Installment 1   
Of Herodotus of Halicarnassus’ inquiry here’s the showing forth that neither the deeds of human beings with time pass away nor great and marvellous actions, some shown forth by Greeks, some by barbarians, lose renown, in respect to all else and the cause why they warred with each other.

Now, the Persian spokesmen assert the Phoenicians proved the cause of the quarrel. For they say that those men, on coming from the so-called Red Sea to this sea and settling in that place in which even now they are settled, at once applied themselves to long voyages, and exporting wares of Egypt and Assyria, came to the rest of the land and particularly to Argos (Argos during that time surpassed in all ways those in the country now called Greece), that on coming to this very Argos, the Phoenicians were disposing of their cargo until, the fifth or sixth day after they had come, almost everything having been sold off by them, there went to the sea many other women and especially the king’s daughter, and her name was (in perfect accord with what the Greeks too say) Io the child of Inachus, and that they stood at the ship’s stern and were bargaining for the wares for which their desire was greatest, when the Phoenicians, cheering on one another, rushed at them, and indeed the greater number of the women escaped, but Io with others was seized, and the men put them onto the ship and went sailing off toward Egypt.

That thus Io came to Egypt the Persians say, in disagreement with the Greeks, and that that was the first beginning of the injustices, but after it some of the Greeks (for they are unable to relate their name), they assert, put in at Tyre in Phoenicia and seized the king’s daughter, Europe (these might have been Cretans), and, although that indeed was done by them tit for tat, yet after it the Greeks proved the cause of the second injustice. For they say that they, on sailing out with a large ship to Aia in Colchis and over the river Phasis, accomplished everything else for which they had come and thereupon seized the king’s daughter, Medea, and, when the Colchian had sent a herald to Greece and demanded justice for the seizure and demanded back his daughter, they then replied that those men in Io of Argos’ case paid them no penalty for the seizure and therefore they themselves would pay his men none.

The next generation after that, they say, Alexander, the son of Priam, having heard of it, resolved a woman from Greece should become his through seizure, because he knew at all events that he would pay no penalty, since they refused to pay, and just then, at his seizure of Helen, the Greeks decided at first to send messengers and to demand back Helen and demand justice for the seizure, but their opponents, when they put forward these demands, brought forward to them Medea’s seizure and objected that, although they for their part gave no satisfaction nor gave her up at men’s demanding her back, they wanted justice to be done to themselves by others.

So then thus far the Persians say there were seizures alone at each other’s hands, but from then on it was the Greeks who proved greatly guilty, because they began to advance with an army against Asia before they themselves against Europe and they maintain that, although seizing women is the work of unjust men, yet, once they are seized, taking pains to exact vengeance is that of unintelligent, while having no care at their seizure is that of prudent, since it’s quite clear that, if women themselves were not willing, they would not be seized. Accordingly they, the men from Asia, the Persians say, when the women were being seized, considered it of no account, but the Greeks for a woman of Lacedaemon assembled a large armament and then came to Asia and put down the power of Priam. Hence on each and every occasion they believe the Greek to be hostile to them. For Asia and the barbarian nations that live in it the Persians claim as their own, but Europe and the land of Greece they hold to be separate.

The above the Persians say happened and on account of the capture of Ilium they find there existed for themselves the beginning of enmity to the Greeks, but concerning Io the Phoenicians speak in a manner unlike the Persians; for they say they did not seize and bring her to Egypt, but that in Argos she had intercourse with the owner of the ship and, when she had learned she was pregnant and was ashamed before her parents, just then voluntarily on her own she sailed out with the Phoenicians that she might not be discovered. Now, these accounts the Persians and the Phoenicians give. I, however, about them am not going to say that either or some other account is what happened, but rather after indicating that man who I myself know initiated unjust actions against the Greeks, I will proceed to the later part of my account by going through small and great towns of human beings alike. For many of them that in the past were great have become small and those that in my time were great previously were small. Therefore, since I know human happiness remains not at all in the same place, I will mention both alike.







There was a Croesus, Lydian in race, son of Alyattes and tyrant of the nations on this side of the Halys river, which flows from the south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians and discharges in the north wind’s direction into the so-called Hospitable Sea. This Croesus was the first of the barbarians that we know of to subject some Greeks to tribute payment and to gain over others as friends. He subjected the Ionians, the Aeolians and the Dorians in Asia and gained over the Lacedaemonians as friends. Before the rule of Croesus all Greeks were free. For the expedition of the Cimmerians that came against Ionia, although it was earlier than Croesus’, proved no subjection of its cities, but a seizure by inroad.

The hegemony that was the sons of Heracles’ devolved to the family of Croesus, the so-called Mermnadae, in the following way. There was a Candaules, whom the Greeks call Myrsilus, tyrant of Sardis and descendant of Alcaeus, the son of Heracles. For Agron, the son of Ninus, the son of Belus, the son of Alcaeus, was the first of the sons of Heracles to become king of Sardis, and Candaules, the son of Myrsus, was the last. (Those before Agron that were king of this land were descendants of Lydus, the son of Atys, after whom the whole Lydian people was named, which previously was named the Meonian. By them the sons of Heracles, descended from the slave Iardanus and Heracles, were entrusted with and held the rule on the basis of an oracle and ruled for twenty two generations of men, five hundred and five years, son from father inheriting the rule, until Candaules, the son of Myrsus.) It was that Candaules then who fell in love with his own wife and, fallen in love, believed his wife was far the most beautiful of all women. Seeing that he believed this, since he had among his bodyguards Gyges, the son of Dascylus, a most pleasing man, to that Gyges, just as Candaules made over the weightier of his affairs, so too especially he overpraised the looks of his wife.

When not much time had passed, because it had to turn out badly for Candaules, he spoke to Gyges like this: “Gyges, since I think you are not persuaded by me when I speak about the looks of my wife, as the ears of human beings are in fact more mistrustful than the eyes, bring it about that you will behold her naked.” And he with a loud cry said, “Master, what kind of unsound speech are you speaking in bidding me to behold my mistress naked? Together with the taking off of her dress a woman takes off her shame as well. Long the beautiful have been found out by human beings, from which one must learn; among them is this one thing, that one should look to one’s own concerns. I am persuaded she is the most beautiful of all women, and of you I ask not to ask what’s unlawful.”

The one then by speaking like that tried to fight off the thing for fear that any evil be done to him by it, but the other answered with this: “Take courage, Gyges, and stop being afraid either of me that making trial of you, I am speaking this speech of mine, or my wife that any harm be done to you by her, since, to begin with, I will so contrive it as for her not to learn she was seen by you. For I will place you in the room in which we go to bed behind the open door and after my coming in my wife too will be present for bed. There sits near the entrance a chair; on it she will put her garments, one by one, as she takes them off, and at great ease it will be in your power to behold. But when she goes from the chair to the bed and you come to be behind her, let it be your care at that time that she will not see you go through the leaves of the door.”


Installment 2   
The one then, as he could not get free, was ready; so the other, Candaules, when it seemed to be time for bed, brought Gyges to the room and right afterward his wife too was present. While she entered and was putting off her clothes, Gyges beheld her. But once he had come to be behind the woman as she went to the bed, he slipped out from behind his cover and began to depart. Yet the woman looked upon him as he went out. Although she now had learned what had been done by her husband, she neither let out a cry of shame nor appeared to have learned, since she had in mind to punish Candaules; for among the Lydians and among almost all the rest of the barbarians as well, even for a man to be seen naked leads to great shame.

Then indeed in that way, with no show of anything, she kept quiet, but as soon as day had come, she saw those of the household slaves who were most loyal to her, readied them, and called Gyges. He, thinking she knew nothing of what had been carried out, came at being called, because he was accustomed before, whenever the queen called, to be in attendance. But when Gyges had come, the woman said this: “At present, of two roads open, Gyges, I am offering you a choice of which you prefer to take; either kill Candaules and possess me and the kingdom of the Lydians or you yourself at once as you are must die that in the future you may not be persuaded by Candaules and see everything that you ought not. Well then, either he who thought out the plan must perish or you who beheld me naked and did what’s not lawful.” For a while Gyges marvelled much at what was said, but afterward he begged her not to bind him in a necessity to make that kind of choice. However, he could not persuade her, but he saw necessity was truly lying before him either to kill his master or to be killed himself by others. He chose himself to survive. Then he asked a question in these words: “Since you are making it necessary for me to kill my master unwillingly, come let me hear, in just what manner will we lay hands on him?” And she in reply said, “The onset will be from the same place from which also he put me on display naked and the laying hands on him will be as he sleeps.”

When they had prepared the plot, at nightfall, since Gyges could not be set free nor could there be any means of escape for him, but either he himself had to perish or Candaules, he followed the woman to the bedchamber, and she handed over a dagger and concealed him behind the same door. After that, while Candaules took his rest, he slipped out from behind his cover and killed him and got hold of both the woman and the kingdom, Gyges whom Archilochus the Parian too, who lived at the same time, mentioned in iambic trimeter.

But he kept the kingdom and grew strong because of the oracle in Delphi. For just when the Lydians were considering the suffering of Candaules terrible and were in arms, the faction of Gyges and the remaining Lydians came to an agreement that, if the oracle ordained he should be king of the Lydians, then he should reign, but if it did not, he should return the rule back to the sons of Heracles. Indeed the oracle did make the ordination and thus Gyges became king. However Pythia spoke a brief prophecy that for the sons of Heracles vengeance would be at hand against the fifth descendent from Gyges. This prophecy the Lydians and their kings considered of no account until it was in fact fulfilled.

The tyranny then in that way the Mermnadae took away from the sons of Heracles and held, and Gyges, become tyrant, sent away no few offerings to Delphi, but of all the offerings that are of silver in Delphi, most are his, and besides the silver he dedicated an immense amount of gold of other kinds and, what is most worth mentioning, gold bowls, six in number, are offerings of his. They stand in the treasury of the Corinthians and weigh thirty talents (speaking truly, the treasury is not the Corinthian people's, but Cypselus the son of Eetion’s). This Gyges was the first of the barbarians that we know of to dedicate offerings at Delphi after Mides, the son of Gordias, Phrygia’s king. For indeed Mides too made an offering, the royal throne on which he sat down publicly and judged, which is worth beholding, and this throne is placed right where the bowls of Gyges are. This gold and silver that Gyges dedicated is called Gygadas by the Delphians after its dedicator’s name.






Now, although he also threw an army, when he had gotten the rule, into Miletus and into Smyrna and took the town of Colophon, nevertheless, since no other great action was done by him, while he was king forty years but two, that man we will let go with so brief a mention, and of Ardys, the son of Gyges, who after Gyges was king, I will make mention. He took the Prienians and made an invasion into Miletus, and during his time as tyrant of Sardis, the Cimmerians, expelled from their abodes by the pastoral Scythians, came to Asia and took Sardis except the acropolis.

Ardys, after he had been king fifty years but one, Sadyattes, the son of Ardys, succeeded and was king twelve years, and Sadyattes Alyattes succeeded. He warred with Cyaxares, the descendant of Deioces, and the Medes, drove out the Cimmerians from Asia, took Smyrna, which had been founded by colonists from Colophon, and made an invasion into Clazomenae.

Now, although from these actions he got free not as he wished, but with great stumbling, yet he showed forth other actions, while he was in power, most worth relating as follows. He warred with the Milesians, because he had inherited the war from his father. For he marched against and besieged Miletus in a manner like this: whenever the grain was ripe in the earth, at that time he set out to throw in the army, and with the army he advanced to the accompaniment of pipes, lutes, and flute, female and male, and, when he came to Milesian land, although the houses in the fields he neither threw down nor set on fire nor tore off their doors, but let them stand in place, yet the trees and the grain in the earth--when he destroyed them, he departed back. For the Milesians were master of the sea so as for there to be no use of a blockade by the army.

The Lydian would not throw down the homes for this reason, that the Milesians, having their quarters there, might be able to sow and work the earth and he for his part, while they worked it, might be able to commit some damage by invading. Doing this, he waged war eleven years, in which two great blows were struck against the Milesians, when they fought in Limeneium in their own land and in Maeander’s plain. Now, six of the eleven years Sadyattes, the son of Ardys, still ruled the Lydians, who at that time kept throwing the army into Milesian land, since he was the one who had joined battle, but the five years following the six, Alyattes, the son of Sadyattes, waged war, who inherited the war from his father, as has previously been made clear by me, and devoted himself vigorously. And to the Milesians none of the Ionians would offer help to lighten this war except the Chians alone, but they, as repayment in kind, lent aid, since in fact previously the Milesians joined the Chians in bearing to the end the war against the Erythraeans.

In the twelfth year when the standing grain was being set on fire by the army, there happened to come about an event like this: as soon as the standing grain caught fire, violently driven by the wind, it set on fire the temple of Athena under the name Assesian, and the temple, set on fire, burned down. Indeed in the immediate time no account was made, but afterward on the army's coming to Sardis, Alyattes fell ill and, when his illness became somewhat long, he sent to Delphi messengers to consult the oracle, either, as is likely, at someone's advice, or it may be, he thought he should send them and ask about the illness. But on their coming to Delphi, Pythia said to them she would make no proclamation until they rebuilt the temple of Athena that they had set on fire in the Milesian land in Assesus.

I know that happened because I heard it from the Delphians, but the Milesians add this to it, that Periander, the son of Cypselus, being Thrasyboulus the then tyrant of Miletus’ foreign friend to the greatest degree, on learning by inquiry of the oracle made for Alyattes, sent a messenger and had it recounted that with some foreknowledge he might take counsel according to the present situation.

Now, the Milesians say the above happened, and Alyattes, after that oracle had been reported to him, at once sent a herald to Miletus, because he wanted to make a truce with Thrasyboulus and the Milesians the whole time that he would be building the temple. The envoy then set out for Miletus, but Thrasyboulus, having previously learned the whole account distinctly and knowing what Alyattes was to do, contrived a plan like this: all that food that was in the town, both his own and the private, he brought together into the public square and commanded the Milesians that whenever he himself gave the signal, then they should drink and indulge in revelry with one another. The above Thrasyboulus did and commanded for this reason, that the herald from Sardis naturally, after seeing a large pile of food heaped up and human beings engaged in enjoyments, might announce it to Alyattes. And that's what actually happened. For, just when the herald, after seeing those things and saying to Thrasyboulus what the Lydian had enjoined, had gone back to Sardis, because of nothing else, as I know by inquiry, was the reconciliation made. For Alyattes, supposing there was a severe food shortage in Miletus and the population was worn out to the extreme of misfortune, heard from the herald on his return from Miletus accounts the opposite of what he firmly expected, and afterward the reconciliation of the parties was made on condition that they should be foreign friends and allies of each other, and two temples for Athena, instead of one, Alyattes built in Assesus and himself rose from his illness.







So regarding the war against the Milesians and Thrasyboulus it was thus for Alyattes, but there was Periander, Cypselus’ son, the one who had disclosed the oracle to Thrasyboulus. Periander was tyrant of Corinth, and it’s for him the Corinthians say (and the Lesbians agree with them) in the course of his life a very great marvel occurred, Arion the Methymnaean borne out on a dolphin to Taenarum, who was a singing cithara player second to none of those then alive and the first of human beings that we know of to compose, name and produce a dithyramb in Corinth. That Arion, they say, spending the greater part of his time at Periander’s court, conceived a desire to sail to Italy and Sicily and, once he had earned much money, he wished to come back to Corinth. Now, he started out from Tarentum and trusting none more than the Corinthians, he hired a boat of Corinthian men, but they on the open sea plotted to throw Arion over and have his money. He then, aware of that, made entreaties by offering to give them money and by earnestly begging for life. However, he could not persuade them by that means, but the seamen bade him either to use himself fatally that he might obtain burial on land or to leap out into the sea the quickest way. Brought to straits, Arion begged them, since they were so decided, to allow him, standing in full costume, to sing on the quarterdeck and, after singing, he promised to make an end of himself. Since pleasure entered into them in that they were to hear the best singer among human beings, they withdrew from the stern to the middle of the ship. Then he put on his full costume and took hold of his cithara, stood on the quarterdeck and went through the shrill melody, and at the melody's end cast himself into the sea as he was with his full costume. So those men sailed away to Corinth, while him a dolphin, they say, took up from below and bore out to Taenarum. When he had alighted, he went to Corinth with his costume and on coming related everything that had happened. Yet Periander out of disbelief held Arion under guard and would let him go nowhere, while he gave heed to the seamen, but when lo! they had come, they were called and asked whether they had anything to say about Arion. As they were stating that he was safe at Italy and they left him faring well in Tarentum, Arion showed himself to them just he was when he had leapt out, and they in astonishment could not any longer, since they were being convicted, make denials. Now, the Corinthians and the Lesbians give that account, and there is a bronze statue of Arion, not a large one, at Taenarum, a human being who is on a dolphin.




Alyattes the Lydian bore to the end the war against the Milesians and thereafter met with his end when he had been king fifty seven years. He made offerings, on getting free from his illness--he was the second of that house to do so--at Delphi: a large silver bowl and an iron soldered bowl-stand worth beholding above all the offerings in Delphi, Glaucus the Chian’s work, who quite alone of all human beings invented a means of soldering iron.

After Alyattes had met with his end, Croesus, the son of Alyattes, succeeded to the kingdom, who was thirty five years of age, and it was he who attacked the Ephesians first among the Greeks. Hereupon the Ephesians, besieged by him, dedicated their city to Artemis by fastening a cord from her temple to their wall. (There is between the ancient city, which then was under siege, and the temple seven stades.) On those first then Croesus laid hands and afterward in turn on each group of Ionians and Aeolians; he brought different accusations against the different groups: on those against whom he could discover greater grounds for accusation, he laid greater blame, while against the others he brought even paltry charges.

When lo! the Greeks in Asia had been subjected to tribute payment, at that time he was intending to build ships and lay hands on the islanders. But, when he possessed everything ready for shipbuilding, some say Bias the Prienian came to Sardis, others Pittacus the Mytilenaean, and at Croesus’ asking whether there was any news about Greece, said the following and put a stop to the shipbuilding: “O king, the islanders are trying to buy up ten thousand horse, since they have in mind to advance with an army to Sardis and against you.” Then Croesus, on supposition that he spoke truly, said, “If only the gods would put that into the mind of the islanders, to come against the sons of the Lydians with horses!” And he in reply said, “O king, eagerly you appear to me to pray to get hold of the islanders on horse on the mainland, since you expect what’s likely. And the islanders--what do you think they should pray other than, as soon as they have learned by inquiry you are to build ships against them, a prayer to get hold of the Lydians on the sea, that they may punish you on behalf of the Greeks living on the mainland, whom you have enslaved and keep so?” Croesus, it is said, took very much pleasure in the reasoning and, since he thought he spoke fittingly, was persuaded by him and ceased from shipbuilding. And thus with the Ionians living on the islands he agreed on friendly relations.

