Preface -- This book is intended to fill a gap. It does not compete with A. T. Olmstead's posthumous History of the Persian Empire in either length or scope.

I The Emergence of Medes and Persians

Parsua, a land of Persians, is first mentioned on the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian Shalmaneser III in the record of his campaign of about 843 B.C., and the Mada (Medes) are first mentioned eight years later.