The authorities at Delphi would have been exceptional among similar societies in all ages of the world, had they not shown appreciation of a devotee so wealthy and so willing. He was made a citizen; to his embassies were given a precedence over all others.

It is difficult to imagine that Crœsus should have expended such enormous sums on the cultivation of friendly relations with the Greeks of Europe for purely sentimental reasons. The oracles were not the only recipients of his gifts. The friendship of prominent and powerful families in various States, such as the Alkmæonidæ of Athens, was bought with a price.

Perhaps the explanation maybe sought and found in the previous and later policy of the king. He had subjugated the Greek cities of the coast, and by so doing had advanced his kingdom to its extreme limits on the west. Unless he converted Lydia into a naval power, further expansion on this side was impossible. So he turned his eyes towards the East, where nature and the circumstances of the time offered what must have seemed a favourable opportunity for the extension of his empire.

It must, however, have been quite evident to him that any policy of expansion eastward could only be carried out with safety in case his rear was secured from attack, where danger lay, not merely in the recently subdued Greek cities, but also in the possibility of any movement on their part being supported by help from their kinsmen in Europe.

Considerations such as these must have had a large influence upon his policy.

The story of his operations in the East has survived in history in what is manifestly a very mutilated form. It is fortunate that Strabo has preserved some reliable details which Herodotus does not mention in his somewhat legendary account of the last days of the rule of Crœsus. The Lydian frontier had been extended to the Halys; but the motley collection of races and states included within the dominion was in some cases bound to the ruler of Sardes by comparatively loose ties. These ties Crœsus strengthened.

Affairs in Asia beyond the Halys were at the moment, when Crœsus brought his plans to maturity, about the year 548, in a condition which made all certain calculation as to their issue impossible. The Median dynasty had come to an end some four years before, and with it the treaty concluded by Lydia with the Mede in 585 had come to an end also. Cyrus must have been an unknown factor to the Lydian, though doubtless the merchant travellers had brought back from the East many a tale of his energy and success. He was certainly a danger: and the question probably suggested itself to Crœsus whether he were not a danger which it would be wise to forestall, by pushing forward the Lydian frontier to that mass of mountains formed by the meeting of Taurus with the Armenian chains. Such a precautionary measure would be rendered the more attractive to the Lydian trader by the fact that it would lead to the inclusion within the empire of that rich mineral district on the south shore of the Euxine wherein the famed Chalybes dwelt.

Crœsus was wise enough not to enter upon this venture single-handed.

It is evident that the comparative indifference with which Nabonidus and the Babylonians had originally regarded the change of rulers in Median empire, had by this time given place to a feeling of uneasiness, if not of actual alarm. The easy-going, peace-loving antiquarian of Babylon might well be apprehensive as to what might be the next object of the uncomfortable enterprise of his energetic neighbour. Even then the faint outlines of the writing on the wall were well-nigh decipherable.

Amasis of Egypt had far less grounds for alarm; but even he seems to have caught the infection of fear.

With these two states Crœsus entered into negotiations, which resulted in the formation of a grand alliance, having for its object the suppression of the power which was so rapidly developing in the East.

The negotiations of Crœsus were not confined to the great powers. He sought and obtained allies in European Greece. The Lydian kings had had a long experience of the value of the Greek heavy-armed infantryman. Greek hoplites had fought many a time both with and against them. LYDIA AND SPARTA. The addition of a contingent of them to the grand army which the king was now gathering together would be of inestimable value. There was evidently a difficulty about his obtaining such a force from the Greek cities of Asia; nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to where that difficulty lay. These cities had within the last few years been robbed of much of that measure of autonomy which they had up to that time enjoyed, and upon which they had set a value out of proportion, doubtless, to its real worth. The vivid discontent which such a loss must have aroused in Greek minds, a discontent the depth of which the experience of ages would enable the Lydian to gauge, would inevitably render them dangerous elements in a Lydian army. The cities did, indeed, with one exception, remain proof against Cyrus’ attempts to tamper with their loyalty; but their attitude at the time was probably as much due to caution as to fidelity. Their geographical position would not allow them to accept risks against Lydia.

It was, therefore, to Greece itself that Crœsus turned. The relations which he had so assiduously cultivated with Delphi enabled him to obtain its assistance in the negotiations. H. i. 69. The outcome was, so Herodotus says, that Sparta, partly persuaded by the oracle, partly flattered by the Lydian embassy, consented to give aid in the war. Moreover, the way to this alliance had been previously paved with Lydian gold.

It is true that this contingent never reached Lydia. Ere it had actually started, Sardes had fallen and Crœsus was either dead or a prisoner. Whether the delay in despatching it was intentional or not, the satisfactorily attested fact of such an alliance having been made is evidence that the Lydia of that day exercised a very real influence in Greece. Of the danger to which Hellenic civilization was exposed by Lydian friendship, enough has been already said.

