This paper elucidates the miroir grec of Herodotus' medikos logos with a special focus on the foundation of the Median "empire" by Deioces. The authors shed light on Greek political discourse about the role of Athens as leading power of the Delian league that started with Herodotus and continued, inter alia, with Thucydides and Isocrates. They argue that the medikos logos played a major role in this context and that the Deioces episode alludes to the negative transformation of Athenian rule from συμμαχία to ἀρχή. Therefore, when Herodotus supposedly presented an account about the establishment of the second empire in Asia’s history he actually pondered the development of empire and Athenian history in the 5th c. BC.