The academic community fairly frequently honors preeminent scholars with Festschrifts, celebratory books in recognition of their contribution to the field. What follows is a review of a Festschrift for Rüdiger Schmitt-a leading scholar of Iranian and Indo-Iranian languages-published to mark the occasion of his 80th birthday. Prof. R. Schmitt, a long-time employee of Christian-Albretchs-Universität zu Kiel, had established many fruitful collaborations that eventually made this university a

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... g center for studies on history and culture of ancient Iran. Schmitt's Festschrift, an offering of contributions from his students, colleagues and friends in Germany, Austria and Italy, testifies to the lasting significance of Schmitt's research output. The volume encompasses two articles on linguistics (A. Alemany, "Hunnic and Turkic titles in the Bactrian documents," pp. 13-27; M. Salvini, "Urärtische Präzedenfalle für die Königsinschriften des Achaimenidenreiches," pp. 225-240) and ten articles on history. The substantial majority of historical articles directly or indirectly concerns the Achaemenid period. Testimonies on the Medes under the Achaemenid rule, few and far between, yield little information on them, with a notable exception found in the Behistun Inscription of Darius I, which records some details about the Medes living in Persia. Having analyzed prominent references to the Medes in that inscription, S. Balatti ("Persien und Meden und die anderen Länder. Einige Überlegungen zur Rolle der Meder im früheren Perserreich," pp. 29-47) surmised that their status in the text stemmed from their prominent contribution to the Persian army, the largest after the Persian contingent. Since Persia's might relied on its military, the prominence of the Medes in the Behistun Inscription appears entirely justified. 1 The earliest and most important testimony on Cyrus' death comes from Herodotus' account (1.214.5), with two other (and differing) accounts offered by Ctesias in Persica and Xenophon in the Cyropedia. Subsequent Greek and Roman authors writing about Cyrus' demise frequently referred to formative foundational accounts by Herodotus, Ctesias and Xenophon. A contribution by R. Bichler ("Kyros' letzte Schlacht und sein