885), after having reduced to subjection the Zimri, who held the Zagros mountain range immediately to the east of Assyria, and received tribute from the Persians, he led an expedition into Media and Arazias, where he took and destroyed a number of the towns, slaying the men, and carrying off the spoil.

He does not mention any pitched battle; and indeed it would seem that he met with no serious resistance.

The Medes whom he attacks are evidently a weak and insignificant people, whom he holds in small esteem, and regards as only deserving of a hurried mention.

They seem to occupy the tract now known as Ardelan--a varied region containing several lofty ridges, with broad plains lying between them.
It is remarkable that the time of this first contact of Media with Assyria--a contact taking place when Assyria was in her prime, and Media was only just emerging from a long period of weakness and obscurity--is almost exactly that which Ctesias selects as a day of the great revolution whereby the Empire of the East passed from the hands of the Shemites into those of the Arians.

The long residence of Otesias among the Persians, gave him a bias toward that people, which even extended to their close kin, the Medes.