Bent on glorifying these two Arian races, he determined to throw back the commencement of their empire to a period long anterior to the true date; and, feeling specially anxious to cover up their early humiliation, he assigned their most glorious conquests to the very century, and almost to the very time, when they were in fact suffering reverses at the hands of the people over whom he represented them as triumphant.

There was a boldness in the notion of thus inverting history which almost deserved, and to a considerable extent obtained, success.

The "long chronology" of Ctesias kept its ground until recently, not indeed meeting with universal acceptance, but on the whole predominating over the "short chronology" of Herodotus; and it may be doubted whether anything less than the discovery that the native records of Assyria entirely contradicted Ctesias would have sufficed to drive from the field his figment of early Median dominion.
The second occasion upon which we hear of the Medes in the Assyrian annals is in the reign of Shalmanoser's son and successor, Shamas-Vul.
Here again, as on the former occasion, the Assyrians were the aggressors.

Shamas-Vul invaded Media and Arazias in his third year, and committed ravages similar to those of his father, wasting the country with fire and sword, but not (it would seem) reducing the Medes to subjection, or even attempting to occupy their territory.

Again the attack is a mere raid, which produces no permanent impression.
It is in the reign of the son and successor of Shamas-Vul that the Medes appear for the first time to have made their submission and accepted the position of Assyrian tributaries.