When time had gone by and almost all those living on this side of the Halys river were in subjection, since except for the Cilicians and the Lycians, Croesus had subjected all the others under him and kept them so (and they are these: the Lydians, the Phrygians, the Mysians, the Mariandynians, the Chalybians, the Paphlagonians, the Thracians Thynian and Bithynian, the Carians, the Ionians, the Dorians, the Aeolians and the Pamphylians), when those then were in subjection and Croesus was trying to add acquisitions to the Lydians, there came to Sardis, abounding in riches, all the other wise men from Greece that were in fact alive at that time--in his own way each of them came--and particularly Solon, an Athenian man, who at the Athenian’s bidding had framed laws for them and gone abroad ten years, after sailing out on pretext of seeing sights that he might not be compelled to annul any of the laws that he had laid down. For on their own the Athenians were unable to do that, because they were bound by great oaths ten years to observe the laws that Solon had laid them down. Therefore for this very reason indeed and seeing sights Solon was abroad and came into Egypt to Amasis and especially into Sardis to Croesus. On coming he was received as a guest in the royal palace by Croesus and afterward, the third or fourth day, at Croesus’ bidding servants led Solon round through the treasuries and pointed out that everything was great and prosperous. After he had beheld and inspected everything, when it was seasonable for him, Croesus asked this: “Athenian guest, since many a report has come to us about you both concerning your wisdom and wandering that loving wisdom, you have gone over much ground for the sake of seeing sights, therefore longing now falls over me to ask you whether by now you have seen of all men a most prosperous." He, supposing he was the most prosperous of human beings, asked that, but Solon with no trace of flattery at all but solely with a regard for what was, said, “O king, Tellus, an Athenian.” Croesus marvelled much at what had been said and asked vehemently, “Just how do you judge Tellus to be the most prosperous?” And he said, “On the one hand, Tellus, while his city was well off, had good and beautiful children and he saw offspring were born to them all and all survived; on the other, for him, while he was well off in his livelihood, a most brilliant end of his life, as is our judgement of things, supervened. For, in a battle fought by the Athenians against their neighbors in Eleusis, he came to the rescue and brought about a rout of the enemy, died most beautifully and the Athenians buried him at the public expense there at the very spot where he had fallen and they honored him greatly.”

When in regard to Tellus’ affairs Solon had incited Croesus by speaking of many prosperities, he asked whom he saw second after that man, since he fully thought he would win second prize at least. And he said, “Cleobis and Biton. For to them, being Argive in race, sufficient life belonged and in addition to that strength of body of the following kind. Both alike were prizewinners, and what’s more there is told this account: When the Argives held a festival for Hera, their mother had absolutely to be conveyed by chariot to the shrine and the bulls from the field could not attend them in time. So constrained by the time, the young men slipped themselves under the yoke and began to draw the wagon, and on the wagon their mother rode under their power. Forty five stades they conveyed her over and came to the shrine. Then for them, after they had done that and been seen by the whole festival gathering, a best end of their life supervened, and the god showed plainly in that that it is better for a human being to be dead rather than to live. For, while Argive men stood round and thought blessed the young men’s strength and the Argive women thought blessed their mother--what kind of offspring she had gotten!--the mother, being very glad at the deed and the report, stood opposite the god’s statue and prayed that to Cleobis and Biton, her own offspring, who had honored her greatly, the goddess should give what is best for a human being to receive, and after that prayer, when they had sacrificed and feasted, the young men fell asleep in the shrine itself and no longer rose but were held in that end. So the Argives had likenesses of them made and dedicated them at Delphi on the ground that they proved the best men.”

Solon then dispensed second prize in happiness to them, and Croesus in anger said, “O stranger of Athens, and has our happiness so by you been set at nothing that you render us worth not even private men?” And he said, “O Croesus, me who know that the divine is entirely jealous and troublesome you ask about human affairs. For in a long time many things it is possible to see that one is unwilling and many also to suffer. Now, at seventy years I fix the limit of life for a human being. Those years, being seventy, amount to twenty five thousand two hundred days, if an intercalary month is not added, but if every other of the years shall be made a month longer just that the seasons may turn out to come to what’s necessary, the months in the seventy years that are intercalary come to be thirty five and the days of those months one thousand fifty. Of all those days coming to the seventy years, being twenty six thousand two hundred fifty, one of them to another day brings absolutely no similar matter. Thus then, o Croesus, a human being is entirely chance. To me you both appear to have great wealth and to be king of many human beings, but that name about which you asked me not yet can I call you until I learn by inquiry you have come to the end of your time beautifully. For in no way is the greatly wealthy rather than he who has enough for a day more prosperous, if fortune should not attend him to come well with everything beautiful to the end of his life, since many very wealthy human beings are unprosperous and many who are moderate in livelihood are of good fortune. The greatly wealthy but unprosperous, then, in two ways only surpasses him of good fortune, while he the wealthy, yet unprosperous, in many; for, although the one to fulfil desire and bear great ruin at its befalling is more able, yet the other in the following ways surpasses him: not withstanding that ruin and desire he’s not able like that man to bear, them good fortune from him keeps and he is unmaimed, undiseased, unharmed by evils, a possessor of good children, a possessor of good looks and, if in addition to that he still will come to the end of his life well, that is he whom you seek, the one worthy to be called prosperous, but until he meets with his end, hold back and not yet call him prosperous but rather of good fortune. Now, to get all those goods together for one who is a human being is impossible, just as no country is fully sufficient to supply everything for itself, but has one thing and is in want of another, and whichever has the most, that’s the best. Likewise a human being’s one body is nothing self-sufficient; for it has something and is in need of another. Whoever of them, then, continues to have most and thereafter comes agreeably to the end of his life, that in my judgement, o king, is the right one to win that name. So one must look to every matter’s end how it will come out. For the god gives a glimpse of prosperity to quite many and afterward pulls them up by the roots.”

After Solon’s going a great nemesis from a god got hold of Croesus in that, to make a conjecture, he believed himself to be of all human beings the most prosperous. At once over him, while he slept, hovered a dream which brought to light for him the truth of the evils that were to happen regarding his son. Now, Croesus had two sons, one of which was defective, since he was a deaf mute, while the other of his contemporaries was far the first in all respects, and his name was Atys. It was that Atys then about whom the dream indicated to Croesus that he would lose him struck by an iron spear. So he, after he had awakened and deliberated with himself, in fear of the dream not only brought back home for his son a wife, and him, accustomed to be general of the Lydians, nowhere any longer would send out for a matter like that, but also javelins, spears and everything like that that human beings use for war, he carried away from the men’s apartments to the women’s apartments and piled together lest any suspended fall on his son.

While his son had in hand his marriage, there came to Sardis a man in the grip of misfortune and not pure of hand, who was Phrygian in race and of the royal family. He went into the palace of Croesus and in accordance with the native laws asked to obtain purification, and Croesus purified him. (The manner of purification of the Lydians is nearly the same as the Greeks’.) When Croesus had done what conformed to the law, he inquired whence and who he was in these words: “O fellow human being, being who and having come whence in Phrygia have you gotten to my hearth? And whom of men or women did you kill?” And he answered, “O king, of Gordias, the son of Mides, I am the son, and I am named Adrastus. I killed my own brother unwillingly and here I am, driven out by my father and bereft of everything.” And Croesus answered him with this: “You are in fact a descendant of men who are friends and have come to friends, where you will be at a loss for nothing as long as you remain in our home. Bearing that misfortune as lightly as possible, you will gain most.”

He then dwelt at Croesus’ and in that same time in Mysian Olympus a great monster of a boar arose. He, making his base on that mountain, was destroying the fields of the Mysians, and often the Mysians went out against him and, although they did him no harm, yet suffered it by him. Finally, on coming to Croesus the Mysians’ messengers said this: “O king, a very great monster of a boar appears to us in our country that destroys our fields. Eager as we are to capture him, we are unable. We now request of you, then, your son, picked young men and hounds to send with us that we may remove him from our country.” They then asked for that, and Croesus, remembering the sayings of the dream, said to them this: “About my son no longer mention; for I would not send him with you, since he is newly married and that is now his care. Nevertheless, picked men of the Lydians and the whole hound pack I will send with you and exhort them to go and be as eager as possible to join with you to remove the beast from your country.” He answered that.

The Mysians being content with that, the son of Croesus came in after, who had heard what the Mysians asked for. Because Croesus said he would not send his son at any rate with them, the young man spoke to him this: “O father, in any previous time the most beautiful and noblest things were ours, to go constantly to wars and to hunts and be of good repute. But now you have shut me out of both of those and keep me so, although you neither noticed in me any cowardice nor faintheartedness. To what sort of eyes must I now, when I go constantly to the public square and from the public square, appear? What sort of person will I be thought to be to my fellow citizens and what sort of person to my newly married wife? With what sort of husband will she be thought to cohabit? You then either set me free to go to the chase or convince me by speech how doing what you are doing is better for me.” Croesus answered with this: “O son, neither cowardice nor anything else unagreeable did I notice in you and so do that, but rather over me a dream’s vision in my sleep hovered and said you would be shortlived, since you would be killed by an iron spear. Therefore because of that vision I hastened that marriage of yours and do not send you to the undertakings, in that I was keeping guard on the chance that in some way I could during my lifetime preserve you stealthily. For you are in fact my one and only son inasmuch as I count the other indeed, since he’s defective, not to be mine.”

 
Installment 3                 
 The young man answered with this: “Although pardon, o father, is yours, since you saw a vision like that, for keeping guard concerning me, yet what you do not understand, but has escaped your notice in respect to the dream, it is just for me to point out to you. You say the dream said to you by an iron spear I would meet with my end, but of a boar, what kind of hands are there, and what kind of iron spear, of which you are afraid? For, if by a tusk it had said to you I would meet with my end, or by anything else that is like that, you would, of course, have had to do what you are doing; however, as it is, it said by spear. Since, therefore, the battle for us proves not against men, set me free.” Croesus answered, “O son, there is some way in which you prevail over me by declaring your judgement concerning the dream. Therefore, on the ground that I am prevailed over by you, I change my mind, and set you free to go to the hunt.”

After he had said that, Croesus summoned the Phrygian Adrastus, and to him on his coming said this: “Adrastus, you, stricken by unagreeable misfortune, for which I do not reproach you, I purified, and have entertained in the palace and keep doing so, while I supply every expense. At present then, since you are bound, because I previously did benefits for you, with benefits to repay me, I desire you to become guardian of my son as he starts off for the hunt, lest along the road any villainous thieves appear to you for mischief. In addition to that, you, too, for yourself must go where you will become brilliant by your actions. For it is your forefathers’ way, and moreover the strength belongs to you.” Adrastus answered, “O king, although, in another circumstance, I, for my part, would not go to a contest like this, since, for one that has experienced my kind of misfortune, neither is it seemly to go to contemporaries who fare well, nor is the yearning present-- in short, for many reasons I would restrain myself, however, as it is, because you urge and I must gratify you-- for I am bound to repay you with benefits-- I am ready to do that, and your son, whom you exhort me to guard, unharmed, so far as depends on his guardian, expect to return to you.”

When with words like that he had answered Croesus, the party started out after that, furnished with picked young men and hounds. On coming to Olympus, the mountain, they began to search for the beast, and after they had found and stood round it in a circle, they proceeded to throw javelins at it. Hereupon the stranger, that very one who had been purified from the killing, and was called Adrastus, trying to smite the boar with a javelin, although it he missed, yet hit Croesus’ son.

He then, struck by the spear, fulfilled the saying of the dream, and someone ran to announce to Croesus what had happened. On coming to Sardis, the battle and the doom of his son he indicated to him. Then Croesus, confounded by the death of his son, complained somewhat more indignantly, because he slew him, whom he himself had purified from killing. Terribly aggrieved by his misfortune, he called on Zeus who presides over purification-- he called him to witness what he had suffered at the hands of the stranger-- and called on who presides over the hearth and who presides over companionship, and that same god he named; he called on him as who presides over the hearth, precisely because, by entertaining the stranger in the palace, he was the keeper of the killer of his son unaware, and on him as who presides over companionship, since, by sending that man to join the party as guardian, he had found him the greatest enemy.

There were present after that the Lydians with the corpse, and behind, the killer followed it. Then, he stood before the corpse, surrendered himself to Croesus by holding out his hands, bade him to cut his throat over the corpse, and spoke of the earlier misfortune of his, and that on top of that he had destroyed his purifier and it was not livable for him. Croesus, on hearing that, had mercy on Adrastus, even though he was involved in so great an evil of his own, and said to him, “I have, o stranger, from you full satisfaction, since you sentence yourself to the death penalty. You, to me, are not the cause of this evil of mine, except insofar as you unwillingly worked it out, but someone of the gods, I suppose, who to me very long had been indicating in advance what was to be.” Now, Croesus buried, as was seemly, his own son, and Adrastus, the son of Gordias, the son of Mides, that very man who had proven the killer of his own brother and killer of his purifier, when quiet at the departure of the human beings had fallen round the grave, acknowledged that he was, of human beings that he himself knew of, the most weighed down by misfortune, and killed himself by cutting his throat over the tomb.




Croesus for two years in great sorrow sat still, bereft of his son, but afterward, the putting down of Astyages the son of Cyaxares’ hegemony by Cyrus the son of Cambyses, and the growing of the affairs of the Persians, stopped Croesus from sorrow, and set him to thinking that, if he could somehow, before the Persians proved great, he should restrain the growing of their power. Therefore, after that thought, at once he began to make trial of the seats of prophecy, those in the Greeks’ land and that in Libya, by sending off different groups to different places, one to go into Delphi, one into the Abae of the Phocians, one into Dodona; and some men were sent to Amphiareus and to Trophonius, some to Branchidae in Milesian land. Now, those are the Greek seats of prophecy to which Croesus sent away men to get prophetic responses, and in Libya to Ammon he dispatched others to consult the oracle. So he sent off to make trial of the seats of prophecy, as to what they had in mind, that, if they were found to have in mind the truth, he might ask them next, when he sent men, whether he should set his hand to advance with an army against the Persians.

Now, he enjoined on the Lydians the following, when he sent them away to the trial of the oracles, that, from that day whenever they set out from Sardis, they should count by days the future time, and the hundredth day consult the oracles and ask what the king of the Lydians, Croesus, the son of Alyattes, in fact did, and whatever each of the oracles prophesied, they should have written down and bring back to himself. Now, what the rest of the oracles prophesied is said by none, but in Delphi, as soon as the Lydians had come into the hall to consult the god, and asked what had been enjoined, Pythia in hexametric meter said this:

I know sand’s number and the dimensions of sea;
Both the mute I understand and the speechless hear.
An odor comes to my mind of hard-shelled tortoise,
As it boils in bronze together with pieces of lamb;
Under it bronze is spread; above with bronze it’s capped.

When that Pythia had prophesied, the Lydians had it written down, and went travelling off to Sardis, and after all the others sent round, also, were present with their responses, then Croesus unfolded and looked over each of the writings. Of the others, indeed, none moved him, but when he had heard the one from Delphi, at once he offered prayer, and received it favorably, in the belief that the seat of prophecy at Delphi was unique, because it had found out for him what he himself had done. For, right after he had sent off to the oracles the messengers to inquire of them, he waited for the appointed of the days, and contrived like this: he devised what there was no way of contriving to find out and have cognizance of, and thus cut up a tortoise and a lamb together, boiled them himself in a bronze cauldron, and with a bronze cover covered it.

The above proclamation, then, from Delphi thus was made to Croesus, but concerning the answer from Amphiareus’ seat of prophecy, I am unable to say anything about what it proclaimed to the Lydians, on their doing at the shrine what conformed to the law (for that, too, in fact, is not said)-- at any rate other than that that man, too, he believed to posses an undeceitful seat of prophecy.

After the above, with great sacrifices he tried to propitiate the god at Delphi; for three thousand cattle of all kinds he sacrificed, and with couches overlaid with gold and overlaid with silver, golden libation bowls, and purple cloaks and tunics, he piled up a large pyre, and burnt it down, in the expectation that he would gain the favor of the god somewhat more by that; moreover, he ordered all Lydians to sacrifice, every one of them, that which each had. When he was done with the sacrificing, he had an immense amount of gold melted down and drew half-bricks from it; on the longer side, he made them six palms’ measure, on the shorter, three palms’ measure, in height, a palm’s measure and, in number, a hundred seventeen; and of those, four were of refined gold, each weighing two and a half talents, and all the others were half-bricks of white gold, in weight, two talents. He also had made a lion’s likeness of refined gold that had a weight of ten talents. (That lion, while the temple in Delphi was burning down, fell down from the half-bricks--for on them it was set up-- and now is placed in the Corinthians' treasury, and has a weight of six and a half talents, since there was melted from it three and a half talents.) Now, Croesus brought those works to completion, and sent them away to Delphi, and these other works with them: two bowls, large in size, a gold and a silver, of which the gold was placed on the right as one went into the temple, and the silver, on the left. (They, too, changed their places at the time of the temple’s burning down: the gold is placed in the Clazomenians’ treasury, and has a weight of eight and a half talents and twelve minae beside, and the silver, at the fore-temple’s corner, and holds six hundred amphorae; for wine is mixed in it by the Delphians at Theophania. The Delphians say it is Theodorus the Samian’s work, and I think so, since it appears to me to be not the work met with everyday.) He also sent away four silver jars, which stand in the Corinthians’ treasury, and dedicated two sprinklers, a gold and a silver, on the gold of which there is an inscription that asserts it is an offering of the Lacedaemonians, although it is an incorrect statement; for that, too, is Croesus’, and one of the Delphians made the inscription, because he wanted to gratify the Lacedaemonians, whose name I know and will not mention. (However, the boy, through whose hand the water flows, is the Lacedaemonians’, but neither of the sprinklers.) Many other unremarkable offerings Croesus sent away with these, and silver circular cast vessels, and especially a woman's image of gold three cubits tall, which, the Delphians say, is the baker of Croesus’ likeness. In addition, also his own wife's necklaces Croesus dedicated, and her girdles.

Those things he sent away to Delphi, and to Amphiareus, after he had learned by inquiry of his virtue and suffering, he dedicated a shield, all of gold, and similarly a solid spear, all of gold, the shaft, like the point, being of gold; they both, still even to my time, were placed in Thebes, and at Thebes in the temple of Ismenian Apollo.

On those of the Lydians who were to bring those gifts to the shrines, Croesus enjoined to ask the oracles whether he should advance with an army against the Persians, and whether he should win over any army of men as a friend. So, when, on their coming to where they had been sent out, the Lydians had dedicated the offerings, they consulted the oracles by saying, “Croesus, the king of the Lydians and other nations, in the belief that the seats of prophecy here are unique among human beings, gave you gifts worthy of what you had found out, and now asks you whether he should advance with an army against the Persians, and whether he should win over any army of men as an ally.” They asked that, and of both seats of prophecy, the judgement concurred in the same thing, since they predicted for Croesus that, if he advanced with an army against the Persians, he would break down a great empire; also, the most powerful of the Greeks they advised him to find out, and to win over as friends.

After Croesus had learned by inquiry the messages brought back from the oracles, not only did he take excessive pleasure in the oracles, but also, fully in the expectation that he would break down the kingdom of Cyrus, he sent men again to Pytho, and presented the Delphians, on learning by inquiry their multitude, man by man, with two staters of gold each. Then the Delphians, in return for that, gave Croesus and the Lydians the right of consulting the seat of prophecy first, freedom from tax, the right of sitting in front at public gatherings and permission, to whoever of them wanted, to become a Delphian at any time.

