Journal of the American Oriental Society 125.4 (2005) 517 Media and Its Discontents Matthew Waters University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire The volume at hand is a collection of the proceedings of a conference entitled “Continuity of Empire: Assyria, Media, Persia,” held April 26–28, 2001, in Padua, Italy; a few of the papers (see the preface, especially p. viii) were invited after-the-fact to supply additional perspectives for the published volume. The bold assertion of the conference title gave way to the addition of a question mark after “Empire” to reflect the editors’ “more conciliatory” approach as reflective of the open state of many of the questions pursued at the conference and in the published proceedings. This volume is the mother lode for any researcher inter- ested in the history of the mid-first millennium b.c., specifically, the state of the question(s) in the early third millennium a.d. about the place of the Medes in the nonlinear sequence of the great empires from Assyria to Persia, in which are usually included Media, Lydia, and Babylonia. The volume’s contributions go beyond synthesis to address a number of stubborn problems associated with the Medes. One of its great virtues is its emphasis on the historio- graphic issues that lie at the root of the attendant historical problems. The question of whether or not there was truly a “Median Empire” underlies the volume. Whether the realm of the Medes may be—or should be—classified as an empire depends not only upon perspective, of course, but also on the types and range of evidence considered, general and specific. For example, textual, archaeological, art-historical, Assyrian, Persian, and Greek evidence, among others. Definitions of the term “empire” come into play (note the remarks by the editors in the “Afterword,” p. 402), and one’s choice of definition will ultimately determine one’s approach. This question of definition, while valid and interesting in its own right, does not concern the reviewer at present. Of the twenty-three contributions by twenty contributors (including the afterword, by the editors), the authors of five adhere to or are comfortable with a Median Empire as traditionally defined, ten lean against, and the remainder do not come down on either side (i.e., the question of “empire or not” does not impact their contributions). 1 The collective weight of the contributions, regardless of specific focus, emphasizes that, despite modern scholarship’s massive gains in the last few decades regarding our understanding of ancient Near Eastern history, fundamental and vital questions about Medes, Media, and Median history continue to elude satisfactory answers. A volume of this significance and magnitude deserves a broad audience and, therefore, is subjected to significant summary in this review, though the reviewer’s own biases are re- flected in the choice of minutiae discussed. Those articles that receive most attention here are those that impinge most immediately upon the overarching question of the Median Empire 1. One of the editors, R. Rollinger, has made two additional contributions and the others, M. Roaf and G. Lan- franchi, one additional contribution each. The reviewer’s assessment is based in some cases on an author’s aside or perceived attitude toward the question of a Median “empire,” as traditionally defined in modern scholarship, even if that author’s contribution does not broach it specifically. This is a review article of: Continuity of Empire(?): Assyria, Media, Persia. Edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf, and Robert Rollinger. History of the Ancient Near East, Monographs, vol. 5. Padua: Sargon Editrice, 2003. Pp. xi + 468, plates. (paper). Unadorned page numbers in parentheses refer to the volume under review. Abbreviations follow CAD.