That friendship was genuine and unaffected on the side, at any rate, of the Greeks. The relations of Crœsus with Delphi must have been largely instrumental in forming it; but what happened in relation to this very war showed clearly that the feeling of Greece towards Crœsus was built upon wider foundations. The Greeks had come to regard him as a distinguished convert to that Hellenism they so much loved. The impression may have been false, but it was powerful. “He loveth our nation” is an article in a national creed whose possibilities can be hardly exaggerated. That the feeling had become independent of the relations with Delphi is conspicuously shown in the present instance by the fact that it was Delphi which administered to it a shock which the Greek world took long to forget. The remembrance of it was evidently vivid a hundred years later in the time of Herodotus.

It came about as follows. Anxious as to the issue of the great venture upon which he was entering, Crœsus sought to fortify or defeat his own resolution by inquiring of the oracles as to what the future had in store for him.

Two of the oracles consulted, of which Delphi was one, answered that “if he warred with the Persians he would overthrow a mighty empire.” The response was capable of two interpretations, of which Crœsus seized upon the most obvious; and was thus, so the Greeks thought, led to his undoing. Despite the pious faith with which Herodotus regards the utterances of the Delphic oracle, he is unable to conceal the tremendous shock which this apparent deception caused to Hellenic sentiment all the world over. To the Greek it appeared as though the oracle had betrayed its best friend and his also. Even in the cities of Asia, chafing though they were under recent subjugation, this feeling must have found some echo, whose resonance lasted till Herodotus’ own time. It is unlikely that he would ever have disclosed its existence had not the feeling been very widespread in the Hellenic world he loved. H. i. 90. The legendary story which he relates of the conversation between Crœsus and Cyrus, expresses evidently a feeling entertained by many besides Crœsus himself; and in the chapter which follows upon this tale, he shows that the Delphic oracle was forced by public opinion to attempt to explain away the apparent deception it had practised. FALL OF THE LYDIAN KINGDOM. The true explanation, which would have relieved it of a large part of the burden of the moral guilt, was one it dare not give in view of the prophetic character which it had to maintain before the eyes of the world. Prophecy founded upon intimate knowledge of Greek affairs was very far from being the mere guesswork, wrapped in enigma, of its utterances relative to matters deep in Asia, of which it can have had no real ken.

The account of the campaign given by Herodotus is full of inconsistencies; but by comparison of his story with other incidental references to it in various sources, it is possible to arrive at an understanding of the main outlines of what took place.

The great coalition might have taken Cyrus by surprise, had not the plans of Crœsus been divulged to him by an Ephesian traitor, if a tale preserved by Diodorus is to be believed. The mere fact that he was able to anticipate the designs of Crœsus renders it probable that some disclosure of the kind did take place.

Forewarned and forearmed, Cyrus executed a rapid and adventurous march through the northern territories of the Babylonian kingdom, and must have been already near the Taurus before Crœsus received from his ally Nabonidus news of the coming attack. He was but half-prepared; but the danger was so imminent that he had to take the field with the force he had with him, while he sent urgent messages to his allies to come with all speed to help him. H. i. 75. He crossed the Halys into the district of Pteria, which he laid waste as a defensive measure. The historians, Herodotus and Polyænus, are hopelessly at variance as to what happened in the actual fighting that ensued. A great battle did take place: that is certain. It is also certain that after the battle Crœsus retired through Phrygia to Sardes; but whether he did so because he had been defeated, or because he had inflicted a severe check on Cyrus, and expected that a diversion on the part of the Babylonians would make it impossible for him to advance towards Sardes in the winter, is unknown. In any case, Nabonidus did not move, and Cyrus surprised Crœsus in Lydia. Crœsus, caught unprepared, made a desperate defence with such forces as he could collect; but he was shut up in Sardes. Of the real history of the siege the Greeks seem to have known little or nothing; their chroniclers give the most contradictory accounts of it. But the town fell within a short time—taken, it would seem, by escalade. What became of Crœsus is not known. Bakchylides III. 23 ff. It is probable that he immolated himself upon a burning pyre. The tale was too shocking for Greek ears, and was softened down by a legendary addition to the effect that he was saved from the flames by divine intervention.

The sudden collapse of Lydia is one of the most remarkable incidents in history.

It fell in a moment, as it were, never to rise again; and it fell, not in the decadence of age, but at the very height of its young and vigorous life. To the Greek the spectacle was bewildering: nor is it strange that a catastrophe so sudden and complete, unparalleled, indeed, in the history of the world, should have so dazed the senses of those who were spectators of it, that they were never able to give a rational account of how it came to pass.