Deioces in Herodotus
Herodotus (I: 96ff) says that Deioces (Deyaco), father of Phraortes, was "a man of great ability and ambitious for power" in a time when there was no government in the region; people in his own and other villages chose him to arbitrate disputes, and eventually selected him as their king: "Let us appoint one of our number to rule us so that we can get on with our work under orderly government, and not lose our homes altogether in the present chaos." They built him first a palace and then a capital, Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). He established a strict protocol of seclusion and deference as well as a nationwide network of spies, administered justice, and ruled for fifty-three years; his son and successor was Phraortes, father of Cyaxares, who overthrew the Assyrian Empire and established the power of Media.
Rüdiger Schmitt writes:
Herodotus’ account seems to have been based on an oral tradition; from it scholars have deduced that Deioces was the founder of the Median royal dynasty and the first Median king to gain independence from Assyria. But it must be stressed that Herodotus’ report is a mixture of Greek and eastern legends and is not historically reliable. It has also been supposed ... that the Median king on whom Herodotus’ account is centered was actually Deioces’ son Phraortes, and it is therefore impossible to give the exact dates of Deioces’ reign, which probably spanned most of the first half of the 7th century B.C.E.
Read more about this topic: Deioces