= Median Empire = The '''Median Empire''' was an ancient empire centered on the Iranian plateau. <> ---- == History == The Medes were a tribal society that was settled in the Iranian plateau by the 1st millennium BCE. The earliest records are from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which by the reign of Sargon II in the 720s BCE controlled all of Media. Mythically '''Deioces''' united the Medes and established a '''Median kingdom'''. When Ashurbanipal died in 631 BCE, the empire began to dissolve. A Median kingdom certainly emerged by this time, and '''Cyaxares''' built it into a massive empire that stretched from the Halys River in Anatolia, south to the Persian Gulf, and east into Central Asia. Cyaxares' son '''Astyages''' was overthrown by one of his vassals, [[WorldHistory/AchaemenidEmpire|Cyrus II]], in 550 BCE. Media continued to be a provincial unit within the successive Achaemenid and Seleucid Empires. It was the Parthian Empire under Mithridates I that finally and permanently dissolved the region. ---- CategoryRicottone CategoryEmpire CategoryState