* Ploigl, who was the first to refer a certain passage in
the Annals of Nabonidus to the expedition against Croesus,
restored Is[parda] as the name of the country mentioned, and
saw even the capture of Sardes in the events of the month
Iyyâr, in direct contradiction to the Greek tradition. The
connection between the campaign beyond the Tigris and the
Lydian war seems to me incontestable, but the Babylonian
chronicler has merely recorded the events which affected
Babylonia. Cyrus’ object was both to intimidate Nabonidus
and also to secure possession of the most direct, and at the
same time the easiest, route: by cutting across Mesopotamia,
he avoided the difficult marches in the mountainous
districts of Armenia. Perhaps we should combine, with the
information of the Annals, the passage of Xenophon, where
it is said that the Armenians refused tribute and service to
the King of Persia: Cyrus would have punished the rebels on
his way, after crossing the Euphrates.
Croesus, when he received them, had with him only the smaller portion of his army, the Lydian cavalry, the contingents of his Asiatic subjects, and a few Greek veterans, and it would probably have been wiser to defer the attack till after the disembarkation of the Lacedaemonians; but hesitation at so critical a moment might have discouraged his followers, and decided his fate before any action had taken place. He therefore collected his troops together, fell upon the right bank of the Halys,* devastated the country, occupied Pteria and the neighbouring towns, and exiled the inhabitants to a distance. He had just completed the subjection of the White Syrians when he was met by an emissary from the Persians; Cyrus offered him his life, and confirmed his authority on condition of his pleading for mercy and taking the oath of vassalage.** Croesus sent a proud refusal, which was followed by a brilliant victory, after which a truce of three months was concluded between the belligerents.***
* On this point Herodotus tells a current story of his time:
Thaïes had a trench dug behind the army, which was probably
encamped in one of the bends made by the Halys; he then
diverted the stream into this new bed, with the result that
the Lydians found themselves on the right bank of the river
without having had the trouble of crossing it.
** Nicolas of Damascus records that Cyrus, after the capture
of Sardes, for a short time contemplated making Croesus a
vassal king, or at least a satrap of Lydia.
*** We have two very different accounts of this campaign,
viz. that of Herodotus, and that of Polyonus. According to
Herodotus, Croesus gave battle only once in Pteria, with
indecisive result, and on the next day quietly retired to
his kingdom, thinking that Cyrus would not dare to pursue
him. According to Polyonus, Croesus, victorious in a first
engagement owing to a more or less plausible military
stratagem, consented to a truce, but on the day after was
completely defeated, and obliged to return to his kingdom
with a routed army. Herodotus’ account of the fall of
Croesus and of Sardes, borrowed partly from a good written
source, Xanthus or Charon of Lampsacus, partly from the
tradition of the Harpagidse, seems to have for its object
the soothing of the vanity both of the Persians and of the
Lydians, since, if the result of the war could not be
contested, the issue of the battle was at least left
uncertain. If he has given a faithful account, no one can
understand why Croesus should have retired and ceded White
Syria to a rival who had never conquered him. The account
given by Polysenus, in spite of the improbability of some of
its details, comes from a well-informed author: the defeat
of the Lydians in the second battle explains the retreat of
Crcesus, who is without excuse in Herodotus’ version of the
affair. Pompeius Trogus adopted a version similar to that of
Polysenus.
Cyrus employed the respite in attempting to win over the Greek cities of the littoral, which he pictured to himself as nursing a bitter hatred against the Mermnadæ; but it is to be doubted if his emissaries succeeded even in wresting a declaration of neutrality from the Milesians; the remainder, Ionians and Æolians, all continued faithful to their oaths.* On the resumption of hostilities, the tide of fortune turned, and the Lydians were crushed by the superior forces of the Persians and the Medes; Crcesus retired under cover of night, burning the country as he retreated, to prevent the enemy from following him, and crossed the Halys with the remains of his battalions. The season was already far advanced; he thought that the Persians, threatened in the rear by the Babylonian troops, would shrink from the prospect of a winter campaign, and he fell back upon Sardes without further lingering in Phrygia. But Nabonidus did not feel himself called upon to show the same devotion that his ally had evinced towards him, or perhaps the priests who governed in his name did not permit him to fulfil his engagements.**
* Herodotus makes the attempted corruption of the Ionians to
date from the beginning of the war, even before Cyrus took
the field.
