MEDIA, MEDES. - A people and country called by the same word Madai in Hebrew and Assyrian. The Medes were an Aryan (Iranian) people, the first known reference to whom (as Amadai) occurs in 836 BC as paying tribute to the Assyrian conqueror Shalmaneser II. They occupied the mountainous country S. and SE. of the Caspian Sea, their chief city being Ecbatana (Achmetha in Ezr.6.2 AV, RV), modern Hamadan. Later Assyrian rulers campaigned against them, and Sargon in 715 and 713 received tribute from a substantial number of chieftains; 2 K.17.6, 18.11 records that Israelites from Samaria were deported to 'the cities of the Medes.' The Medes remained subject to Assyria until the second half of the 7th cent. when they regained their independence and became a dangerous rival. A dynasty was established claiming to derive from one Deioces, who is said to have founded Ecbatana and unified the country. Phraortes, his son, subjugated the Persians (q.v.) who had probably settled to the E. of the Persian Gulf at about the same time that the Medes settled farther N., being another branch of the same people. Phraortes was succeeded by Cyaxares I., who in alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon succeeded in destroying Assyria, taking Nineveh in 612 BC. While the Babylonians took control of the lowlands, the Medes ruled in the highlands, as far W. as Cappadocia. The power of the Medes was such that the exiled Jews expected the overthrow of Babylon at their hands (Is.13.17, 21.2, Jer.25.25, 51.11, 28). But with the rebellion of Cyrus of Anshan (q.v.) Astyages, king of the Medes, was. defeated in c 549 BC, and although the Medes retained an important place in the new Persian empire, they did not again become independent. A Mede, Phraortes,. claiming to be of the family of Cyaxares, was one of the rebels defeated by Darius I. at his accession. But their prominence as principal part of the Iranian population results in the name Medes being more frequently mentioned than that of the Persians, except in the later books of the OT. Madai is mentioned in Gn.10.2 among the sons of Japheth, with no allusion to the Persians. Persia and Media are mentioned together in Esther (1.3, 14, 18, 10.2), while a belief in the unalterability of their law is expressed in 1.19 as also in Dn.6.8, 12, 15, Dn.5.24, 9.1, 11.1 (cf 8.20) erroneously inserts an empire of the Medes between that of Babylon and that of Persia, perhaps because of the prophecies of a Median conquest of Babylon. The Persians took over the Median culture, its religion, military and political organization, weapons, clothing and customs. In Ac.9.2 the Medes are mentioned, the reference being to Jews or proselytes living in Media and using the language of the country.
Media was occupied by Alexander the Great, and its southern part came under the Seleucid rulers and was. intensively Hellenized. Later it fell to the Parthians, as did also the northern area which had enjoyed a period of independence. The varied traditions concerning Zoroaster associate his origin with Media, probably in the 7th or 6th cent.; he may have belonged to the old school of Median Magi, but it was in eastern Iran that the new faith first gained a firm foothold. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - J.F.McC. - P.R.A.]