PHRAORTES  , the

Greek form of Fravartish, king of Media . According to Herodotus (i . 102) he was the son of Deioces, and began the Median conquests . He first subjugated the Persians, and then a great many other peoples of Asia, till at last he attacked the Assyrians, but was defeated and killed in a battle, after a reign of twenty-two years (about 646-625 B.C.; but perhaps, as G . Rawlinson supposes, the fifty-three years of Deioces ought in reality to be transferred to him) . From other sources we obtain no information whatever about Phraortes; but the data of the Assyrian inscriptions prove that Assur-banipal (see BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA), at least during the greater part of his reign, maintained the Assyrian supremacy in Western Asia, and that in 645 he conquered Susa . The Medians too were subject to him as far as the Elburz and the central Iranian desert . When after the assassination of Smerdis all the Iranian tribes, the Babylonians and the Armenians rebelled against Darius and the Persian rule, "a man of the name of Fravartish (i.e . Phraortes), a Mede, rebelled in Media and spoke to the people thus: I am Khshathrita, of the family of Uvakhshatra (Cyaxares)." He reigned for a short time, but was defeated by Hydarnes, and afterwards by Darius himself, taken prisoner in Rhagae (Rai), and executed in Ecbatana (520 B.C.; see inscription of Darius at Behistun) . (ED .