** The author followed by Pompeius Trogus has alone
preserved the record of this treaty. The fact is important
as explaining Croesus’ behaviour after his defeat, but
Schubert goes too far when he re-establishes on this ground
an actual campaign of Cyrus against Babylon: Radet has come
back to the right view in seeing only a treaty made with
Nabonidus.
As soon as peace was proposed, he accepted terms, without once considering the danger to which the Lydians were exposed by his defection. The Persian king raised his camp as soon as all fear of an attack to rearward was removed, and, falling upon defenceless Phrygia, pushed forward to Sardes in spite of the inclemency of the season. No movement could have been better planned, or have produced such startling results. Croesus had disbanded the greater part of his feudal contingents, and had kept only his body-guard about him, the remainder of his army—natives, mercenaries, and allies—having received orders not to reassemble till the following spring. The king hastily called together all his available troops, both Lydians and foreigners, and confronted his enemies for the second time. Even under these unfavourable conditions he hoped to gain the advantage, had his cavalry, the finest in the world, been able to take part in the engagement. But Cyrus had placed in front of his lines a detachment of camels, and the smell of these animals so frightened the Lydian horses that they snorted and refused to charge.*
* Herodotus’ mention of the use of camels is confirmed, with
various readings, by Xenophon, by Polysenus, and by Ælian;
their employment does not necessarily belong to a legendary
form of the story, especially if we suppose that the camel,
unknown before in Asia Minor, was first introduced there by
the Persian army. The site of the battle is not precisely
known. According to Herodotus, the fight took place in the
great plain before Sardes, which is crossed by several small
tributaries of the Hermus, amongst others the Hyllus. Radet
recognises that the Hyllus of Herodotus is the whole or part
of the stream now called the Kusu-tchaî, and he places the
scene of action near the township of Adala, which would
correspond with Xenophon’s Thymbrara. This continues to be
the most likely hypothesis. After the battle Croesus would
have fled along the Hermus towards Sardes. Xenophon’s story
is a pure romance.
Croesus was again worsted on the confines of the plain of the Hermus, and taking refuge in the citadel of Sardes, he despatched couriers to his allies in Greece and Egypt to beg for succour without delay. The Lacedaemonians hurried on the mobilisation of their troops, and their vessels were on the point of weighing anchor, when the news arrived that Sardes had fallen in the early days of December, and that Croesus himself was a prisoner.* How the town came to be taken, the Greeks themselves never knew, and their chroniclers have given several different accounts of the event.**
* Radet gives the date of the capture of Sardes as about
November 15, 546; but the number and importance of the
events occurring between the retreat of Croesus and the
decisive catastrophe—the negotiations with Babylon, the
settling into winter quarters, the march of Cyrus across
Phrygia—must have required a longer time than Radet allots
to them in his hypothesis, and I make the date a month
later.
** Ctesias and Xenophon seem to depend on Herodotus, the
former with additional fabulous details concerning his
OEbaras, Cyrus’ counsellor, which show the probable origin
of his additions. Polysenus had at his disposal a different
story, the same probably that he used for his account of the
campaign in Cappadocia, for in it can be recognised the wish
to satisfy, within possible limits, the pride of the
Lydians: here again the decisive success is preceded by a
check given to Cyrus and a three months’ truce.
The least improbable is that found in Herodotus. The blockade had lasted, so he tells us, fourteen days, when Cyrus announced that he would richly reward the first man to scale the walls. Many were tempted by his promises, but were unsuccessful in their efforts, and their failure had discouraged all further attempts, when a Mardian soldier, named Hyreades, on duty at the foot of the steep slopes overlooking the Tmolus, saw a Lydian descend from rock to rock in search of his helmet which he had lost, and regain the city by the same way without any great difficulty. He noted carefully the exact spot, and in company with a few comrades climbed up till he reached the ramparts; others followed, and taking the besieged unawares, they opened the gates to the main body of the army.*