the twenty- fourth year of his reign he invaded the territory of the Medes (Vaux, Nineveh and Persepolis, p. 263, where a translation of the inscription is given). At that time the Medes were independent, occupying an extensive country with many cities, and divided, like the Persians, into a number of tribes having each a chief. This remarkable monument thus fixes the date of the first conquest of the Medes by the Assyrians; but it does not determine the' date of the settlement of the former in Media. Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that the way in which the nations are grouped in that inscription seems to indicate that the Medes when attacked were in the act of migrating (Commentary). This, however, is very uncertain.
The invasion of Temen-bar was probably more like an Arab raid than a military conquest. His successors on the Assyrian throne were almost incessantly engaged in hostilities with the Medes (Rawlinson's Herodot. 1. 404); and Sargon appears to have been the first who attempted to occupy the country with regular garrisons. He built cities in Media, and reduced the people to tribute (Rawlinson's Herod. 1. c.; and Comment.). Sargon was that king of Assyria "who took Samaria, and carried Israel captive," and placed some of them "in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kings 17:6; comp. 18:17; Isaiah 20:1). The truth of Scripture history is here strongly confirmed by monuments recently disentombed from the ruins of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. On its walls are inscribed the records of his conquests, in which both Media and Judaea are mentioned-the former as on the eastern, and the latter on the western limits of his vast empire (Rawlinson's Comment. p. 61; Rawlinson's Herodot. 1:405). (See SARGON).
Media was not yet a kingdom. It was occupied by a number of petty chiefs, each ruling his own tribe. From these chiefs the Assyrian monarchs exacted tribute. The tribes increased in numbers, influence, and power. They held a country naturally strong. The Assyrian yoke was galling to their free spirits, and probably this first induced them to unite their forces, elect a common leader, and assert their independence. The exact date of this revolution cannot now be fixed, but the fact of it is certain. Herodotus's account of it is as follows: "The Assyrians had held the empire of Upper Asia for a space of 520 years, when the Medes set the example of revolt. They took arms for the recovery of their freedom, and fought a battle with the Assyrians, in which they behaved with such gallantry as to shake off the yoke of servitude" (i. 95). He then tells how the empire was formed by a certain Deioces, who, in consequence of his wisdom and justice, was elected monarch by the six tribes composing the nation (i. 96-101). Deioces built the great city of Ecbatana; and, after a prosperous reign of fifty-three years, left the throne to his son Phraortes. Phraortes conquered Persia, vastly enlarged the Median empire, and reigned twenty-two years. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares. During his reign, while engaged in a war against Nineveh, Media was overrun by a horde of Scythians, who held a great part of Western Asia for twenty-eight years. The Scythian leaders were at length treacherously murdered by Cyaxares, and the Median monarchy re-established. He ruled forty years, and then left the kingdom to his son Astyages, whose daughter Mandane was married to a Persian noble, and became the mother of the great Cyrus. According to this narrative, the Median monarchy was established about BC. 708 (Rawlinson's Herodot. 1:407). There is good reason to believe, however, that the early portion of the narrative is apocryphal,,and that Cvaxares was the real founder of the Median empire. He is so represented by most ancient historians (Diodoi's Sic. 2:32; }AEschylus, Persae, 761; see Grote's History of Greece, vol. iii). The Assyrian monumental annals are almost complete down to the reign of the son of Esarhaddon (BC. 640), and they contain no mention of any Median irruptions; on the contrary, they represent the Median chiefs as giving tribute to Esarhaddon (Rawlinson's Herodot. 1:405, 408).
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