Sometimes, before things reached this point, they might consent to receive a tribute and to retire.

At other times, convinced that by perseverance they would reap a rich reward, they may have remained till the besieged city fell, when there must have ensued an indescribable scene of havoc, rapine, and bloodshed.

According to the broad expression of Herodotus, the Scythians were masters of the whole of Western Asia from the Caucasus to the borders of Egypt for the space of twenty-eight years.
This statement is doubtless an exaggeration; but still it would seem to be certain that the great invasion of which he speaks was not confined to Media, but extended to the adjacent countries of Armenia and Assyria, whence it spread to Syria and Palestine.

The hordes probably swarmed down from Media through the Zagros passes into the richest portion of Assyria, the flat country between the mountains and the Tigris.

Many of the old cities, rich with the accumulated stores of ages, were besieged, and perhaps taken, and their palaces wantonly burnt, by the barbarous invaders.