When he had given presents to the Delphians, Croesus consulted the oracle the third time. For, right after he had ascertained the seat of prophecy's truth, he took his fill of it. So he asked this, when he consulted the oracle, whether his monarchy would be long lived. And Pythia proclaimed to him this:

Well, whenever a mule becomes king of the Medes,
Yea then, Lydian tenderfoot, to pebbly Hermus
Flee and don’t stay, and don’t be ashamed to be bad.

In those words, on their arriving, Croesus took pleasure in somewhat far the highest degree of all, since he expected that a mule not at all, in place of a man, would reign over the Medes, and therefore not he himself, nor those descended from him, would ever cease from the rule.




After that, he thought and inquired whom of the Greeks, being most powerful, he should get on his side as friends. Inquiring, he found the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians surpassed, the former the Doric race, the latter the Ionic. For those peoples were judged the first, being anciently, the latter the Pelasgic nation, the former the Greek.

Although the one nation nowhere yet went out, the Lacedaemonian was very much wandering. For, in the time of King Deucalion, it was settled in the land of Phthia, and in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, in the country under Ossa and Olympus, the so-called Histiaean. From the Histiaean, after it had been expelled by the Cadmeians, it was settled in Pindus among the so-called Macedonian nation. Thence again it changed its place to the Dryopian land, and from the Dryopian thus it came to Peloponnesus, and was called Doric.

Which tongue the Pelasgians uttered, I am unable exactly to say, but if one has to speak, by taking as evidence the still now existing of the Pelasgians settled over the Tyrsenians in the city of Creston, who were at some time bordering those now called Dorians (and they were at that time settled in the land now called Thessalian) and of the Pelasgians once settled in Placia and Scylace in the Hellespont, who became fellow settlers with the Athenians, as well as all the other boroughs, being Pelasgian, that changed their name, if, by taking those as evidence, one must speak, the Pelasgians were utterers of a barbarian tongue. If, then, the Pelasgian people were entirely like that, the Attic nation, being Pelasgian, together with its change into Greeks, changed its tongue and learned a new one. For, in fact, clearly neither the Crestonians, to any of those now settled round them, are of similar tongue, nor the Placians, but to themselves are of similar tongue, and thus, they make clear that that character of tongue which they brought with themselves, when they changed their earlier places and went to new ones, they held under guard.

The Greek nation, although in respect to tongue, since it came into being, on each and every occasion from of old has been constantly using the same, as to me plainly appears to be, however, split off from the Pelasgian, being without strength, from a small origin at the beginning started off, and has grown into a multitude of nations, especially since the Pelasgians have gone over to it, and numerous other barbarian nations. Besides to me, at any rate, it seems that the Pelasgian nation, while it was barbarian, not at all grew greatly.




It was one of those nations, then, the Attic, that was kept down and torn asunder, Croesus learned by inquiry, by Peisistratus, son of Hippocrates, who during that time was tyrant of the Athenians. For, to Hippocrates, being a private person and spectator of the Olympic games, a great portent came into being, in that, after he had sacrificed his sacred victims, the cauldrons, which stood near and were full of meat and water, without fire boiled and overflowed. Chilon, the Lacedaemonian, happening by and beholding the portent, advised Hippocrates, best of all, not to bring home a wife able to produce offspring to his house, and if he, in fact, had one, the next best thing, to send out his wife, and if any son, in fact, was his, to renounce him. However, it is said at Chilon’s recommending that, Hippocrates refused to obey; that there was born to him after that that Peisistratus who, when the coastal Athenians and those of the plain were factious, and Megacles, the son of Alcmeon, was chief of the former, and Lycourgus, the son of Aristolaides of those of the plain, fixed his thoughts on the tyranny and gathered a third faction, and, when he had collected the men of his faction and in speech was chief of those over the heights, he contrived like this: after he had wounded himself and his mules, he drove to the public square his chariot, as if he had fled from his enemies, who wished to kill him as he drove to the field forsooth, and he asked of the people to get a guard from it, since he had been of good repute in the office of general performed against the Megarians, where he had taken Nisaea and shown forth other great actions. The Athenian people, completely deceived, gave him some of their townsmen by selecting those men who proved not lance-bearers of Peisistratus, but club-bearers; for with clubs of wood they followed him behind. Then they, joined together with Peisistratus, stood up in opposition and got hold of the acropolis. Hereupon Peisistratus was ruler of the Athenians, without confounding the existing honors or altering statutes; in short, on the established principles he governed the city, and ordered it beautifully and well. After not much time, having in mind the same object, the men of Megacles’ faction and those of Lycourgus’ drove him out. Thus Peisistratus got hold of Athens the first time and, since he was trying to hold the tyranny, when it was not yet very rooted, he lost it, and those who drove Peisistratus out again anew were factious against each other. Driven about by the faction, Megacles sent Peisistratus a message by herald and asked whether he wanted to have his daughter as wife in return for the tyranny. After Peisistratus had consented to what had been said and agreed on that condition, they then contrived, for his return from exile, the silliest deed by far, as I find, at least since the rather ancient period, when there had been separated from the barbarian nation the Greek, being both cleverer and more removed from foolish silliness, in that at that time, indeed, they, among the Athenians, who were said to be the first of the Greeks in wisdom, contrived like this: in the Paeanian deme was a woman, whose name was Phye, in height falling three fingers short of four cubits and in other respects a possessor of good looks. That woman they dressed with a panoply, made go into a car and showed by example a kind of very comely bearing, which she was manifestly to have, and they drove into the town, after sending before heralds as forerunners, who spoke publicly what had been enjoined, on coming to the town, in words like this: “O Athenians, receive with good mind Peisistratus, whom Athena herself honors most of human beings, and brings back from exile to her own acropolis.” They, then, went all over and said that, and at once to the demes a report came, that Athena was bringing back Peisistratus from exile, and those in the town, convinced the woman was the god herself, offered prayer to the human being and received Peisistratus.

When he had regained the tyranny in the said manner, Peisistratus, in accordance with the agreement made with Megacles, married Megacles’ daughter. But inasmuch as sons belonged to him, who were young men, and Alcmeonidae were said to be under a curse, not wanting there to be born to him from his newly married wife offspring, he had intercourse with her not in accordance with law. Now, at the first, his wife hid that, but afterward, either at her inquiring or maybe not, she pointed it out to her own mother, and she to her husband. Of him, as something terrible, being dishonored by Peisistratus got hold, and angrily, as he was, he altered in his enmity to the men of faction. When Peisistratus had learned what was being done against himself, he departed from the country altogether, and on coming to Eretria, he took counsel with his sons. After Hippies had prevailed in his judgement to reacquire back the tyranny, then they gathered donations from whichever cities owed respect to them in some way or other. Although many supplied much money, the Thebans excelled them in the giving of money. Afterward, to say it in no long speech, time grew on and everything was furnished by them for the return from exile. For, in fact, Argive mercenaries came from the Peloponnesus, and a Naxian man, having come with them as a volunteer, whose name was Lygdamis, supplied himself the most eagerness in conveying both money and men.

So they started off from Eretria and, after an interval of eleven years, came back. Indeed first in Attic land they got a hold of Marathon. While they were encamped in that place, the men of their faction from the town came to them, and others from the demes flowed in, to whom tyranny, in preference to freedom, was more welcome. They, then, were assembled together, and those of the Athenians from the town, as long as Peisistratus gathered money, and subsequently after he had gotten hold of Marathon, accounted it nothing, but when they had learned by inquiry that from Marathon he was making his way to the town, just then they came to its rescue against him. Indeed they came with the whole army against those returning from exile, and Peisistratus and his followers, after they had started off from Marathon and were going against the town, going together to the same spot, came to Pallas Athena’s shrine and put their arms opposite. Then, divinely sent, Amphilytus, the Acarnian speaker of oracles, stood by Peisistratus, and he went toward him and proclaimed in hexametric meter these words:

The net has been cast, and the mesh has been spread out.
Tuna will dart along through the moonlit nighttime.

He, then, inspired, proclaimed to him this, and Peisistratus, on comprehending the oracle and saying he received what had been proclaimed, began to lead his army against the enemy. The Athenians from the town were turned to breakfast at that time, and after their breakfast several of them partly to dice, partly to sleep. So Peisistratus and his followers fell upon the Athenians and put them to rout. While they were fleeing, then Peisistratus devised the wisest plan, that the Athenians might be assembled no longer and so be disbanded. He mounted his sons on horses and sent them before. Then they overtook those fleeing and said what had been enjoined by Peisistratus, in that they bade take courage and go off, each to his own. As the Athenians were persuaded, just then Peisistratus the third time got hold of Athens, and rooted the tyranny, not only with many auxiliaries and money income, some coming in out of the very place, some from the Strymon river, but also because he had captured as hostages the sons of the Athenians who had remained by and not at once fled, and established them in Naxos, since, in fact, it Peisistratus had subjected in war and entrusted to Lygdamis, and besides, in addition to that, he had purified the island of Delos on the basis of prophetic speeches, and had purified it thus: so far as the view from the shrine reached, out of that place he dug the corpses, and changed their earlier spot and brought them to another place on Delos. So Peisistratus was tyrant of Athens, and of the Athenians, some in the battle had fallen, and some of them with the Alcmeonidae were exiles from their own land.







Now, as to the Athenians events like that during that time, Croesus learned by inquiry, kept them down, but the Lacedaemonians from great evils had fled, and were by then in war superior to the Tegeans. For, during the time when Leon and Hegesicles were kings in Sparta, in all the other wars the Lacedaemonians were of good fortune and against the Tegeans alone stumbled. Still earlier than that they were also possessors of the worst laws of all Greeks, by themselves and without mixing with foreigners. Then they changed in the following way to good laws. When Lycourgus, an esteemed man among the Spartiates, had come in to Delphi to the oracle, as he went into the hall, straightway Pythia said this:

You have come, o Lycourgus, to my rich temple,
Dear to Zeus and all who have Olympian homes.
I doubt whether I’ll prophesy you god or man,
But still more a god I expect, o Lycourgus.

Some, then, in addition to that, say Pythia also pointed out to him the now established order for the Spartiates, but, as the Lacedaemonians themselves say, when Lycourgus was guardian of Leobotes, his own nephew and king of the Spartiates, from Crete he brought it back. For, as soon as he had become guardian, he established all new usages and kept anyone from transgressing them. Afterward, what related to war, sworn bands, companies of thirty and common meals, and in addition to that, the ephors and elders, Lycourgus established.

Thus they changed and had good laws, and to Lycourgus, after he had met with his end, they put up a shrine and reverenced him greatly. Inasmuch as they were in a good land and in multitude no few men, they shot up at once and flourished. And so for them it was not sufficient to be at rest, but they thought contemptuously that they were stronger than the Arcadians and consulted the oracle in Delphi with a view to getting the whole country of the Arcadians. Pythia proclaimed to them this:

Ask me Arcady? You ask much. I won’t give you.
Many acorn-eating men are in Arcady,
Who will hinder you. But I begrudge you nothing.
I will give you foot-struck Tegea to dance in
And a beautiful plain with rope to measure out.

When the Lacedaemonians had heard that had been brought back, although they kept themselves away from all the other Arcadians, yet they, bringing with themselves fetters, advanced with an army against the Tegeans, trusting in a deceptive response, with the intention that, of course, they would lead the Tegeans into captivity as slaves. But, worsted in the encounter, all of them who had been taken alive, while they wore the fetters that they themselves were bringing with themselves and with rope measured out the plain of the Tegeans, worked the land. Those fetters, in which they were bound, still even to my time, were safe in Tegea, hanging round the temple of Alean Athena.




During the earlier war, then, continually on each and every occasion they contended badly against the Tegeans, but during the time of Croesus and the kingdom of Anaxandrides and Ariston in Lacedaemon, by then the Spartiates were proven superior in war, since they had proven so in a manner like this: when on each and every occasion they were worsted in war by the Tegeans, they sent messengers to consult the oracle to Delphi, and asked by propitiating whom of the gods, would they prove superior in war to the Tegeans. And Pythia proclaimed to them by bringing in the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon. When they proved unable to discover the grave of Orestes, they sent men again to the god to ask for the place in which Orestes lay. To the messengers sent to the oracle, after they had asked that, Pythia said this:

There’s a Tegea in Arcady on smooth ground,
Where two winds make breezes under strong necessity,
And blow and counterblow are, and woe on woe lies.
There life-giving earth keeps down Agamemnon’s son;
Carry him home, and you’ll be Tegea’s helper.

When the Lacedaemonians had heard that, too, they were distant from the finding out no less, although they searched everything, until right when Liches, one of the Spartiates who were called Benefactors, made the discovery. (The Benefactors are those oldest of the townsmen who go out from the rank of the horsemen, five annually; they must, during whichever year that they go out from the rank of the horsemen, not cease from being sent off by the Spartiates’ commonwealth, different men to different places.) So one of those men, Liches, made the discovery in Tegea by the use of both chance and wisdom. For, since there was during that time intercourse with the Tegeans, he went to a smithy and beheld the beating out of iron, and was in a state of marvel on seeing what was done. The smith learned that he marvelled much, and said on ceasing from his work, “Surely then, o Laconian stranger, if you had seen the very sight I did, you would marvel very much, inasmuch as you now thus, in fact, consider a marvel the working of the iron. For I, wishing to make a well in this court here, while I dug, happened on a coffin of seven cubits. Out of disbelief that indeed human beings were born at all taller than those now, I opened it and saw that the corpse was equal in length to the coffin. Then I measured and covered it back with earth.” The one, then, spoke to the other of the very sight he had seen, and the other, having in mind what was said, concluded that that was Orestes in accordance with the message from the oracle, by concluding this way: seeing the two bellows of the smith, he found they were the winds, and the anvil and the hammer the blow and the counterblow, and the iron that was beaten out the woe that on woe lay, since he conjectured in accordance with a reasoning like this, that to do evil to a human being iron was discovered. After he had concluded that and gone away to Sparta, he pointed out to the Lacedaemonians the whole matter. But they on the basis of a fabricated account brought a charge against and banished him. Then he, on coming to Tegea and pointing out his misfortune to the smith, offered to hire, from him who refused to let, the court. In time, when he had convinced him, he took up his quarters there, and when he had dug up the grave and collected the bones, he went off with them to Sparta. And from that time, whenever they made of trial of each other, the Lacedaemonians proved far superior in war, and to them even the greater part of the Peloponnesus was in subjection.

It was all that, then, that Croesus learned by inquiry and thus sent to Sparta messengers who carried gifts and were to ask for alliance, after he had enjoined what they had to say.

 
Installment 4   
So they went and said, “Croesus, the king of the Lydians and other nations, sent us with these words: ‘O Lacedaemonians, because the god proclaimed that we should win over the Greek as a friend, since you, I learn by inquiry, are the chief men of Greece, you, therefore, in accordance with the oracle, I call forth, inasmuch as I wish to become a friend and ally without treachery and deceit.’”

Croesus, then, that message, by messengers who were heralds, sent, and the Lacedaemonians, having heard on their own as well the message from the oracle that had been given to Croesus, took pleasure in the coming of the Lydians and swore oaths of foreign friendship and alliance. For, in fact, some benefactions had a hold on them that had been done still earlier by Croesus, in that the Lacedaemonians had sent men to Sardis and were bargaining for gold, because they had wanted to use it for that statue of Apollo that now is set up on Laconian land in Thorax, and Croesus, to them who were bargaining, had given it as a donation.

For that reason, then, the Lacedaemonians received the alliance, and since he had judged them first of all the Greeks and chosen them as friends. So, on the one hand, they for their part were ready for an announcement of instructions; on the other, they had made a bowl of bronze, which they filled with small figures outside round the lip, and in size could hold three hundred amphorae, and were bringing it, because they wanted to give it as a gift in return to Croesus. That bowl did not come to Sardis, there being said two conflicting causes why as follows: the Lacedaemonians say that, when, being brought to Sardis, the bowl had come to be near the Samian land, on learning by inquiry of it, the Simians took it away by sailing against them with large ships, but the Simians themselves say that, when those of the Lacedaemonians who brought the bowl were too late, and learned by inquiry that Sardis and Croesus had been captured, they sold the bowl in Samoa, and private men bought and dedicated it at the temple of Hera, and perhaps the sellers too would say, on coming to Sparta, that they had it taken away from them by the Simians.

Now, regarding the bowl it was thus, and Croesus, missing the response’s meaning, made an expedition against Cappadocia, in the expectation that he would put down Cyrus and the Persian’s power. While Croesus was preparing to advance with an army against the Persians, one of the Lydians, considered even formerly to be wise and, from that judgement, very much indeed having a name among the Lydians, advised Croesus this (his name was Sandanis): “O king, you are preparing to advance with an army against men of the kind who wear leather pants and leather dress of every other sort, as well as eat not all that they wish, but all that they have, because they have a harsh land. In addition, they consume no wine, but drink water, and have no figs to chew, no other good at all. On the one hand, then, if you will prevail, what will you take away from them, since they have nothing?; on the other, if you are prevailed over, learn all the goods that you will lose. For, once they get a taste of our goods, they will embrace them and will not be thrust away. Now, I have gratitude to the gods who do not put into the Persians’ mind to advance with an army against the Lydians.” Saying that, he could not persuade Croesus. But indeed the Persians, before they had subjected the Lydians, had neither anything luxurious nor good.




The Cappadocians are named Syrians by the Greeks, and those Syrians were, during the period before the Persians ruled, the Medes’ subjects. For the boundary of the Median rule and the Lydian was the Halys river, which flows from mount Armenius through the Cilicians, and afterward has the Matienians on the right as it flows and on the other side the Phygians, and passing by them and flowing up to the north wind, on one side keeps the Syrian Cappadocians and on the left the Paphlagonians. Thus the Halys river cuts off almost all the lower parts of Asia from the sea opposite Cyprus to the Hospitable Sea; that is the neck of all that country; on the length of its road, for a well-girt man, five days are used up.

Croesus advanced with an army against Cappadocia for these reasons, both because, out of longing for land, he wanted to acquire an addition to his portion, and especially because he was trusting in the oracle and wished to punish Cyrus on behalf of Astyages. For Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, being Croesus’ brother-in-law and the Medes’ king, Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, had subjected and kept so, after he had become brother-in-law to Croesus this way: a band of pastoral Scythians became factious and went out stealthily into the Median land. During that time Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes, the son of Deioces, was tyrant of the Medes, who treated those Scythians, at the first, well, on the ground that they were suppliants; and so, considering them worth much, he gave over his sons to them to learn thoroughly their tongue and the art of bows. When time had gone, and on each and every occasion the Scythians went constantly to the hunt, and on each and every occasion were bringing something, indeed once it happened that they took nothing. So, after they returned with empty hands, Cyaxares, since he was, as the event showed plainly, extreme in anger, treated them very harshly injuriously. And they, because they had suffered that at Cyaxares’ hands, seeing that they had suffered things unworthy of themselves, took counsel and decided to cut up one of the sons who were being taught among them, dress him just as they were accustomed to dress the beasts as well, give him to Cyaxares by bringing him as game from the hunt forsooth, and, after they had given him, carry themselves the quickest way to Alyattes, the son of Sadyattes, into Sardis. That, indeed, was done. For, in fact, Cyaxares and the banqueteers present ate of that meat, and the Scythians, on bringing about that, became Alyattes’ suppliants. After that, since, indeed, Alyattes refused to give up the Scythians to Cyaxares, who demanded him to give up them, a war between the Lydians and the Medes was waged for five years, in which many times the Medes prevailed over the Lydians, and many times the Lydians over the Medes, and, moreover, they waged a kind of night battle; for, to them, who waged the war on an equal footing, when in the sixth year an encounter came about, it so happened as, while the battle was joined, for the day suddenly to become night. That alteration of the day Thales the Milesian foretold would be, and as its boundary he fixed that very year in which the change, in fact, occurred. The Lydians and the Medes, after they had seen it become night in place of day, ceased from the battle and both, indeed, somewhat more hastened peace to be made for themselves. Those who made them the treaty were these: Syennesis the Cilician and Labynetus the Babylonian. They, for them, not only were the ones who hastened the oath to be sworn, but also they brought about an exchange in marriage, in that they came to the judgement that Alyattes should give his daughter, Aryenis to Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, since, without powerful necessity, powerful treaties are not wont to remain fast. Those nations swear oaths just like the Greeks, and in addition to that, when they cut themselves superficially along the arms on the surface of the flesh, they lick up the blood of each other.

