Media and the fall of Assyria

The Medes, an Iranian people of the highlands east of Mesopotamia, are gathered into a single power under King Cyaxares and strike an alliance with the Babylonians. In 612 BCE their armies take Nineveh, and the power that had terrorised the Near East for two centuries disappears. The Assyrian inheritance is divided: the south, with Babylon and Canaan, goes to the Chaldeans; the north and east to the Medes, whose domains stretch from Anatolia to the Iranian plateau. Media does not rule long: within half a century the Persian king Cyrus will take its capital Ecbatana, and the Medes will become the senior subjects of a new empire.