Media (redirected from Media (disambiguation))

Media (mē`dēə), ancient country of W Asia whose actual boundaries cannot be defined, occupying generally what is now W Iran and S Azerbaijan. It extended from the Caspian Sea to the Zagros Mts. The Medes were an Indo-European people who spoke an Iranian language closely akin to old Persian. Some scholars claim they were an Aryanized people from Turan. Since there are no Median records, Assyrian and Greek sources must be relied upon for Median history. The Medes extended their rule over Persia during the reign of Sargon (d. 705 B.C.) and under Cyaxares captured Nineveh in 612 B.C.; they were the first people subject to Assyria to secure their freedom. The dynasty continued until the rule of Astyages, when it was overthrown (c.550 B.C.) by Cyrus the Great and united with the Persian Empire. In the 2d cent. B.C. Media became part of the Parthian kingdom and was later ruled by the Romans.

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Media

Ancient country, Middle East. It was situated in present-day northwestern Iran and was home to the Medes, an Iranian people. In 625 BC Cyaxares united the area's tribes into a kingdom. In 614 BC he captured Ashur and later defeated the Assyrian empire and seized territory in Iran, northern Assyria, and Armenia. In 550 BC it became part of the new Persian Achaemenian dynasty under Cyrus II. Alexander the Great occupied it in 330 BC. In the partition of his empire, southern Media was given to the Macedonians and then to the Seleucids; northern Media became the kingdom of Atropatene, which passed to Parthia, Armenia, and Rome. In 226 BC the whole of Media passed to the Sasanians, another Persian dynasty.

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media

(1) Materials that hold data in any form or that allow data to pass through them, including paper, transparencies, multipart forms, hard, floppy and optical discs, magnetic tape, wire, cable and fiber. Media is the plural of "medium."

(2) Any form of information, including music and movies. May also refer to CDs, DVDs, videotapes and other prerecorded material. See multimedia.

(3) The trade press (magazines, newspapers, etc.). See electronic media.

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media

1. the middle layer of the wall of a blood or lymph vessel

2. one of the main veins in the wing of an insect

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Media

an ancient country of SW Asia, south of the Caspian Sea: inhabited by the Medes; overthrew the Assyrian Empire in 612 bc in alliance with Babylonia; conquered by Cyrus the Great in 550 bc; corresponds to present-day NW Iran

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media [′mē·dē·ə]

(histology)

The middle, muscular layer in the wall of a vein, artery, or lymph vessel.

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Media 

a historical region, later a kingdom in the northwestern part of the Iran Plateau.

The Medes are first mentioned in Assyrian annals of the second half of the ninth century B.C. As early as the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., an Iranian-speaking element appeared in Media, later becoming predominant. The ninth and eighth centuries B.C. in Media evidently constituted a period of transition from a military democracy to an early slaveholding society. During that time, the Medes waged a struggle against Assyria, which had seized part of their lands.

Judging from Assyrian sources, the kingdom of Media arose in the 670’s B.C., and Ecbatana became its capital. Under King Cyaxares (ruled from 625 or 624 to 584 B.C.), Media became a great power in the ancient East. In a short time the Medes seized Manna and, in alliance with Babylonia, crushed the Assyrian state and conquered Urartu and other territories.

In 550 or 549 B.C., Media was conquered by the Persians and made a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire. An independent Median state was restored only in the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., but it occupied only part of the former territory of Media, that in southern Azerbaijan, which later came to be called Media (or Media Minor, Median Atropatene, and Atropatene).

Media occupies a prominent place in the political, economic, and cultural history of antiquity. Zoroastrianism became widespread in Media. The Avesta was evidently codified in Atropatene in the fourth century B.C. Some of the Medes, having merged into the autochthonic tribes of Atropatene, played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijanis.

REFERENCES

D’iakonov, I. M. Istoriia Midii ot drevneishikh vremen do kontsa IVveka do n. e. Moscow-Leningrad, 1956.
Aliev, I. Istoriia Midii. Baku, 1960.
Grantovskii, E. A. Ranniaia istoriia iranskikh piemen Perednei Azii. Moscow, 1970.
Cameron, G. G. History of Early Iran. Chicago, 1936.

I. ALIEV