It was that Astyages, then, although he was his maternal grandfather, that Cyrus had subjected and held so, for a cause that I will indicate in the accounts to come, because of which action Croesus found fault with Cyrus and sent men to the oracles to ask whether he should advance with an army against the Persians, and, what’s more, with the coming of a deceptive response, on the supposition that the response was in his favor, he advanced with an army into the Persians’ portion. And when Croesus had come to the Halys river, at that time, a I say, across the existing bridges he transported the army; however, as the prevailing account of the Greeks goes, Thales the Milesian transported it for him; for, when Croesus was at a loss how his army would cross the river, it is said that, since, in fact, there did not yet exist during that time those bridges, Thales, being present in the camp, brought about for him that the river, which flowed on the left side of the army, flowed also on the right, and brought it about this way: beginning further upstream than the camp, he dug a deep trench and drew it moon-shaped, that the river might get the camp set up behind itself, when it was diverted by that route through the trench from its ancient streams, and again, when it passed by the camp, might enter into its ancient streams. And so, as soon as the river had actually split, it became fordable in both places. Some say that its ancient stream was dried up quite absolutely, but that I cannot believe at all; for how, when they were making their way back, would they have crossed it?

Croesus, when he had made the crossing with the army, and come in Cappadocia into the so-called Pterian land (the Pterian land is the most powerful place in that country, and lies pretty nearly opposite the city of Sinope on the Hospitable Sea), then camped and destroyed the lots of the Syrians. Indeed he took the city of the Pterians and captured them as slaves, and took all the cities settled round it; in short, the Syrians, who were not at all guilty, he caused to migrate. Then Cyrus, after he had gathered his own army and taken to himself all those settled in his midst, opposed Croesus. Yet before he rushed to drive out his army, he sent heralds to the Ionians and tried to make them revolt from Croesus. Now, the Ionians could not be persuaded, and when Cyrus had come and camped against Croesus, then in the Pterian country they made trial of one another by force. After the battle had become fierce and many on both sides had fallen, finally neither prevailed and they stood apart at night’s advancing.

Both camps competed thus, and Croesus, finding fault with his expedition regarding its multitude, since the army of his that had engaged in the encounter was far smaller than that of Cyrus, finding fault with that, when the next day Cyrus did not try to advance, drove away to Sardis, because he had in mind to call to his side the Egyptians in accordance with the oath (for he had made an alliance also with Amasis, who was king of Egypt, earlier than with the Lacedaemonians), to summon the Babylonians too (for, in fact, with those an alliance had been made by him, and during that time Labynetus was tyrant of the Babylonians), and to announce instructions to the Lacedaemonians as well to be present at the stated time and, on gathering those very men and collecting his host, he intended, once he let the winter pass, together with the spring to advance with an army against the Persians. And he, with that in mind, when he had come to Sardis, sent heralds round to the allies to proclaim that at the fifth month they should collect themselves at Sardis, but the army that was present and had fought with the Persians, which was his foreign one, he let go and disbanded wholly, since he did not at all expect that, Cyrus after all, when he had competed so nearly the same, would march against Sardis.

For Croesus, while he was thinking on that, the whole suburb became full of serpents. Then, at their appearance, the horses came steadily and ate them up. To Croesus, who saw that, it seemed to be a portent, just as, in fact, it was. At once he sent the messengers who consulted the oracle to the Telmessian interpreters. But to the messengers who consulted the oracle, on their coming to and learning from the Telmessians what the portent meant to indicate, it was not granted to announce it back to Croesus, because, before they sailed back again, Croesus had been captured. However, the Telmessians came to this judgement, that an alien army should be expected to come to Croesus against his country and, on its coming, it would subject the natives, and they said that the serpent was the child of the land, and the horse the enemy and incomer. Now, the Telmessians made that reply for Croesus, who by then had been captured, since they knew nothing yet of the events that had taken place concerning Sardis and Croesus himself.

Cyrus, immediately Croesus was driving away after the battle that had been fought in the Pterian land, on learning that Croesus had driven off and was to disband his army, took counsel and found it advantageous for himself to march, as quickly as he could, against Sardis, before the force of the Lydians was gathered the second time. When he had decided that, indeed he did it with speed; he drove his army into Lydian land and was present himself as messenger to Croesus. Then Croesus, although he had come to great straits, now that his affairs were contrary to the belief that he himself firmly believed, nevertheless led out the Lydians to battle. And there was during that time no nation either more manly or more valorous than the Lydian. Their manner of battle was from horses, and they carried long lances and in themselves were good at riding horses.

When the parties had come together in that plain that is before the town of Sardis, which is large and barren (through it other rivers and the Hyllus flow and together break into the largest, the so-called Hermus, which out of the mountain sacred to mother Dindymena flows and discharges into the sea by the Phocian city), then Cyrus, after he had seen the Lydians arrayed, in dread of the horse did, at the suggestion of Harpagus, a Median man, a deed like this: all those camels that followed his own army as food-carriers and baggage-carriers, he gathered and took away their burdens; then he made men go up on them, dressed in horsemen’s dress and, on having them dressed, he commanded them to go before the rest of the host toward the horse of Croesus, while he bade the foot soldiery follow the camel, and behind the foot he arrayed in back all the horse. When all the men had been set in array by him, he exhorted that, although the rest of the Lydians they should not spare, but kill every one of them that came to be in their way, yet Croesus they should not kill, not even if, while he was being apprehended, he defended himself. That he exhorted, and the camels he arrayed opposite the horse for this reason: a horse fears a camel and patiently endures neither seeing the sight of it nor smelling the odor. For that very reason indeed he had devised his wise course, in order that the horse soldiery might be useless to Croesus, and it was in that that the Lydian indeed purposed to shine significantly. So, when they actually went together into the battle, then, as soon as the horses had smelled the camels and seen them, they turned back again, and the hope of Croesus was destroyed. However, the Lydians, at any rate, at that time were not cowardly, but when they had learned what was happening, they leapt from their horses and encountered the Persians on foot. In time, after many on both sides had fallen, the Lydians got put to rout and, cooped up within their wall, were besieged by the Persians.

For them, then, a siege was established, and Croesus, thinking that the siege against him would be for a long time, sent from within the wall other messengers to the allies. For the former ones were sent off to proclaim that at the fifth month they should be collected at Sardis, but those latter he sent out to ask them to come to the rescue the quickest way, on the ground that Croesus was being besieged.

Accordingly then he sent men to the rest of the allies and, in particular, to Lacedaemon. But for those very same, at just that time, there had happened coincidently to be a contention with the Argives concerning the place called Thyrea. For those Thyrean lands, which belonged to the Argolid portion, the Lacedaemonians cut off for themselves and held. It was, in fact, the territory up to the Malean lands to the west of the Argives, namely, the country on the mainland, the island of Cythera and the remaining of the islands. When the Argives had come to the rescue of their own land as it was being cut off, then the parties concurred, on going together for speeches, that three hundred men of each side should fight, and whichever of the two groups survived, the place should be theirs, and that the multitude of the army should depart, each to his own land, and not remain by, while they competed, for this reason, that, the camps being present, one of the two, seeing their own men being worsted, might not offer aid. After making that compact, they departed, and picked men of each side got left behind and had an encounter. Of them, when they had fought and proven evenly matched, there were left over, out of six hundred men, three: of the Argives, Alcenor and Chromius, and of the Lacedaemonians, Othryades, and these remained left over at night’s advancing. The two of the Argives, then, on the ground that they had prevailed, ran to Argos, while he of the Lacedaemonians, Othryades, once he had stripped the corpses of the Argives and carried the arms to his own camp, kept himself at his post. The next day both sides were present and learned of the event by inquiry. For a while each side asserted that they themselves were victors, the one side stating that more of their own had survived, the other declaring that they had fled, while their own man had remained by and stripped their corpses. Finally, out of the contention, they fell together and fought. Indeed, after many on both sides had fallen, the Lacedaemonians were the victors. Now, the Argives from that time cropped their heads, although previously, of necessity, they had worn their hair long, and pronounced it law and a curse that none of the Argive men should grow their hair long nor the women wear gold ornaments on themselves, before they brought back to safety the Thryean lands, and the Lacedaemonians laid down as law the opposite of that, in that, although they had not worn their hair long before then, from then they wore their hair long. But that one man, they say, who was left over from among the three hundred, Othryades, ashamed to return back to Sparta, since the fellows of his company had been destroyed, there in the Thyrean lands used himself mortally. When affairs like those were afoot for the Spartiates, the herald from Sardis was present to ask them to come to the rescue of Croesus, who was being besieged, and they, nevertheless, after they had learned of the situation from the herald, were minded to come to the rescue. Yet to them, by then when they were prepared and ships were ready, came another message, that the wall of the Lydians had been captured and Croesus had been taken alive and was kept so. Just then they, considering it a misfortune, had ceased their efforts.

Sardis was captured this way: after the fourteenth day of the siege of Croesus had come, Cyrus sent off horsemen to his own host and proclaimed that to the first to set foot on the wall he would give gifts. After that, when the host had made a try, as it was not a success, then, all the rest having ceased their efforts, a Mardian man tried to go up, whose name was Hyroiades, at that place in the acropolis where no guard had been posted, since it was not to be feared at that place that it would be captured ever. For the acropolis is precipitous there and impregnable, where alone Meles, the former king of Sardis, did not bring round the lion that his concubine had borne him, when the Telmessians had rendered the decision that, if the lion was brought round the wall, Sardis would be unconquerable. Indeed that Meles, although he brought it round to the rest of the acropolis’ wall, where it was pregnable, neglected that spot, on the ground that it was impregnable and precipitous; it is the spot in the city turned to Tmolus. Thus it was that Hyroiades, the Mardian, indeed, that, on seeing, the day before, one of the Lydians go down the length of that place in the acropolis for a helmet that rolled down from above, and bring it up for himself, made a point of it and laid it to heart. So then indeed he was on top of the wall and after him others of the Persians climbed up; after numerous man had gone up, just then Sardis was captured and the whole city was being plundered.

Regarding Croesus himself the following happened. A son was his, whom I, in fact, made mention of before, fit in all other respects, but dumb. Accordingly, in his bygone well-being, Croesus had done everything for him; he had thought up other plans and especially to Delphi he had sent men to consult the oracle about him. And Pythia said to him this:

Lydian in race, many’s king, big infant Croesus,
Don’t want to hear the much-prayed-for cry in your house
Of a voiced son. That’s far better for you to be
Without. For he’ll speak first a day unprosperous.

When the wall, then, was captured, since one of the Persians, taking Croesus for another, approached with the intention of killing him, now, Croesus saw him advance and under the influence of the present misfortune cared not; it even made no difference to him to be struck and die; but that dumb son, after he had seen the Persian advance, under the influence of fear and evil let out an utterance and said, “O fellow human being, don’t kill Croesus.” He, then, first gave voice to that, and after that from then on he could speak his whole lifetime.

The Persians got hold of Sardis and took Croesus himself alive, after he had ruled fourteen years and fourteen days had been besieged, and in accordance with the oracle had ceased from his great rule. Then the Persians took him and brought him to Cyrus. He piled together a large pile and made Croesus, bound in fetters, and twice seven sons of the Lydians alongside him go up on it, either, probably, because he had in mind to burn them as first fruits to some god or other, or, maybe, because he wished to fulfil a vow, or, maybe, because he had learned by inquiry that Croesus was reverential to the gods and for the following reason he made him go up on the pyre, that he wanted to know whether any of the divinities would rescue him from being consumed by fire alive. He, then, it is said, did that, while to Croesus, standing on the pyre, there occurred, even though he was involved in so great an evil, the saying of Solon, that it was spoken by him with a god’s help, that saying that none of the living are prosperous. When, after all, that thought had risen before him, he, they say, on coming to himself and crying aloud after a long silence, thrice called the name “Solon”, and Cyrus heard that and bade his interpreters ask Croesus who was that man he called upon, and they went to him and put the question. Croesus, the story goes, a while kept silent, while he was questioned, and afterward, when he was compelled, said, “Whom I would have preferred at the cost of much money to come into speeches with all tyrants.” Since he had pointed out to them unintelligible things, again they questioned what was said. And, as they were persistent and rendered themselves an annoyance, he then said that, to begin with, Solon, being an Athenian, had come and, after he had beheld all his prosperity, had disparaged it-- saying so and so-- and that everything had come out for him just as that man had said, who in no way spoke anything with regard to him more than with regard to the whole human race and especially those who in their own judgement think they are prosperous. Croesus, they say, related that, while, the pyre by then being on fire, its edges began to burn. And Cyrus, they further relate, after he had heard from his interpreters what Croesus had said, changed his mind and had in his thought that indeed he himself, being a human being, another human being, who had become no less than himself in happiness, he offered to fire alive, and in addition to that he feared vengeance and thought on how nothing of what’s among human beings is not liable to fall, and so he bade men extinguish the quickest way the burning fire and make Croesus and those with Croesus go down. Yet those men, although they tried, could not any longer get mastery over the fire. Then, it is said by the Lydians, Croesus learned of Cyrus’ change of mind and, when he saw every man try to extinguish the fire and able no longer to restrain it, he let out a cry to Apollo and called on him, if any gratifying gift had been presented to him by himself, to stand by and rescue him from the present evil. So he, in tears, called on the god, and after clarity and windlessness there ran together suddenly clouds, and a storm broke out and it rained with a most violent rain, and finally the pyre was completely extinguished. Just then Cyrus learned that Croesus was loved by the gods and a good man and, when he had made him go down from the pyre, he asked this: “Croesus, who of human beings convinced you to advance with an army against my land and be established my enemy instead of my friend?” And he said, “O king, I did that because of the happiness that’s yours and the unhappiness that’s mine; the god of the Greeks proved the cause of that action, in that he induced me to advance with an army. For no one is so unintelligent that he chooses war instead of peace, since in the one sons bury their fathers, and in the other fathers their sons, but to a divinity, I suppose, it was dear that that event thus happen.”

He said that, and Cyrus, on releasing him, seated him near himself and held him in very much consideration, and both he himself and all who were in his circle marvelled much at seeing him. He, in the meanwhile, held in close thought, was silent. Then afterward, when he had returned to himself and seen the Persians were plundering the town of the Lydians, he said, “O king, which should I? Speak to you what I, in fact, think or be silent at the present time?” And Cyrus bade him take courage and say whatever he wanted. And he asked him a question by saying, “That large crowd there-- what’s that it is doing with much eagerness?” And he said, “Your city it is sacking and your property carrying away.” Then Croesus replied, “Neither my city nor my property it is sacking; for there is no share for me any longer in that, but they are carrying off and leading away yours.” So for Cyrus it became a care what Croesus had said, and he removed all the others and asked Croesus what he observed for him in what was done. And he said, “Since the gods gave me as a slave to you, I think it just, if I observe any advantage, to indicate it to you. The Persians, being in nature insolent, are propertyless. If, therefore, you allow their sacking and gaining hold of much property, the following is likely to be done to you by them: whoever of them gains hold of most, anticipate he will rise up against you. Now therefore act this way, if what I say pleases you. Station from among your lance-bearers at all the gates guards and let them say to those carrying out property, as they take it away for themselves, that it is necessary for it to be tithed for Zeus. Thus you will not incur their enmity, although by force you are taking the property away for yourself, and they, with an admission that you are acting justly, will willingly give it up.” Cyrus took very much pleasure in hearing that, as it seemed to him to be well suggested, and, when he had praised him much and enjoined on his lance-bearers to bring to completion what Croesus had suggested, he said to Croesus this: “Croesus, since you, a king, are prepared to do good in actions and words, ask for yourself whichever gift you want to become yours immediately.” And he said, “O master, you will gratify me most by letting me send these fetters of mine and ask the god of the Greeks, whom I honored most of the gods, whether to deceive those who treat him well in his law.” Then Cyrus asked why he spoke that against the god and made that entreaty. And Croesus repeated to him his own thought, the oracles’ answers, and especially his offerings, as well as that, induced by the seat of prophecy’s response, he had advanced with an army against the Persians. On saying that, he concluded by entreating him again to permit himself to cast that reproach on the god. And Cyrus, with a laugh, said, “Both that you will obtain from me, Croesus, and everything else that on each occasion you ask for.” After Croesus had heard that, he sent some of the Lydians to Delphi and enjoined on them that, after putting the fetters on the temple’s threshold, they should ask whether the god was in no way ashamed of inducing Croesus, by the seat of prophecy’s responses, to advance with an army against the Persians, with the intention of putting an end to Cyrus’ power, in consequence of which first-fruits became his like those, at which point they should show the fetters, that they should ask that and whether it was the law of the Greek gods to be most ungrateful.








To the Lydians, on their coming and saying what had been enjoined, it is said that Pythia spoke this: “The fated portion it is impossible to escape, even for a god. Croesus, then, paid the full penalty for the failing of his forefather five generations back, who, being a lance-bearer of the sons of Heracles and attending to a woman’s treachery, had killed his master and gotten hold of his honor that fit himself not at all. For Loxias, eager as he was that in the time of the sons of Croesus the suffering of Sardis might come about and not in the time of Croesus himself, proved unable to divert the Fates. But all that they had given into, he effected and so gratified him, in that three years he put off the capture of Sardis. Indeed that let Croesus know, how that many years later he was captured than what had been fated. Then next after that he aided him when he was being burnt. Regarding the response made by the seat of prophecy, too, Croesus finds fault not correctly, because Loxias proclaimed to him that, if he advanced with an army against the Persians, he would break down a great rule, and he, thereupon, ought, if he were to have taken counsel well, to have sent men and asked whether he spoke of his own rule or that of Cyrus, but, since he did not comprehend what had been said and did not ask further, let him declare himself guilty. Moreover, the last time he consulted the oracle, when Loxias spoke to him about a mule, not even that did he comprehend. For indeed Cyrus was that mule, since he had been born of two not of the same nation, a better mother and an inferior father, inasmuch as she was Median and Astyages the king of the Medes daughter, and he was Persian and ruled by those and, being beneath them all, he cohabited with the mistress of himself.” That reply Pythia made to the Lydians, and they brought it back into Sardis and announced it back to Croesus. Then he, on hearing it, admitted the failing was his own and not the god’s.

