Median Empire

The Median Empire was an ancient Iranian state that dominated the Near East from roughly 678 to 550 BC, formed by the unification of Median tribes on the Iranian plateau under a monarchy traditionally said to trace to Deioces. Under King Cyaxares the Medes allied with Babylon to destroy the Neo-Assyrian Empire, capturing its capital Nineveh in 612 BC, and the resulting Median state came to control much of modern Iran, eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus from its capital at Ecbatana. Much of Median history is known through later Greek and Babylonian sources rather than a substantial body of Median records of its own, so details of its internal administration remain uncertain. The empire ended around 550 BC when Cyrus the Great, a Median vassal king of the Persian Achaemenid line, rebelled against and defeated his grandfather Astyages, absorbing Media into the much larger Achaemenid Empire that followed it.