The Assyrian empire collapsed due to a bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes, Persians, Scythians and their own Babylonian relations.

Later during the 6th century BC, most of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty in Iran.

Upharsin-Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

He also neglected the rise of powerful new enemies, first the Medes, then the Persians under Cyrus the Great.

In 550 BCE Cyrus defeated the Medes, and had allied himself with the priests of Marduk, and the fall of Babylon to the Persians became a real possibility.

Indeed, based on their previous experience of the Greeks, the Persians might be excused for this ; Herodotus tells us that the Athenians at Marathon were " first to endure looking at Median dress and men wearing it, for up until then just hearing the name of the Medes caused the Hellenes to panic ".

Sensing this weakness, the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians formed a coalition and attacked the Assyrian Empire in 616 BC.

The Median Cyaxares had also recently taken advantage of the anarchy in the Assyrian Empire to free the Iranic peoples, the Medes and Persians, from Assyrian rule.

The Medes, Persians, Chaldean ruled Babylonians, together with the Scythians and Cimmerians attacked Assyria in 616 BC, and by 612 BC, after five years of bitter fighting, the alliance had sacked Nineveh, killing Sin-shar-ishkun in the process.

In the 550s BC the Persians revolted against the Medes and gained control of their empire, and over the next few decades annexed to it the realms of Lydia in Anatolia, Damascus, Babylonia, and Egypt, as well as consolidating their control over the Iranian plateau nearly as far as India.

Jerome identified the four prophetic kingdoms symbolized in Daniel 2 as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Medes and Persians, Macedon, and Rome.

The Seleucid empire's geographic span, from the Aegean Sea to what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, created a melting pot of various peoples, such as Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Medes, Assyrians, and Jews.

Persians and Medes paid no tax, but, they were liable at any time to serve in the army.

They elected new leaders, including Xenophon himself, and fought their way north through hostile Persians and Medes to Trapezus on the coast of the Black Sea.

The stalemate ended in 616 BC, when Nabopolassar entered into alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians, ( who had also taken advantage of the anarchy in Assyria to free his peoples from the Assyrian yoke ) and also the Scythians and Cimmerians.

* 737 and 736 BC — King Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria invades Iran, conquering the Medes and Persians and slaughtering, enslaving or deporting many.

The empire fell in 608 BCE with the death of Ashur-uballit II after a period of internal strife followed by an attack by a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, Scythians, Persians and Cimmerians led by Nabopolassar, the Chaldean ruler of Babylon and Cyaxares of Media / Persia.

This and the fact that the Persians and Medes to the east were growing in power now that the might of Assyria that had held them in vassalage for centuries was gone, spelt the death knell for native Mesopotamian power.

Still earlier than these, in the times of the Medes and Persians, there were Solon, Themistocles, Miltiades, and Cimon, Myronides, and Pericles and certain others in Athens, and in Sicily Gelon, son of Deinomenes, and still others.

The original homeland of the Kassites is not well known, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains in Lorestan in what is now modern Iran, although, like the Elamites, Gutians and Manneans, they were unrelated to the later Indo-European / Iranic Medes and Persians who came to dominate the region a thousand years later .< ref >

The despotic rule of Cambyses, coupled with his long absence in Egypt, contributed to the fact that " the whole people, Persians, Medes and all the other nations ," acknowledged the usurper, especially as he granted a remission of taxes for three years.

* Medes: An Asiatic people associated with the Persians, they are said by Cleon to be involved in the sausage-seller's cospiratorial comings and goings in the city at night ( line 478 ).

The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians.

5 and 8 ) – a book of the Tanakh or Old Testament – Belshazzar is the King of Babylon before the advent of the Medes and Persians.

The Iranic Medes and Persians who had been largely subject to Assyria since their arrival in the region circa 1000 BC, took full advantage of the anarchy in Assyria, and in 616 BC freed themselves from Assyrian rule.

The destruction of the Assyrian capitals of Nineveh and Assur by the Babylonians, Medes and their allies ensured that much of the bilingual elite ( but not all ) were wiped out.

According to 2 Kings and Josephus the people of Israel were removed by the king of the Assyrians ( Sargon II ) to Halah, to Gozan on the Khabur River and to the towns of the Medes.

According to Berossus, some years before he became king of Babylon, he married Amytis of Media, the daughter or granddaughter of Cyaxares the Great, king of the Medes, and thus the Median and Babylonian dynasties were united.

The two types, κάρδαμομον and ἄμωμον were distinguished in the fourth century BCE by the Greek father of botany, Theophrastus, some of whose informants told him they came to Greece from the land of the Medes in northern Persia, while others were aware it came originally from India.

The Greek historian Arrian mentions ( perhaps anachronistically ) the Caucasian Albanians for the first time in the battle of Gaugamela, where the Albanians, Medes, Cadussi and Sacae were under the command of Atropates.

In the 2nd century BC parts of Albania were conquered by the Kingdom of Armenia, presumably from Medes ( although possibly it was earlier part of Orontid Armenia ).

In the few short years that followed Ashur, Nimrud, and Nineveh were besieged and destroyed with the help of Medes and Scythians.

According to in the Acts of the Apostles there were Persians, Parthians and Medes among the very first new Christian converts at Pentecost.

They were both opposed by an alliance led by Cyaxares of the Medes ( 633 – 584 BC ) and Nabopolassar of Babylon ( 626 – 605 BC ).

The Medes, reckoned to be his offspring by Josephus and most subsequent writers, were also known as Madai, including in both Assyrian and Hebrew sources.

Medos ( Μηδος ), and his mother Medea, were also reckoned to be the ancestors of the Medes in classical Greek mythical history.

The Lydians however and the Medes, when they saw that it had become night instead of day, ceased from their fighting and were much more eager both of them that peace should be made between them.

Kish was, in particular, economically and politically linked with the civilization of the Medes and Persian and Aryan people when they were at the height of their power.

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Medes were an:

The Saka meanwhile spread westwards into eastern Europe and in 680 BC defeated the last of the Cimmerians in Georgia ( country ), but they themselves were overturned by the Medes, who murdered the Saka King Madova in 626 BC.

Although this colony was always vulnerable to attacks from the Medes until the Persian armies were defeated by Alexander the Great.

Much of the region was included in the Pre-Islamic Persian empires, and many of its ancient peoples either belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European peoples ( e. g. Medes and Soghdians ), or were in close cultural contact with them ( e. g. the Armenians ).

But Matais were Medes and linguistically the name " Parsuwash " matches the Old Persian word pārsa – an Achaemenid ethno-linguistic designation.

King Ahsheri's successor, Ualli, as a vassal of Assyria, took the side of the Assyrians against the Iranic Medes ( Madai ), who were at this point still based to the east along the southwest shore of the Caspian Sea and revolting against Assyrian domination.