Regarding the rule of Croesus, then, and Ionia’s first subjection it was thus. And Croesus’ are also many other offerings in Greece and not the said alone; for, in the Thebes of the Boeotians, there’s a tripod of gold, which he dedicated to Ismenian Apollo, in Ephesus, the cows of gold and the greater number of the pillars and, in the shrine of Athena before the Temple in Delphi, a large shield of gold. Those still even to my time were surviving, while other of his offerings had perished completely. (The offerings in the Branchidae of the Milesians, as I know by inquiry, were equal in weight and similar to those in Delphi.) Now, those offerings he dedicated at Delphi and at Amphiareus’ were the first-fruit of his own and his father’s property, but all the other offerings were made with the substance of his enemy, who, before he became king, had established himself as a man of faction opposed to him by joining with Pantaleon to hasten the Lydians’ rule’s becoming his. For Pantaleon was Alyattes’ son and Croesus’ brother, but not of the same mother, since Croesus was Alyattes’ from a Carian woman and Pantaleon from an Ionian. So, after Croesus had gotten control of the rule at his father’s giving it, the human being who acted in opposition he drew upon a card and killed, and of his substance, which still earlier he had devoted, then in the said manner he made offerings at the places that have been spoken of. About offerings let so much be said.

 
Installment 5               
 As to marvels, the land of Lydia has them for writing down not exceedingly, like, at any rate, another country, in fact, does, besides the gold-dust that comes down from Tmolus. And it supplies one work that’s far the largest, except for the Egyptian works and the Babylonian; there is in that place Alyattes the father of Croesus’ grave, whose foundation is of large stones, and the rest of the grave is a mound of earth. The human beings whose business is in the public square, the masters of handicrafts and the young working girls that ply their trade about the town had the work built. Its boundary-stones, being five, still even to my time were up on the grave, and on them letters had been carved that stated the parts of the work that each group had had built. And so, it was manifest, when the work of the young girls was measured, that it was the largest part. For all the Lydian people's daughters prostitute themselves and collect their own dowries by doing that until they cohabit, and they themselves give themselves away in marriage. The circumference of the grave, then, is six stades and two plethra and its breadth is thirteen plethra. A large lake is next to the grave, which, the Lydians say, is always full, and it is called Gygian.

That work, then, is like that, and the Lydians observe nearly the same laws as the Greeks, except that they prostitute their female offspring. They were the first of the human beings that we know of to strike coin of gold and silver and use it and were the first also to become retailers. The Lydians for their part assert that the games that are established among themselves and the Greeks, too, were invented by their own. At the same time they got invented by themselves, they say, as they sent a colony to Tyrsenia, and they say an account about those events like this: in the time of King Atys, the son of Manes, a severe food shortage came about throughout all Lydia, and the Lydians a while continued to persevere, but afterward, when it would not cease, they searched for cures, and one of them contrived one against it, another another. It was at that time, then, that there got invented the various kinds of dice, of bones, of ball, and of all the rest of the games, except draughts. (For, in fact, the inventing of that the Lydians do not claim as their own.) So they acted like this in view of the famine on inventing those things: one of the days they played games throughout, just that they might not have to seek food, while the other they ate food and ceased from their games. In a manner like that they continued for twenty years but two. And since the evil would not abate, but rather grew violent to a still greater extent, just then their king divided all the Lydians into two portions: he allotted to the one to remain in and to the other to go out of the country, and over the one of the portions that received by lot to remain there he assigned himself as king, while over the other that departed his own son, whose name was Tyrsenus. So the second group of them, on receiving by lot to go out of the country, went down to Smyrna and built by contrivance boats, into which they placed all the good movables that were theirs, and sailed off in search of livelihood and land, until, after passing by many nations, they came to the Ombrikians, where they erected cities and were settled until now. Instead of Lydians they were named a new name after the king’s son, who had led them up; after him they had their naming and were named Tyrsenians.




The Lydians, then, were enslaved under the Persians, and so indeed henceforth our account goes on to seek Cyrus, who he was that put down the rule of Croesus, and the Persians, in what manner they became the leader of Asia. Therefore, in accordance with that which several of the Persians say, who want not to make Cyrus’ affairs august, but to speak the account of what was, I will write, although I know how to bring to light three other ways of giving an account about Cyrus also. After the Assyrians had ruled Upper Asia for five hundred and twenty years, the Medes were the first to begin to revolt from them; and, I think, they fought with the Assyrians about their freedom and proved good men, and they thrust away from themselves their slavery and were free. After them, all the other nations, too, did the same as the Medes.

When all were autonomous throughout the mainland, they devolved back to tyrannies this way: a man among the Medes proved wise, whose name was Deioces, and he was the son of Phraortes. That Deioces fell in love with tyranny and acted like this: the Medes having their settlements in villages, he, being in his own, both previously was esteemed and even somewhat more eagerly applied himself to and practiced justice; and that, too, although there was lawlessness throughout all the Median land, he did, since he knew that to the just the unjust is an enemy. So the Medes, seeing his manners, chose him as their judge. He, then, inasmuch as he was wooing rule, was straight and just, and as a result, doing that, he had no little praise from his fellow citizens so that those in all the other villages learned by inquiry that Deioces was the only man to judge in accordance with what’s correct, and, although previously they fell in with unjust decisions, then, after they had heard of him, they gladly went constantly to Deioces, on their own indeed, to receive judgement, and finally they entrusted themselves to no other. When the group that went constantly on each and every occasion grew larger, inasmuch as they learned by inquiry that their lawsuits came out in accordance with what was, Deioces, come to the knowledge that everything was referred to himself, as he was unwilling to sit down any longer right where previously he had sat publicly and judged, so he said he would not judge any longer, since it was not profitable for him, careless of his own, to judge for his neighbors throughout the day. Accordingly, there being seizure and lawlessness still far more throughout the villages than was before, the Medes collected in the same place and deliberated with themselves; they said about the present situation (and, as I think, the friends of Deioces said it most), “Because, if we keep our present manner, indeed we are unable to be settled in our country, come let us set over ourselves a king, and thus our country will have good laws and we ourselves will turn to work and not be made to migrate by lawlessness.” Saying nearly that, they persuaded themselves to be a monarchy. At once, from when they were putting forward whom they should set themselves as king, Deioces was prevalent, since by every man he was both put forward and praised, until they consented that he should be king. He then bade them build a palace for himself worthy of the kingdom and strengthen him with lance-bearers. The Medes, indeed, did that; for they built him a large and powerful palace, where he himself pointed out in the country, and, as for lance-bearers, they entrusted to him to select them for himself from all the Medes. He then, when he had gotten hold of the rule, made it necessary for the Medes to make one borough and, because of their efforts to maintain it, to have less care for all the others.

As the Medes were persuaded to do that, too, he had built those large and strong walls that now are called Agbatana, one circle standing in the preceding. That wall is so contrived that one circle is taller than the preceding by its battlements alone; on the one hand, its spot, in fact, is something so near to an ally, since it is a hill, that it would be like that naturally, while, on the other, it was made even somewhat more so by art. The circles being all together seven, right in the last is the royal palace and the treasuries. The largest of them is a wall pretty near to the circle of the Athenians in its size. Of the first circle, then, the battlements are white, and of the second, black; the third circle’s are red, the fourth's, blue, and the fifth's, orange. Thus all those circles’ battlements are adorned as with flowers by paints; as to the last two, one has its battlements silvered, the other gilded. Those walls, then, Deioces had erected for himself round his palace, and the rest of the people he bade to be settled round the wall.

After everything had been built, Deioces first was the establisher of this order: no one should go into the king’s chamber, but should act in all matters through messengers, and the king should be seen by no one; further, in addition to that, to laugh and to spit in his presence, that, indeed, to quite all should be shameful. He made those august rules concerning himself for this reason, that, not seeing him, his contemporaries, who were brought up with him and of a not meaner house and who were not left behind in respect to manly goodness, might not be pained and plot against him, but he might seem to them to be of another kind, since they did not see him. And when that he had ordered completely and he was strengthening himself in his tyranny, he was, in his guarding of what’s just, difficult. As consequently men wrote down their lawsuits and sent them inside into him, so he decided those that went in and sent them out. That, concerning the lawsuits, he did, and the following orders were made by him: if he learned by inquiry that anyone was insolent, whenever he summoned him, in accordance with the deserts of each injustice he rendered judgement, and lookers and listeners were throughout the whole country over which he was ruler. Now, Deioces united the Median nation and that he ruled. There are among the Medes these many races: the Bousians, the Paretacenians, the Strouchatians, the Arizantians, the Boudians, and the Magians. The races of the Medes, then, are these many.





Then there was born Deioces’ son, Phraortes, who, when Deioces had met with his end, after he had reigned fifty-three years, inherited the rule. And, when he had inherited it, he was not content to rule the Medes alone, but, on advancing with an army against the Persians, he attacked them first and rendered them the Medes’ first subjects. Afterward, with those two nations and both powerful, he subjected Asia by going from one nation to another, until, when he had advanced with an army against the Assyrians, and of the Assyrians against those that had Ninus, in fact that had previously ruled all, although then they were alone without allies, seeing that they had revolted, but they yet were in other respects well off for themselves, after against those very men he had advanced with an army, Phraortes himself was killed, who had ruled twenty-two years, and the greater part of his army.

Phraortes, when he had met with his end, Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes, the son of Deioces, succeeded. He, it is said, proved still far more valorous than his forebears. Indeed he was the first to divide those in Asia into divisions by squadrons and the first to set in array each group to be separate, the spear-bearers, the bow-bearers and the horsemen; before that, confusedly, everything alike was confounded. That man was the one who had fought with the Lydians when the day had become night for them as they were fighting, and the one who had joined all Asia above the Halys river to himself. Then he, on collecting all those under his rule, advanced with an army against Ninus, because he was taking revenge for his father and wished to remove that city. And to him, after he had encountered and prevailed over the Assyrians by besieging Ninus, came the Scythians’ large army, and the king of the Scythians, Madyes, Protothyes’ son, led them; they had made an invasion into Asia and thrown the Cimmerians out of Europe; while they attended to them as they fled, they thus came into the Median land.

It is from the Maeetian lake over the Phasis river and to the Colchians a journey of thirty days for a well-girt man, and from the Colchian land it’s not far to go over into the Median land, but there is one nation in the middle of them, the Saspeirians, and, when men pass by it, they are in the Median land. However, the Scythians indeed made no invasion there, but turned out along the far longer upper road, with mount Caucasus on the right. Thereupon the Medes, when they had encountered the Scythians and been worsted in the battle, were deposed from their rule, and the Scythians occupied all Asia. Thence they went against Egypt. And when they had come to be in Palaestinian Syria, Psammetichus, Egypt's king, met them with gifts and entreaties and turned them from making their way farther. So, when they were returning back and came to be in Syria in the city of Ascalon, although the greater of the Scythians went by and out unharmed, some few of them were left behind and plundered the heavenly Aphrodite's shrine. That shrine is, as I have learned by inquiry and found, the most ancient of all shrines that are that god’s (for, in fact, the shrine in Cyprus originated thence, as the Cyprians themselves say) and that among the Cytherians-- Phoenicians were the ones who set it up and they were from that Syria. Thus on those of the Scythians who had plundered the shrine in Ascalon and on the descendants of them the god let fall a female illness; and so the Scythians say that at the same time, on account of that, those were ill and they who came to the Scythian land saw among them how those were disposed, whom the Scythians call Enarees. Now, for twenty-eight years the Scythians were the ruler of Asia, and everything was made to migrate by their insolence and belittling, since, for one thing, as tribute they exacted from each group what on each they imposed and, for another, besides the tribute, they seized as they rode round that which each had. At length the greater number of those, indeed, Cyaxares and the Medes, after they had received them as guests and made them drunk, slaughtered, and thus the Medes brought back to safety their rule and were master of those very things of which they had been earlier as well, and they took Ninus (how they took it, in other accounts I will make clear) and brought the Assyrians into their power except the Babylonian portion.

After that, Cyaxares, when he had been king forty years, including those that the Scythians had ruled, met with his end, and Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, succeeded to the kingdom. And to him was born a daughter, whose name he made Mandane, who Astyages dreamt in his sleep made so much water that she filled his own city and inundated besides all Asia as well. After he had made over to the oneirocritics of the Magians his dream, he was afraid on learning from them the details of its lesson. So afterward, that Mandane, who was by then ripe for a husband, he gave as a wife to none of the Medes worthy of himself, since he was in a state of fear at the vision, but he gave her to a Persian, whose name was Cambyses, whom he had found to be of a good house and a quiet manner, because he held him far below a Median man of a middle rank.

While Mandane cohabited with Cambyses, Astyages in the first year saw another vision; it appeared to him that from the genitals of that daughter grew a vine, and the vine occupied all Asia. After he had seen that and made it over to the oneirocritics of the Magians, he summoned from the Persians his daughter, who was about to bring forth, and, on her coming, he guarded her, since he wanted to destroy that which issued from her; for, on the basis of his vision, the oneirocritics of the Magians indicated to him that the issue of his daughter was to be king instead of him. It was that, then, which Astyages was on guard against and, when Cyrus had been born, he called Harpagus, a man of his house, the most loyal of the Medes and trustee of all his affairs, and spoke to him like this, “Harpagus, whatever matter I will attach to you, in no way treat it indifferently and, with a choice of others, latterly meet with your own ruin. Take hold of the son that Mandane has brought forth, and bring it to your own house and kill it; afterward bury it in whatever manner you want.” And he answered, “O king, neither at another time yet did you notice in this man here anything unagreeable, and we are on guard for you also for the time hereafter to make no error. But if it’s dear to you for that thus to be done, as far as concerns me, there must be rendered service suitably.” Harpagus answered with that and, after the small child, adorned for the way to death, had been handed over to him, he went weeping to his house. And, on entering, he pointed out to his wife the whole speech that had been said by Astyages. And she said to him, “Then what is now in your mind to do?” And he answered, “Not as Astyages enjoined, not even if he will go out of his mind and be mad worse than now he is mad; I for my part will not attach myself to his judgement nor render service for a killing like that. For many reasons I will not kill him, indeed because the child is my relative and because Astyages is old and without a male child of issue; if then, at his meeting with his end, the tyranny will go over to that daughter, whose son he now seeks to kill through me, is anything left thereafter for me other than the greatest of dangers? Well, although for the sake of preventing my fall that child must meet his end, yet one of the men of Astyages himself must become the killer and not one of mine.” He said that and at once he sent a messenger to him of the cowherds of Astyages whom he knew pastured the most suitable pasturages and the most beast-filled mountains, whose name was Mitradates. He cohabited with his fellow slave, and the woman’s name, with whom he cohabited, was Kyno in the Greeks’ tongue and in the Median, Spako; for the Medes call the kyon “spax”. The foothills of the mountains, where that very cowherd had his pasturages for his cows, are toward the north wind from Agbatana and toward the Hospitable sea. For there the Median country toward the Saspeirians is very mountainous, high and covered with woods, while the rest of the Median country is completely flat. Accordingly when the cowherd with much haste had come at being called, Harpagus said this: “Astyages bade that you should take hold of that young child and put it on the most desolate of the mountains, that it might be killed most quickly. Moreover this he bade to say to you, that, if you did not kill it, but in any manner preserve it alive, with the worst kind of destruction he would use you fatally, and to look upon it exposed I am appointed.”





After the cowherd had heard that and taken up the young child, he went by the same road back and came to his steading. Now, to him, lo! even to himself, his wife, who had been about to bring forth all day, somewhere near that time through a divinity brought forth, while the cowherd was gone to the city. In the meanwhile, both had been engaged in anxious thinking about each other, he being afraid because of the bringing forth of his wife, and his wife in that unaccustomedly Harpagus had summoned her husband. So when he had returned back and stood at his place, inasmuch as unexpectedly his wife saw him, she first asked why so eagerly Harpagus had summoned him. And he said, “O wife, I saw, on going into the city, and heard what I would that neither I had seen nor had happened to our masters. The whole house of Harpagus was taken up with wailing and I, in astonishment, went inside. And as soon as I had gone in, I saw a young child, lying before them, wriggling and mewling, adorned with gold and embroidered clothing. Then Harpagus, when he had seen me, bade me the quickest way, after I had taken up the young child, to be gone with it and put it where was the most beast-filled of the mountains, and he said that he who laid that charge on me was Astyages, and he made many threats, if I did not do it. So I took up and carried it, while I thought it was one of the household slaves’; for I would never have guessed whence it really was. But I was astounded at seeing that it was adorned with gold and clothes and that, also, in addition, wailing was established publicly in Harpagus’. And then quite suddenly along the road I learned by inquiry the whole account from a servant, who, escorting me out of the city, put the newborn in my hands, that after all, it was the child of Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, and Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, and Astyages enjoined to kill it; and now here he is.” At the same time as the cowherd said that, he also uncovered and showed him forth.

Then when she had seen that the young child was large and a possessor of good looks, bursting into tears and taking her hold of the knees of her husband, she desired that by no means he should expose it. And he asserted that he was unable to bring it about otherwise, since watchers from Harpagus would resort there to look upon the deed and he would be killed in the worst way, if he did not do it. So when lo! she could not persuade her husband, as the next best thing, the wife said this: “Since, therefore, I cannot persuade you to not expose it, you, then, do as follows, if indeed there’s truly every necessity for it to be seen exposed: because I, too, have brought forth, but have brought forth a dead child, that one carry and put out, but the other, the daughter of Astyages’ child, as if it were born of us, let us bring up. And thus neither you will be caught acting unjustly against your masters nor by us badly counsel will be taken. For the dead will obtain a royal burial and the surviving will not lose his life.” His wife very much seemed to the cowherd in view of the present situation to speak well, and at once he did that. That one child that he had carried to put to death, he handed over to his wife, and the other, his child, being a corpse, he took hold of and put into the vessel, in which he had carried the first and, after adorning him with every adornment of the first child, he carried him to the most desolate of the mountains and put him there. And when the third day had come for the young child who was exposed, the cowherd went to the city, on leaving behind one of the assistant cowherds as guard there, and, on going to Harpagus’, he said that he was ready to show forth the young child's dead body. Then Harpagus, after he had sent the most loyal of his own lance-bearers, saw through their agency and had the cowherd's young son buried. And so the one was buried, and the other, who later than that was named Cyrus, the wife of the cowherd took over and brought up, and she made him some other name and not Cyrus.

And just when the child was ten years old, a matter happened to him like the following and revealed him: He was playing in that village, in which were those above-mentioned cow-pastures, and he was playing with others, his contemporaries, in the road. The children, while they were playing, chose to be king of themselves that very one who was in name the cowherd's child. So he appointed some of them to build homes, others to be lance-bearers, some of them to be the eye of the king, and to some other he gave the dignity of bringing in messages; after his own way, each task he commanded. Then one of those children, playing with them, who was Artembares’ son, a man esteemed among the Medes, because indeed he had not done what had been commanded by Cyrus, he bade all the other children to arrest him and, when the children obeyed, Cyrus treated the child very harshly by whipping him. He, as soon as he had been let go, on the ground that indeed he had suffered things unworthy of himself, was aggrieved somewhat more and, on going down to the city, he complained to his father of what he had met with by Cyrus’ agency, and he did not say “Cyrus”, since that name did not yet exist, but rather “from the cowherd of Astyages’ son.” And Artembares angrily, as he was, came to Astyages and at the same time took with him his son; he asserted that he had suffered untoward things by saying, “O king, by your slave, the cowherd's son, we have been treated very insolently,” and he showed his son's shoulders.

Astyages, after he had heard and seen, since he wished to take revenge for the child for the sake of Artembares’ honor, summoned the cowherd and his son. When both were present, Astyages cast his gaze at Cyrus and said, “Did you, being this man here’s son, who is like that, dare the son of this man here, who is the first at my court, treat injuriously like this?” And he answered this way: “O master, but I did that to him with justice. For the children from the village, among whom was this one here, too, while they were playing, set me over themselves as their king, because I seemed to them to be most suitable for that. Now, all the other children brought to completion the commands laid on them, but that one would not listen and refused to give any account, until he received justice. If indeed, therefore, for that I am deserving of any evil, here I am present for you.” As the child said that, into Astyages entered a recognition of him, and to himself the character of his face seemed to approach to his own and his reply to be more that of a free man, while the time of the exposure seemed to agree with the age of the child. In astonishment at that, for a time he was speechless, and with difficulty, at last, he came to himself and said, since he wished to send away Artembares, that he might take hold of the cowherd alone and put him to the touchstone, “Artembares, I will so do those deeds of yours as for you and your son to find no fault.” Artembares, then, he sent, and Cyrus the servants led inside at the bidding of Astyages. And when the cowherd had been left behind alone, quite alone, Astyages asked him this, whence he took hold of the child and who was he who had handed him over. And he asserted that he had been born of himself and she who had brought him forth still was at his home. And Astyages asserted that he was not taking counsel well by desiring to come to the instruments of torture and, at the same time as he said that, he gave the signal to his lance-bearers to take hold of him. The moment he was being led to the instruments of torture, just then he began to bring to light the account of what was.

Beginning from the beginning, he went through it and told the truth, and he concluded with entreaties and by bidding him to pardon himself. Astyages, when the cowherd had revealed the truth, by then considered him of even less account, but with Harpagus he found fault very greatly and bade his lance-bearers to call him. When Harpagus was present for him, Astyages asked him, “Harpagus, with just what manner of death did you use the child mortally, whom I had handed over to you, born of my daughter?” And Harpagus, when he had seen that the cowherd was within, did not take to the false road, that he might not be caught being convicted, but he said this: “O king, after I had taken over the young child, I took counsel and looked to how I was to act according to your mind, while I, for my part, proving guiltless to you, was to be murderer neither in your daughter's eyes nor yours. I then acted this way: I called this cowherd and handed over the young child, and I said that you were he who bade kill it. And in saying that, at any rate, I refused to lie; for you enjoined thus. Now, I handed it over to this man here after this fashion: I enjoined him to put it on a desolate mountain and to remain by and guard it until it should meet with its end, and I threatened this man here with all kinds of things, if he did not carry this out to completion. And when, at that man’s doing what was bidden, the young child had met with its end, after I had sent the most loyal of the eunuchs, I both saw through their agency and had it buried. Thus it was, o king, concerning that matter, and the child had a death like that.” Harpagus, then, brought to light the straight account, and Astyages, hiding the wrath that he had in himself at him on account of what had happened, first, just as he himself had heard the matter from the cowherd, related it again to Harpagus, and afterward, when it had been repeated by him, he concluded by saying that the child survived and what had happened was beautiful. “For by what had been done,” he asserted by speaking, “to that child, I was greatly distressed and, since I had fallen out with my daughter, I considered it not in a light way. Therefore, on the ground that fortune has changed well, on the one hand, send away your own child to the newly come child, and on the other, because I am to sacrifice a reward for saving the child to those of the gods to whom that is assigned as an honor, be present with me for dinner.”

Harpagus, when he had heard that, after paying obeisance and considering great that his failing had turned out opportunely and that in view of his good fortunes he had been called to dinner, went to his house and, on going to it the quickest way, since one son alone was his, he sent him out and bade him go to Astyages’ and do whatever he bade. Then he himself, being very gratified, pointed out to his wife what had occurred. But Astyages, when the son of Harpagus had come to him, after killing him by cutting his throat and dividing him up, limb by limb, baked some of the pieces of meat and boiled the others; he had prepared them well and kept them so. So when, at the hour of the dinner's coming, all the other banqueters and Harpagus were present, by all the others and by Astyages himself were placed tables filled up with sheep's meat, and by Harpagus all the other pieces of his own son, except the head and the ends of his arms and legs; those were placed separately in a reed-basket and covered up. And when Harpagus thought there was enough of the food, Astyages asked him whether he took any pleasure in the meal and, after Harpagus had said he had taken very much pleasure indeed, those, to whom it was assigned, produced the child's covered up head, hands and feet, and they, standing by, bade Harpagus uncover them and take what he wanted of them. Then Harpagus, when he had obeyed and uncovered them, saw his son's remains and, on seeing them, both did not become astonished and contained himself. And Astyages asked him whether he knew which beast's meat he had devoured. And he said both that he knew and that everything that the king performed was pleasing. At length, when he had answered with that and taken up what was left of the meat, he went to his house and thereafter he was, as I think, after gathering it, to bury it all.


On Harpagus Astyages inflicted that as justice, while about Cyrus he took counsel and called the same men among the Magians who had interpreted his dream that above-mentioned way. And, on their coming, Astyages asked what way they interpreted his vision. And they spoke in the same fashion, in that they said that the child would have had to become king, if he had lived on and not died. And he answered them with this: “The child exists and survives, and him, while he dwelt in the country, the children of his village set over themselves as king. He, then, completed the doing of all the very things that the kings by a true account do; for he appointed lance-bearers, doorkeepers, message-bearers, and all the remaining offices and ruled. Accordingly, to what does that now appear to you to lead?” The Magians said, “If the child survives and was king without any forethought, take courage because of that and be of good spirit, since he will no longer rule a second time. For even some of our prophetic speeches have turned out of little moment, while what pertains to dreams, at any rate, comes completely to nought.” Astyages answered with this: “I myself too, o Magians, am most of that opinion, that, at the child's being named king, the dream has come to accomplishment and that child to me is no longer anything fearful. Yet nevertheless advise me by reflecting well what is to be most safe for my house and you.” Thereupon the Magians said, “O king, to ourselves too it is worth much for your rule to prosper. For in that case, if it devolves to that child, it belongs to others, since he is a Persian, and we, being Medes, are made slaves and are considered of no account by the Persians, because we are foreigners, but, as long as you are appointed king, since you are a fellow citizen, we both rule in part and have great honors from you. So then at all events we must look after you and your rule. Accordingly if we were now observing anything frightening, we would point it all out to you in advance. But as it is, the dream falling out mean, we ourselves take courage and to you we make another recommendation like that, and that child send away out of eye to the Persians and his begetters.” On hearing that, Astyages took pleasure, and he called Cyrus and said to him this: “O child, because I acted unjustly against you on account of a dream’s vision that came not to completion, and you survive because of your own portion, go, then, now with impunity to the Persians, and I will send along escorts. And, on going there, you will find a father and mother unlike Mitradates the cowherd and his wife.”

After saying that, Astyages sent away Cyrus. And, on his returning to Cambyses’ house, his begetters received him, and when they had received him, after they had learned about him by inquiry, they greeted him with great warmth, inasmuch as they indeed thought that at once at that time he had met with his end, and inquired in what manner he had come to survive. And he spoke to them and said that before then he had not the knowledge, but had erred most greatly, and along the road he had learned by inquiry of all his suffering, since he thought that he was the son of Astyages’ cowherd, but on the road thence had learned by inquiry from his escorts the whole account; he said that he had been brought up by the wife of the cowherd, and he went on praising her continually; in his speech everything was Kyno. So his parents took over that name and, that their son might seem to the Persians to have survived more divinely, sowed a report that a bitch had brought up the exposed Cyrus.

From there that report was spread abroad, and to Cyrus, become a man and being of his contemporaries most manly and most friendly, Harpagus was attached by sending gifts, because he desired to punish Astyages. For from himself, who was a private person, he could not observe that there would be revenge against Astyages, but of Cyrus, as he saw that he was growing up, he made an ally through likening the sufferings of Cyrus to those of himself. And still earlier than that this had been accomplished by him: as Astyages was bitter to the Medes, Harpagus had intercourse with each one of the first Medes and convinced them that they must set up Cyrus their leader and remove Astyages from the kingdom. That accomplished by him and the thing being ready, just then to Cyrus, who dwelt among the Persians, Harpagus wanted to make clear his own judgement and could not any other way, seeing that the roads were guarded, and so he devised a plan like this: after he had gotten by contrivance a hare, slit open its belly and plucked nothing, then, as he was, thus he put into it a paper, once he had written what seemed good to him. And he sewed up the hare's belly, gave nets, as if to a hunter, to the most loyal of his household slaves, and dispatched him to the Persians, with the injunction to him that by word of mouth, while he offered the hare to Cyrus, he should say beside that with his own hand he should divide it up and no one should be present with him as he did that. It was that, then, that came to completion and Cyrus took over and slit open the hare. Then, on finding that the paper was in it, he took hold and read it. And the letter said this: “O son of Cambyses, since gods watch over you, because otherwise you never would have come to so great a degree of fortune, you, then, punish Astyages, your killer. For so far as depends on his desire you are dead, but so far as what depends on gods and me you survive. I think you have quite long known everything thoroughly about yourself, how it was done and what kinds of things I have suffered at Astyages’ hands, in that you I did not kill, but gave to the cowherd. You then, if you want to obey me, all that very country that Astyages rules, you will rule. So convince the Persians to revolt, and drive an army against the Medes. Indeed if I am appointed general by Astyages against you, what you want is yours, as well as if any other of the esteemed Medes are, since they, revolted from him and come to your side, will be the first to try to put down Astyages. Therefore, on the ground that what is here, at least, is ready, do that and do it quickly.”

 
Installment 6   
Having heard that, Cyrus thought about what would be the wisest manner to convince the Persians to revolt, and, thinking, he found that which was most seasonable and did just that: he wrote on a paper what he wanted and gathered the Persians, and afterward, unfolding the paper and reading, he said Astyages appointed him general of the Persians. “And so now,” he asserted by speaking, “Persians, I command you to be present, each with a sickle.” Cyrus commanded that, but there are numerous races among the Persians, and only some of them Cyrus gathered together and convinced to revolt from the Medes --they are these, on whom the rest of the Persians depend: the Pasargadians, the Maraphians and the Maspians, and of those the Pasargadians are the best, among whom the Achaimenidians are a clan, whence the Persian kings are born --while the other Persians are these: the Panthialians, the Derousians and the Germanians --those are ploughers, and all the rest are pastoral --the Daians, the Mardians, the Dropikians, and the Sagartians. And when all were present with the aforementioned, thereupon Cyrus, since there was a thorny place in the Persian land that extended approximately eighteen or twenty stades every way, ordered them to reclaim that land entirely in a day. And, the Persians having brought to completion the proposed contest, next he ordered them on the morrow to be present bathed. Meanwhile, after he had gathered together all the flocks of goats and of sheep and the herds of cattle of his father, Cyrus slaughtered and prepared them with the intention that he would entertain the Persians’ army with them and, in addition, with wine and food as suitable as possible. And, on their coming the morrow, he laid down in a meadow and feasted the Persians. When they were done with dinner, Cyrus asked them whether what they had had the day before or what was presently theirs was preferable. And they said the difference between them was large, since the day before they had all kinds of evils for themselves and that present one all kinds of goods. Then, having taken over that saying, Cyrus laid bare his whole reasoning by saying, “Persian men, thus it is for you. If you want to obey me, there are these present and countless other goods with no slavish toil and, if you do not want to obey me, yours are numberless toils pretty near to that of yesterday. Therefore obey me now and become free. For I myself think, who was born with a divine fortune, I should set hands to this, and hold you men are not more paltry than the Medes, neither in everything else nor matters of war. Accordingly, on the ground that things are so, revolt from Astyages the quickest way.”

Now, the Persians got hold of a leader and gladly became free, since quite long they had been thinking it terrible to be ruled by the Medes. And when Astyages had learned by inquiry that Cyrus was doing the above, he sent a messenger and called him. But Cyrus bade the messenger announce back that he would be present with him sooner than Astyages himself would want. Having heard that, Astyages armed all Medes and as their general, seeing that he was stricken by a god, appointed Harpagus, since he forgot what he had done to him. When the Medes had advanced with an army and were joining battle with the Persians, some men of them fought, all who had not shared in what had been said, some deserted to the Persians, and the largest number performed badly on purpose and fled. The Median expedition having dispersed shamefully, as soon as Astyages had learned of it by inquiry, he said as a threat to Cyrus, “Well, not even so will Cyrus, at least, get off with impunity.” With so brief a speech, he first impaled those oneirocritics of the Magians, who had convinced him to let Cyrus go, and afterward armed those left behind in the town of the Medes, young and old men. But when he had led them out and encountered the Persians, he was worsted, and Astyages himself was taken alive and lost those of the Medes whom he had led out. Then Harpagus, standing by Astyages, who had been captured by the spear, exulted over and mocked at him; he both said other words to pain the heart against him and, what’s more, asked him in view of his own dinner, at which he had banqueted him on the flesh of his son, what kind of thing was his slavery instead of his kingdom. And he looked at him and asked in return whether he considered the action of Cyrus his own. And Harpagus said that, because it was he himself who had done the writing, the deed was, in fact, justly his own. So Astyages declared by speech he was the most maladroit and the most unjust of all human beings, indeed the most maladroit, if, it being possible for him to become king, since, in fact, the present things had been done through him, he had conferred the power on another, and the most unjust, in that, because of the dinner, he had utterly enslaved the Medes; for, if, indeed, he had had at all events to confer on some other the kingdom and not to have it himself, it would have been juster to bestow that good on one of the Medes rather than one of the Persians, but as it was, the Medes, although they had not been the cause of that former incident, had become slaves instead of masters, and the Persians, although they had been slaves formerly, had now become the masters of the Medes.

Now, Astyages, who had been king for thirty five years, thus was deposed from the kingdom, and the Medes bowed down to the Persians on account of his bitter cruelty, after they had ruled Asia above the Halys river for a hundred and thirty years but two, except for as long as the Scythians were its ruler. Yet, at a later time, it repented them that they had done the foregoing and they revolted from Darius, but, although they had revolted, they were subjected again after their having been prevailed over in battle. Then, however, in Astyages’ time, the Persians and Cyrus stood up against the Medes and were the ruler from then on of Asia, and Cyrus, doing no other evil to Astyages, kept him at his court, until he met with his end. Thus indeed Cyrus was born and brought up and became king, and he subjected Croesus later than that, who had made a beginning of injustice, as has been said by me previously. So having subjected him, thus he ruled all Asia.




The Persians, I know, observe laws like the following: they do not just consider unlawful to set up images, temples and altars, but even impute folly to those who do, because, at least so far as it seems to me, they believe the gods are not of a human nature, very unlike the Greeks. So they are accustomed, in Zeus’ case, to go up on the tallest of the mountains and perform sacrifices to him, since they call the vault of the sky as a whole Zeus. They also sacrifice to sun and moon, and to earth, fire, water and winds. To those alone, then, they have been sacrificing from the beginning, but they have learned subsequently to sacrifice to the Heavenly One as well, and have learned it from the Assyrians and Arabians. The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alilat, and the Persians Mitra. The manner of the Persians’ sacrificing regarding the said gods is established as follows. Neither do they build altars nor kindle fire, when they are to sacrifice; they make use of no libation, not any flute, no wreathes, not any barleycorns. But when one wishes to sacrifice to each of them, one leads the victim to a cleared place and calls the god, while one is crowned on one’s tiara with a myrtle branch. For oneself, then, the sacrificer, privately alone, it is not allowed to one to petition for goods, but one prays earnestly for it to turn out well for all the Persians and the king; for, indeed, oneself also is included in all the Persians. Whenever one chops up the sacred offering, piece by piece, and boils the meat, one spreads under grass as soft as possible and especially the trefoil and then on it puts all the meat. As one distributes it, a Magian man stands by and sings in accompaniment a theogony, the very sung accompaniment like they say should be, since, in fact, without a Magian, their law is not to make sacrifices. Then, on holding back a short time, he who sacrificed takes the meat away for himself and uses it however whim takes him. They are accustomed to honor that day most of all on which each was born. And on that day they think it right to put before oneself a larger banquet than all the others; on it their happy put before themselves an ox, a horse, a camel and an ass, baked whole in ovens, and their poor put before themselves small cattle. They use few courses of food, but many desserts and not all together. And on account of that the Persians say that the Greeks, hungering, stop eating, because after dinner nothing worth mentioning is brought to them, but if anything should be brought, they would not stop taking food. To wine they are very devoted, and to them it is permitted not to vomit, not to make water in another’s presence. Now, that is thus maintained, and, drunk, they are wont to take counsel about the weightiest of their affairs; whatever pleases them when they thus take counsel, the master of whosever house they are in as they take counsel, proposes that to them on the morrow, when they are sober; and so if it pleases them also, when they are sober, they observe it, and if it pleases not, they cast it aside; and whatever counsel, sober, they earlier take, drunk, they later reconsider.

When they fall in with one another in the ways, because of the following one can distinguish whether those meeting are equals: instead of greeting one another, they kiss with their mouths, whereas, if one is a little inferior, they kiss one another’s cheeks and, if one is far more lowborn, he falls to the ground and bows to the other. And they honor above all those settled nearest themselves, after themselves at least, next the next, and afterward proportionally, going on progressively, they show honor; and they hold least in honor those living farthest from themselves, because they believe that they themselves are far the best of human beings in all respects, while all the others proportionally hold on to excellence and those settled farthest away from themselves are worst. And in the time when the Medes ruled, the nations too ruled one another, the Medes all of them together and those settled nearest themselves, moreover those their neighbors, and again they those next; so in the same way the Persians show honor, since the nation, indeed, goes on progressively ruling and being guardian. The Persians adopt foreign customs most of men. For in fact they wear Median clothing in the belief it is more beautiful than their own and for their wars Egyptian breastplates, and learning by inquiry of every country's enjoyments they pursue them and, particularly, after learning it from the Greeks, have intercourse with boys. They each of them marry many wedded wives and acquire still far more concubines. And that is appointed manly goodness, after being good at fighting, being one who produces many children, and to the producer of the most the king sends off gifts annually. For they hold the greater number is powerful.

Beginning from the age of five years until that of twenty years they educate their sons in three things alone: riding horses, shooting arrows and speaking the truth; and before any becomes five years old, he comes not into his father’s sight, but dwells among the women, and that is thus done for this reason, that, if he dies while he is being brought up, he causes no distress to his father. Now, I praise this law and praise this one as well, that because of one charge neither the king himself should kill anyone, nor any of the rest of the Persians for one charge inflict incurable suffering on any of his own household slaves, but if, by count, anyone finds a man's injustices are more and greater than his services, thus he may use anger. And they say that no one yet has killed his own father or mother, but however so many by now have proven like that, there’s every necessity, they assert, should those be investigated, they would be found to be either supposititious or adulterine; for indeed they assert it is not reasonable for the true parent, at least, to be killed by his own child. Whatever it is not permitted to them to do, it is not permitted even to speak of. And to lie is believed by them the most shameful act, and next to owe a debt, for many other reasons and most of all because they assert that there is a necessity for the debtor to say a falsehood. Whoever of their townsmen has leprosy or elephantiasis, does not go down to the city and does not mix with the rest of the Persians; they say, because he committed some offence against the sun, he has them. Every foreigner that is seized by them many expel from their country and white pigeons as well, since they bring the same charge against them. In a river, they neither make water nor spit; they don’t wash their hands in one; they allow no other either, but reverence rivers most. And this following other thing for them the following way has happened coincidently to come about, which has escaped the notice of the Persians themselves, yet not ours: their names, being in accord with their bodies and magnificence, all end in the same letter, which the Dorians call “san” and the Ionians “sigma”; in this, if you look, you will find end the Persians’ names, not some and some not, but all alike.

The above I can say exactly, since I know about them; the following, however, is said in a hidden way and not distinctly about the dead, that the corpse of a Persian man is not buried before it is drawn apart by a bird or dog. The Magians for their part indeed, I know exactly, do that, because they do it openly. Then, after waxing over the corpse, the Persians cover it with earth. The Magians are far different from all the other human beings and the priests in Egypt; for the latter think pure to kill nothing animate, except all that they sacrifice, but the Magians in fact kill with their own hands all but dog and human being and consider that a great object of contention, since they kill alike ants, snakes and everything that creeps and flies. And so concerning that law let it be as, to begin with, was done customarily and I will go back to my previous account.





The Ionians and the Aeolians, as soon as the Lydians had been subjected by the Persians, sent messengers into Sardis to Cyrus, since they wished to be subjects on the same conditions as they were under Croesus. He, then, having heard from them what they put forward told them a tale; he said a flutist, on seeing fish in the sea, played the flute, because he thought they would go out onto land, but that when he was mistaken in his expectation, he took hold of a casting-net, cast it round a large multitude of the fish and drew them out; and, on seeing they were quivering, he then said to the fish, “Stop dancing, since, when I was playing the flute, you refused to come out dancing!” Cyrus told that tale to the Ionians and the Aeolians because of this very reason, that the Ionians, although previously Cyrus himself had asked them through messengers to revolt from Croesus, refused to obey and at that time, when all his business had been accomplished, were ready to obey Cyrus. He, then, in the grip of anger told them this and, after the Ionians had heard those words that had been brought back to their cities, each group put walls round themselves and collected themselves in the Panionium, all the others except the Milesians, since Cyrus had sworn an oath with them alone on the very conditions the Lydians had, and the remaining Ionians decided by common consent to send messengers to Sparta to ask them to lend aid to themselves. Those Ionians, whose the Panionium is, as for region of the sky and the seasons, in fact set up cities in the most beautiful spot of all the human beings of which we know. For neither the regions above it do the same as Ionia nor those below, because the former are oppressed by the cold and moisture and the latter by the heat and dryness. As for tongue, however, they are not users of the same, but of four kinds of variations. Miletus is the first city of theirs situated to the south and afterward is Myus and Priene; those have their dwellings in Caria and talk in the same fashion as themselves. These are in Lydia: Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenai and Phocaea. Those cities resemble the previously said in tongue not at all, but speak the same as themselves. There are still three Ionic cities left, of which two are settled on islands, Samos and Chios, and one is set up on the mainland, Erythrae. Now, the Chians and the Erythraeans talk in the same fashion, and the Samians are alone by themselves. Those prove the four characters of tongue.

It was those Ionians, then, of which the Milesians were in a shelter from the object of their terror, in that they had sworn an oath, while for their islanders nothing was to be feared, since neither the Phoenicians were the Persians’ subjects yet nor the Persians themselves seafarers. And they were detached from all the other Ionians because of nothing else but, that the then whole Greek race being lacking in strength, the Ionic was quite far the most lacking in strength of the nations and of least account; for, except for Athens, there was no other borough to speak of. Now, not only did all the other Ionians and the Athenians flee the name, since they did not want to be called Ionians, but even now the greater number of them appear to me to be ashamed of the name, whereas those twelve cities gloried in the name and set up a shrine by themselves, whose name they made the Panionium, while they took counsel and decided to give no others of the Ionians a share of it (and none even asked to have a share except for the Smyrnians), just as the Dorians from the country now of five cities, that same that previously was called of six cities, are on guard, then, to admit none of the Dorians settled near into the Triopician shrine; indeed they also have shut out those of their own who broke the law concerning the shrine from having a share of it. For in the contest in honor of Triopian Apollo they had of old been setting up bronze tripods for the victors, and those who took a prize had had not to carry it out of the shrine, but to dedicate it there to the god. A Halicarnassian man, then, whose name was Agasicles, won and thought the law of small account, and so he carried to his house and nailed down the tripod fast. Because of that, the five cities, Lindos, Ielysus, Camirus, Cos and Cnidus, shut out from having a share of the shrine the sixth city, Halicarnassus. Now, on those those inflicted that punishment.

The Ionians seem to me to have built twelve cities and to refuse to admit more for this reason, that, even when they were settled in the Peloponnesus, their parts were twelve, just as now the Achaeans who drove out the Ionians’ parts are twelve; Pellene the first city toward Sicyon, afterward Aegeira, Aegae, in which is the always full Crathis river, from which the river in Italy got its name, Boura, Helice, in which the Ionians took refuge after being worsted in battle by the Achaeans, Aegium, the Rhypes, the Patres, the Phares, Olenus, in which is the great river Peirus, Dyme and the Tritaees, who are the only ones of those to be settled inland. Those now are the Achaeans’ twelve parts and then, at any rate, were the Ionians’. For that very reason in fact the Ionians built twelve cities, since it’s much folly to say that indeed those are Ionians somewhat more or have been born somewhat more beautifully than all the other Ionians, of whom the Abantians from Euboea are not the least portion, while the Orchomenian Minyians have been mixed up with them as well as the Cadmeians, the Dryopians, the division of Phocians, the Molossians, the Pelasgian Arcadians and the Epidaurian Dorians, and thus many other nations have been mixed up; moreover, some of them, after they had set out from the magistrates’ hall of the Athenians and while they believed they were the most well-born of the Ionians, they then brought with themselves no women for their colony but took Carian women as wives, whose fathers they had killed. And on account of that killing those women made a law for themselves; they imposed oaths on themselves and handed them down to their daughters never to eat with their husbands and for none to shout for her own husband by name for this reason, that they had killed their fathers, husbands and sons and then, after they had done that, cohabited with them (that was done in Miletus); some of them set over themselves as kings the Lycians descended from Glaucus, the son of Hippolochus, others Pylian Cauconians descended from Codrus, the son of Melanthus; and others both alike. But, since they embrace the name somewhat more than all the other Ionians, let them be indeed the purely descended Ionians. All those are Ionians too who are descended from those in Athens and hold the festival of Apatouria, and all hold it except for the Ephesians and the Colophonians; for those of the Ionians are the only not to hold Apatouria, and those don’t on a pretext of a killing. The Panionium is a sacred place in Mycale, turned toward the north, jointly picked out by the Ionians for the Heliconian Poseidon; Mycale is the mainland's promontory toward the west wind that projects to Samus, at which the Ionians collected from their cities and held a festival, whose name they made Panionia. And the festivals of the Ionians are not at all the only to have undergone that, but all alike of all Greeks end in the same letter, just as the Persians’ names.

Those are the Ionian cities and these the Aeolian: the so-called Phriconian Cyme, Lerisae, Neon Teichus, Temnus, Cilla, Notium, Aegiroessa, Pitane, Aegaeae, Myrina and Gryneia. Those eleven are the Aeolians ancient cities, because one of them, Smyrna, was detached by the Ionians, and those twelve indeed had been the cities on the mainland. Those Aeolians, then, in fact founded a country better than the Ionians’, but not similarly well off for seasons. The Aeolians lost Smyrna this way: they entertained Colophonian men worsted by a faction and banished from their fatherland. Afterward the exiles of the Colophonians, after waiting for the Smyrnians’ holding a festival outside the wall in honor of Dionysus, shut the gates and got hold of the city. Then, on all the Aeolians’ coming to the rescue, they agreed, once the Ionians gave back the movables, Aeolians should abandon Smyrna and, the Smyrnians having done that, the eleven cities divided them up among themselves and made them their fellow citizens. Now, those are the mainland Aeolian cities, outside of those living in Ida --for they are separate --but as for those that have islands, five cities inhabit Lesbos, since the sixth that’s settled on Lesbos, Arisba, the Methymnaeans, being of the same blood, captured as slaves, one city is settled on Tenedos and another one on the so-called Hundred Islands. Now, for the Lesbians and the Tenedians, just as for those of the Ionians that have islands, nothing was to be feared, but it pleased the remaining cities jointly to follow the Ionians wherever they led the way.




When the messengers of the Ionians and the Aeolians had come to Sparta --that was done with speed --they chose the Phocian, whose name was Pythermus, to speak before all. So he, on donning a purple cloak, that most of the Spartiates might learn of it by inquiry and come together, and taking up his position, spoke many words, since he desired them to lend them aid. Yet the Lacedaemonians would not listen, but decided against lending the Ionians aid. They, then, departed, and the Lacedaemonians, although they had thrust away the Ionians’ messengers, nevertheless dispatched men with a penteconter as spies, as it seems to me, of Cyrus’ affairs and Ionia. And they, on coming into Phocia, sent to Sardis the most esteemed of themselves, whose name was Lacrines, to speak to Cyrus a prohibitive speech from the Lacedaemonians, that in Greek land he should ravage no city, on the ground that they would not allow it. When the herald had said that, it is said that Cyrus asked those of the Greeks present with him, the Lacedaemonians, being what kinds of human beings and how many in multitude, gave that command to him, and that he learned by his inquiry and said to the herald who was a Spartiate, “I am not yet afraid of men like that, for whom is appointed a place in the middle of their city in which they collect and utterly deceive one another through oaths. By them, if I am healthy, not the Ionians’ sufferings will be talked of but their own.” Those words Cyrus cast forth against the Greeks, because they set up public squares for themselves and buy and sell; for the Persians, for their part, are wont to use public squares not at all and theirs is absolutely no public square.

After that, he entrusted Sardis to Tabalus, a Persian man, and the gold of Croesus and that of all the other Lydians to Pactyes, a Lydian man, to convey, and himself drove away to Agbatana, at the same time as he took Croesus with himself and considered the Ionians to be first of all in no account, since Babylon was in his way as well as the Bactrian nation, the Sakians and the Egyptians, against whom he purposed to drive an army in person, whereas against the Ionians he purposed to send another general. So when Cyrus had driven out of Sardis, Pactyes caused the Lydians to revolt from Tabalus and Cyrus; whereupon he went down to the sea and, seeing that he had all the gold from Sardis, hired mercenaries and persuaded the inhabitants of the coast to advance as an army with him. Then he drove against Sardis and besieged Tabalus shut up in the acropolis. On learning by inquiry along the road the above, Cyrus said to Croesus this: “Croesus, what will be the end of those events for me? The Lydians will not stop, as they seem, causing troubles and themselves having them. I think that it is best to lead them into captivity, because now, indeed, I appear to myself to have acted like as if one should kill the father and spare his children; likewise I took hold of and led away you who among the Lydians are something more than a father, and to the Lydians themselves I gave up their city and then marvel that they are in revolt from me.” He, then, said just what he had in mind, and the other answered with the following, in fear lest he cause Sardis to migrate: “O king, although you have spoken what’s reasonable, yet stop you being angry at everyone and do not expel an ancient city, since it is guiltless both of what was before and what is now; for what was before I did and I, having wiped its pollution on my head, bear it, while as to what injustice is now at hand, because Pactyes is its doer, let him pay you the penalty. So pardon the Lydians and give them the following commands, that they may neither revolt nor be feared by you: forbid them, by sending an envoy, from possessing martial weapons, bid them don tunics under their clothes and shoe themselves with buskins and order them to educate their sons to play the cithara, to pluck the psaltery, and to be retailers. And quickly them, o king, you will see become women instead of men so that they will not at all be feared by you lest they revolt.”

Croesus, then, suggested that to him, since he found that preferable for the Lydians to their being captured as slaves and sold, because he knew that, if he proposed no serviceable pretext, he would not convince him to change his mind, and he was afraid lest at some later time the Lydians, if they ran out from under what was at hand, revolt from the Persians and perish. And Cyrus, taking pleasure at the suggestion and abating from his anger, said he would obey him; then he called Mazares, a Median man, and enjoined on him to give the Lydians those commands that Croesus suggested and in addition to lead into captivity all the others who, accompanying the Lydians, had advanced with the army against Sardis, but Pactyes himself absolutely to bring to him alive. He, then, enjoined that on the road and drove away to the abodes of the Persians, and Pactyes, having learned by inquiry an army that was going against him was near, in fear went fleeing off to Cyme. And Mazares the Mede drove against Sardis with such and such a portion of Cyrus’ army and, when he had found Pactyes and his circle were no longer in Sardis, first he made necessary for the Lydians to bring to completion Cyrus’ injunctions --from the bidding of that the Lydians changed their whole way of leading their life --and Mazares after that sent messengers to Cyme and bade give up Pactyes.

The Cymaeans, however, decided concerning advice to refer to the god in Branchidae. For a seat of prophecy had been right there set up from of old, which all Ionians and Aeolians are wont to use and that place is in Milesian land above the Panormus harbor. Accordingly the Cymaeans sent messengers to consult the oracle in Branchidae and asked about Pactyes, by doing what kind of a deed they were to gratify the gods. To them who asked that, an oracle was given to give up Pactyes to the Persians. And when the Cymaeans had heard that had been brought back, they were minded to give him up and, the multitude minded that way, Aristodicus, the son of Heracleides, who was a man esteemed among his townsmen, kept the Cymaeans from doing that, since he disbelieved the response and thought the messengers who consult the oracles did not speak truly, until other messengers to consult the oracle went to ask about Pactyes a second time, among whom was Aristodicus.

When they had come to Branchidae, out of all Aristodicus consulted the oracle and asked this: “O lord, Pactyes the Lydian came to us a suppliant in flight from a violent death at the Persians’ hands, and they demand his surrender and bid the Cymaeans send him forth. But we, although we are afraid of the Persians’ power, hitherto have not dared to give up the suppliant, before it should be made clear by you for us exactly what we are to do.” The one asked this, and the other again brought to light for them the same response and bade give up Pactyes to the Persians. Thereupon Aristodicus with forethought did this: he went round the temple in a circle and took away the sparrows and all the other kinds of birds that were nesting in the temple. Then, as he did that, it is said that a voice came from the innermost sanctuary that addressed Aristodicus and said this: “Unholiest of human beings, what’s this you dare do? Are you plundering my suppliants from the temple?”; that Aristodicus at no loss thereupon said, “O lord, do you yourself thus come to the rescue of your suppliants and bid the Cymaeans give up their suppliant?”; and that he again answered with this: “Yes, I do bid it, just that in your impiety you may perish more quickly, to the end that in the future you may not go to the oracle concerning the giving up of suppliants.”

When the Cymaeans had heard that had been brought back, wanting neither to give him up and perish nor to keep him among themselves and be besieged, they sent him off to Mytilene. And the Mytilenians, at Mazares’ sending thither messages that they should give up Pactyes, prepared to do so for such and such a fee. For that I am unable to state exactly, in that the matter was not completed, because the Cymaeans, when they had learned that was being done by the Mytilenians, sent a boat to Lesbos and conveyed Pactyes out to Chios. Then thence from the shrine of Athena Protector of the City he was dragged away and given up by the Chians. And the Chians gave him up for Atarneus as a fee; the place of that Atarneus is in Mysian land, opposite Lesbos.

Now, the Persians received him from them and kept him under guard, because they wished to show him forth to Cyrus, and a time was passed, and that not a short, when none of the Chians from that Atarneus would either pour forth barleycorns to any of the gods or bake cakes from the grain thence; in short, all that was produced from that country was kept from all the shrines. Now, the Chians gave up Pactyes, and Mazares after that advanced with an army against those joined in besieging Tabalus; on the one hand he led the Prienians into captivity and on the other overran the whole plain of Maeander and made it booty for the army, and Magnesia in the same way. Then after that at once he met with his end from illness.

After his death, Harpagus went down as successor in the office of general, being himself a Mede by race, whom the Medes’ king, Astyages, had banqueted with an unlawful table, he who had joined Cyrus in getting the kingdom. That man at that time, appointed general by Cyrus, when he had come to Ionia, took its cities by means of piles of earth; for whenever he caused them to be within their walls, thereafter he piled up piles at the walls and tried to destroy them. He laid hands on Phocia first in Ionia. Those Phocians were the first of the Greeks to make long voyages, and of Adries, Tyrsenia, Iberia and Tartessus they are the discoverers. And they made their voyages not with round ships but with penteconters. On their coming to Tartessus, they became friendly with the king of the Tartessians, whose name was Arganthonius, who was tyrant of Tartessus eighty years and who lived in all a hundred and twenty. With that very man the Phocians became friendly to such a very high degree that at the first he bade them abandon Ionia and be settled in his own land wherever they wanted and afterward, when he could not persuade the Phocians of that, he then, on learning by inquiry of the Mede from them, how he grew, offered them money to put a wall round their city, and he offered it unsparingly; for in fact the circumference of the wall is no few stades and it’s all of large and well fitted together stones. The wall, then, of the Phocians in a manner like this was finished off, and Harpagus, after he had driven his host in opposition, besieged them, while he put forward the statement that it sufficed for him, if the Phocians wanted to tear down only one battlement of the wall and to devote one building. So the Phocians, aggrieved at their slavery, said they wished to take counsel and then they would reply and, in the time when they took counsel by themselves, they bade him lead away his host from the wall.


 Installment 7   
Then Harpagus said that, although he knew well what they were to do, nevertheless he permitted them to take counsel. Accordingly in the time when Harpagus from the wall led away his host, the Phocians in that time drew their penteconters down to the water, put in their offspring, wives and all movables as well as, in addition, both the images from the shrines and all the other offerings, except whatever was bronze or stone or a picture and, after putting in everything else and their own going in, sailed toward Chios. And of Phocia bereft of men the Persians got hold.

As to the Phocians, since the Chians did not want to sell them the islands called Oinoussae, when they were bargaining for them, for fear lest they become a mart and their island be shut out because of that, thereupon the Phocians journeyed to Cyrnus. For on Cyrnus twenty years earlier than that on the basis of an oracle they had set up a city whose name was Alalia and Arganthonius by that time had met with his end. So, journeying to Cyrnus, they first sailed down to Phocia and slaughtered the Persians’ guard, which was keeping watch since receiving the city from Harpagus, and afterward, when that had been worked out by them, pronounced strong curses on whoever of themselves remained behind the expedition and in addition to those curses also sank an iron mass into the sea and swore they would not be present in Phocia until that mass should reappear. But, as they journeyed to Cyrnus, of over half of the townsmen took hold a longing and pity for their city and the abodes of their country and they, proven forsworn, sailed away back to Phocia, while who of them guarded their oath, got under way from Oinoussae and sailed.

When they had come to Cyrnus, they were settled jointly with them who had come before for five years, and set up shrines there. Since indeed they both led away and carried off the property of all settled round, then the Tyrsenians and Carchedonians by common consent advanced with an army against them, each with sixty ships. So the Phocians too for their part filled their boats, which were in number sixty, and went to meet them on the so-called Sardonian sea. And when they engaged in naval battle, a Cadmeian victory came about for the Phocians, in that forty ships of theirs were destroyed and the twenty that survived were useless, because they were bent back at their beaks. Then they sailed down to Alalia and took up their offspring, their wives and all the rest of their possessions that their ships proved able to carry, and thereupon let go of Cyrnus and sailed to Rhegium.

As for the destroyed ships’ men, the Carchedonians and the Tyrsenians got as their portion the far greater number of them and them they led out and stoned to death. Afterward for the Agyllians everything that passed by the place, in which the Phocians were stoned to death and buried, became distorted, crippled and paralyzed, alike cattle, yoke-animals and human beings. The Agyllians, then, sent men to Delphi, because they wanted to cure the failing, and Pythia bade them do what even now the Agyllians still bring to completion; for in fact to those dead they make offerings greatly and set up a gymnastic and equestrian contest. And so those of the Phocians met with a death like that, and the others of them took refuge in Rhegium and, making their base of operations there, they acquired that city in Oenotrian land which is now called Hyele. They founded it after learning from a Poseidonian man that Pythia had proclaimed to them to found the worship of Cyrnus, who was a hero, and not the island.

Now, concerning Phocia in Ionia it was thus, and the Teians too did nearly the same as those, in that, when Harpagus had taken their wall by means of a pile of earth, they all went into their boats and went sailing toward Thrace and there founded the city of Abdera, which earlier than that a Clazomenian, Timesius, had not profited from founding, but driven out by the Thracians, he now has honors by the Teians in Abdera as a hero.

Now, those of the Ionians are the only, unwilling to bear up their slavery, to abandon their fatherlands, whereas all the other Ionians, except the Milesians, although they had come through the battle with Harpagus just as the abandoners and proven good men, each fighting concerning his own land, yet, worsted and captured, they remained in place and brought to completion what was commanded. But the Milesians, as has been said by me previously too, swore an oath with Cyrus himself and were at peace. Just then a second time Ionia was enslaved. When Harpagus had mastered the Ionians on the mainland, the Ionians who have islands in dread of that gave themselves to Cyrus. The Ionians being distressed and collected nonetheless in the Panionium, I have learned by inquiry that Bias, a Prienian man, showed forth the most useful judgement for Ionians, which if they had obeyed, it would have been in their power to be the most happy of the Greeks; he bade the Ionians in a common journey get under way and sail to Sardo and then found one city made up of all Ionians, and said that, if thus they were rid of slavery, they would be happy through their inhabiting the greatest of all islands together and ruling others and, if they remained in Ionia, they could not observe there would be freedom any longer. That was Bias the Prienian’s judgement made after the destruction of the Ionians, and a good one even before Ionia was destroyed, Thales a Milesian man’s, was made, who was by descent a Phoenician; he bade the Ionians possess one council-house, it be in Teos, since Teos was in the middle of Ionia, and all the other cities in their settlements nonetheless be considered just as if they should be demes.


They, then, had showed forth to them judgements like these, and Harpagus, having subjected Ionian, made an expedition against the Carians, the Caunians and the Lycians, at the same time as he took with himself both the Ionians and the Aeolians. Of those, the Carians are they who had come to the mainland from the islands; for, anciently being Minos’ subjects and called Lelegians, they had the islands and, although they paid no tribute, in so far as indeed I am able to come at the matter with the greatest striving through hearsay, yet they, whenever Minos asked, filled his ships. Seeing that in fact Minos had subjected much land and was of good fortune in war, the Carian nation was the greatest to speak of of all the nations together during that same time in far the highest degree. And by them three inventions were made that the Greeks used; for in fact the Carians are the discoverers of how to fasten crests on helmets and to make devices on shields and they are the first makers of handles for shields; until that time, however, all carried their shields without handles who were wont to use shields, and they guided them with leather straps which they had placed round their necks and their left shoulders. Afterward, a long time later, the Dorians and Ionians expelled the Carians from the islands and thus they came to the mainland. Concerning the Carians, then, the Cretans say it happened thus; however, the Carians themselves speak unlike those, but for their part consider themselves to be autochthonous mainlanders and continual users on each and every occasion of the same name of which they are now. And they show forth as evidence Carian Zeus’ ancient shrine in Mylasa, of which the Mysians and Lydians have a share, on the ground that they are kinsmen of the Carians, because Lydus and Mysus, they say, were Car’s brothers. Theirs, then, is a share, and for all those who, being of another nation, proved of similar tongue to the Carians, there’s no share.

The Caunians are autochthonous, as far as it seems to me; however, they themselves say they are from Crete. So in tongue they have approached the Carian nation or the Carians the Caunian (for that I am unable exactly to decide), whereas they observe laws far different from all the other human beings and the Carians, in that for them it is most beautiful by age and friendship in bands to have intercourse for drinking, men, women and children. Moreover, foreign shrines having been set up by them thereafter, when they had decided against them and decided to use the gods of their fathers alone, on putting on armor, all Caunians from the youth upwards, struck with lances the lower air up to the Calyndian boundaries and gave pursuit and said they were banishing the foreign gods.

And so they observe manners like those, and as to the Lycians, they of old are descended from Crete (for barbarians had anciently Crete in its entirety). Yet, men having quarrelled in Crete concerning the kingdom of Europe’s sons, Sarpedon and Minos, after Minos had become master by his faction, he drove out Sarpedon himself and the men of his faction; so they were thrust away and came in Asia to the Milyian land, because that which the Lycians now inhabit, anciently was Milyian, and the Milyians then were called Solymians. Indeed as long as Sarpedon ruled them, they, then, were called the very name that they had brought with themselves and still now the Lycians are called by those settled round them, Termilians. However, after Lycus, the son of Pandion, had come to the Termilians to Sarpedon and that man driven out by his brother, Aegeus, just then after Lycus’ name the Lycians in time were called. As to laws, they partly observe Cretan and partly Carian. But they are the possessors of one peculiar law as follows and in it they resemble no others among human beings; they call themselves after their mothers and not after their fathers. So if one asks one’s neighbor who he is, he will describe his pedigree by his mother’s side and count up his mother’s mothers. Even if a townswoman cohabits with a slave, the offspring are considered well-born, while if a townsman, even the first of them, has as a wife a foreigner or a concubine, the offspring are born without civic rights.

Now, the Carians, without showing forth any brilliant action, were enslaved by Harpagus, without either the Carians themselves showing forth any or any of all the Greeks that are settled in that country. And there are settled both others and the Lacedaemonians’ colonists, the Cnidians, who, since their own country is turned seaward (and it’s that which is called Triopium) and has its beginning at the Bybassian Chersonesus and since thus all Cnidia except a little is surrounded by water, in that the Cerameician gulf skirts its parts toward the north wind and the sea off Syme and Rhodes its parts toward the south, dug therefore that very little, which it was that extended approximately five stades, because they, the Cnidians, all the while that Harpagus was engaged in subjecting Ionia, wanted to make their country an island. Thus their whole land was becoming insulated; for, where the Cnidian country ends at the mainland, there is the isthmus that they were digging. And so, when the Cnidians were working with a large band, since somewhat more and more divinely the workers appeared to be wounded than was reasonable in all the other parts of the body and especially those of the eyes by the rock’s shattering, they sent to Delphi messengers to consult the oracles to ask about the opposition. And Pythia proclaimed to them, as the Cnidians themselves say, in trimeter meter this:

The isthmus stop towering and stop digging;
Zeus would have made an island, had he wanted.

The Cnidians, at Pythia’s proclaiming that, ceased from their excavation and to Harpagus who advanced with his army surrendered themselves without a fight.

The Pedasians, however, were settlers of the inland country above Halicarnassus, for whom, whenever anything untoward was to be, for them and those settled round, the priestess of Athena got a large beard --thrice that happened for them --and they of those men round Caria were the only to hold out a time against Harpagus and caused him the most troubles by walling the mountain whose name was Lida.

Now, the Pedasians in time were removed, and the Lycians, when Harpagus had driven his army into the Xanthian plain, in going out in opposition and fighting, few against many, showed forth virtuous deeds, but, worsted and cooped up within their town, they gathered together in the acropolis their wives, their children, their property and their household slaves and thereupon set fire to that whole acropolis for it to be burnt. And after doing that and swearing together terrible oaths, they went out in opposition and all the Xanthians died fighting. Indeed of those Lycians now said to be Xanthians the greater number, except for eighty households, are incomers, and those eighty households, in fact, at that time were abroad and thus survived.

Of Xanthus, then, thus Harpagus got hold and nearly the same way of Caunus too got hold; for in fact the Caunians imitated the Lycians in the greater part of their actions.

Now, the lower parts of Asia Harpagus caused to migrate, and the upper parts of it Cyrus himself by subjecting every nation and letting go none. Now, the greater number of them we will let go, but which caused him the most toil and are most worth relating, those I will mention.





Cyrus, after he had brought all the parts of the mainland under his hand, applied himself to the Assyrians. In Assyria, although there are, I suppose, also many other great boroughs, yet the most named and most powerful and where, Ninus made to migrate, the royal palace was established, was Babylon, a city being just like that: it lies on a great plain, since it is in size on each side a hundred and twenty stades, in that it is square, and those stades of the circumference of the city amount to four hundred and eighty. Now, the size is so great of the town of Babylon, while it was ordered as no other borough of those of which we know. A ditch, first, deep and broad, full of water runs round it and afterward a wall, being fifty royal cubits in its breadth and in height two hundred cubits (the royal cubit is three fingers longer than the ordinary).

I must then, in addition to the foregoing, still point out where the earth from the ditch was used up and the wall, what manner it was constructed. At the same time as they dug the ditch, they made bricks of the earth that came from the excavation and, on moulding sufficient bricks, baked them in ovens; afterwards, having hot asphalt as mortar and every thirty courses of brick stuffing mats of reeds in between, they built first the ditch’s lips and second the wall itself in the same manner. And atop the wall along its edges they built rooms of a story, turned to one another, and between the rooms they left space for a team of four horses abreast to drive round. Gates too stand in place round about the wall, a hundred all bronze, and door-posts and lintels likewise.

There is another city distant eight day’s journey from Babylon; Is is its name. At that spot is a river, not a long one; Is is also the river’s name and it discharges into the Euphrates river its stream. That Is river, then, together with its water sends up many lumps of asphalt, whence the asphalt for the wall in Babylon was conveyed.

Now, Babylon was walled in a manner like this, and there are two quarters of the city. For the middle of it a river divides, whose name is the Euphrates, and, being long, deep and quick, flows from the Armenians and it discharges into the Red sea. The very wall, then, on each side has its curves carried down to the river and from then on as it bends by each lip of the river a fence of baked bricks stretches. And the town itself, being full of houses of three stories and of four stories, has its ways cut up straight, all the others and those crosswise that extend to the river. So then at each way in the fence by the river little gates were in place, just so many in number as are the alleys, and they too were bronze, themselves also leading to the river itself.

That wall, then, is a breast plate and another wall on the inside runs round, not a great deal more without strength than the other wall, but of smaller extent. And in each quarter of the city was a walling in its midst, in the one of the royal palace with a tall and mighty enclosure and in the other of Belian Zeus’ shrine by a bronze gate, that shrine that existed still even to my time, of two stades every way, since it was square. And in the middle of the shrine a solid tower is built, a stade in both its length and its breadth, and on top of that tower another tower stands, and one again on top of that, up to eight towers. Moreover, an ascent to them that extends round all the towers on the outside in a circle has been made, and for one somewhere at the middle of the ascent is a resting-place and chairs for reposing, on which the ascending sit down and repose. And in the last tower a large temple is in place and in the temple a large couch is placed, well smoothed, and by it a golden table is placed. Moreover, no image is within set up in that place, and no one of the human beings takes up quarters within at night except only whichever woman of the natives that the god chooses out of all, as the Chaldeans say, who are priests of that god. Those same, then, say, although they make statements not credible to me, the god himself resorts to the temple and reposes on the couch, just as in Egyptian Thebes in the same manner, as the Egyptians say --for in fact in that place a woman goes to bed in Theban Zeus’, and both those women are said to resort to intercourse with no men --and just as in Patara in Lycia the prophetess of the god, whenever she comes to be, since there is not on each and every occasion a seat of prophecy in that place, and whenever she comes to be, at that time, then, she is shut up with him during the nights inside in the temple.

There is also another temple below of the shrine in Babylon, wherein is sitting a large image of Zeus of gold and by it a large table of gold is placed and its base and throne are gold. And, as the Chaldeans said, the foregoing are made of eight hundred talents of gold. Moreover, outside the temple is an alter of gold and there is also another alter of large size, on which are sacrificed full-grown cattle; for on the gold alter it is not possible to sacrifice anything except sucklings alone and on the larger alter the Chaldeans even burn a thousand talents of frankincense each year at that time whenever they hold the festival for that god. And there was in that precinct still during that time also a statue of twelve cubits of solid gold. I did not see it, but which is said by the Chaldeans, that I say. Although upon that statue Darius, the son of Hystaspes formed designs, he dared not to take hold, whereas Xerxes, the son of Darius did take hold and killed the priest, when he forbade him to move the statue. That shrine, then, thus is ordered and there are also many private offerings.

In that Babylon, many others, surely, became kings, of whom in the Assyrian accounts I will make mention, who added ornaments to the walls and the shrines, and, moreover, indeed also two women; the one who had ruled earlier, born five generations before the later, whose name was Semiramis, she showed forth mounds throughout the plain that were worth beholding, as previously the river was wont to make a sea throughout the whole plain; the other queen born after her, whose name was Nitocris, she proved more intelligent than the one who had ruled earlier and on the one hand left behind memorials that I will relate and on the other, when she saw the rule of the Medes was great and would not be still, but other towns were taken by them and, moreover, even Ninus, she took as many precautions as she could. First, the Euphrates river, being straight before that, which flows through their city’s middle, she formed by digging farther upstream into trenches and made it something so very crooked that indeed thrice into one of the villages in Assyria it comes in its flowing. And the village’s name into which the Euphrates comes is Ardericca, and now whoever are conveyed from this sea to Babylon, sailing down the Euphrates river, thrice they arrive at that same village and in three days. That, then, she made like that, and she piled a mound by each lip of the river worthy of marvelling at, in size and height how great a thing it is. Further, far above Babylon she dug a reservoir for a lake and stretched it a little away from the river; in depth she dug to the water on each and every occasion and in breadth she made its perimeter four hundred and twenty stades; the soil that was being dug from that excavation she used up by heaping it by the lips of the river. Then, after the digging had been completed for her, she brought stones and drew a rim in a circle round it. And she caused both those things, the river to be crooked and the whole excavation swamp, that the river might be slower in its broken course round many bends, the sailings be crooked into Babylon and so after the sailings follow the long way round of the lake. And at that part of the country she worked where were the approaches and the short cuts of the way from the Medes, that the Medes might not have intercourse with her and learn thoroughly her affairs.

Those structures, then, in depth she put round herself, and she had herself made as addition from them like this: the city being of two quarters and the river having its middle, in the time of the earlier kings, whenever anyone wished to cross over from the one quarter to the other, he had to cross over by boat, and that was, as I think, troublesome. And she provided for that too; for, when she dug the reservoir for the lake, she left behind this other memorial from that work: she had herself cut out very long stones and, when for her the stones were ready and the place had been dug, she diverted the river’s whole stream into the place that she had dug and, in the time when it was filled, in that time, the ancient channel being dried up, on the one hand the lips of the river along the city and the descents that led from the little gates to the river she built up with baked bricks in the same way as the wall and on the other somewhere near the middle of the city with the stones that she had had herself dug out she built a bridge by tying the stones with iron and lead. And she laid on it, whenever day came, square pieces of wood, on which the Babylonians crossed over, but during the nights those pieces of wood she removed for this reason, that they might not go all over and steal from one another. So when what had been dug out had been made a full lake by the river and the work of the bridge had been ordered, the Euphrates river into its ancient channels from the lake she drew out and thus what had been dug out in becoming marsh was thought to have become so opportunely and for her fellow-citizens a bridge was constructed.

That same queen also contrived a deception like this: over the most thronged gates of the town she had constructed a grave for herself in mid air on top of the gates themselves and engraved into the grave letters that said this: “Let anyone of those who later than me become kings of Babylon, if he lacks money, open my grave and take hold of as much money as he wants; however, if he lacks not, let him not open it otherwise; for it’s better not.” That grave was inviolate until the kingdom devolved to Darius. And to Darius it seemed quite terrible to use those gates at all and, the money being laid up and the letters themselves offering invitation, not to take hold of it. (He would not use those gates for this reason, that the dead body came to be overhead when he rode through.) So he opened the grave and found not money, but the dead body and letters that said this: “If you were not insatiate of money and shamefully greedy, you would not open dead bodies’ burial-places.”

Now, that queen is said to have proven a person like that, and indeed Cyrus against that woman’s son advanced with an army, who had the name of his own father, Labynetus, and the rule of the Assyrians. So the Great King advanced with an army both well prepared with grain from home and cattle and, what’s more, at the same time water from the Choaspes river that flows by Susa, was taken with him, the only that the king drinks from and from no other river. After that Choaspes’ water has been boiled off, very many four-wheeled mule-drawn wagons convey it in silver vessels and follow wheresoever he rides on each occasion.

When Cyrus was making his way to Babylon and came to be on the Gyndes river, whose springs are among the Matienians and which flows through the Dardanians and disembogues in to another river, the Tigris (and it flows along the city of Opis and disembogues into the Red sea), while that very Gyndes river Cyrus attempted to cross over, since it was navigable, then one of his sacred white horses because of its violence stepped into the river and attempted to cross over, but it swept him away under water and went carrying him off. Then Cyrus was very angry at the river, because it was insolent in that, and threatened it that he would make it so very without strength that in the future even women would easily cross over it without wetting the knee. And after his threat he let go of his expedition against Babylon and divided up his host in two and, when he had divided it, he demarcated by tracing one hundred and eighty trenches straight as a line by each lip of the Gyndes, turned in every direction; then he drew up his army and bade them dig. Although, inasmuch as a large crowd worked, the work was being completed, yet nevertheless the whole summer season right there they spent working.

When Cyrus had punished the Gyndes river by splitting it into three hundred and sixty trenches and the next spring was beginning to shine, just then he drove against Babylon. Thereupon the Babylonians advanced out with an army and waited for him. After he had come driving near the city, the Babylonians engaged in an encounter and, worsted in the battle, were cooped up in their town. And, inasmuch as they knew well still earlier Cyrus would not be still, but they saw he was laying hands on every nation alike, they stored up in advance food for very many years. Then they accounted the siege nothing and Cyrus was in the grip of difficulties, seeing that a long time was passing and his affairs were not at all advancing farther.

Therefore, because either another probably had made the suggestion to him in his difficulty or maybe he himself had learned what had to be done by him, he then acted like this: he arrayed all his host at the entrance of the river, where it rushes into the city, and afterward behind the city he arrayed others, where the river runs out of the city, and commanded the army, whenever they saw the channel become fordable, to go by that way into the city. Then, after he had arrayed them thus and exhorted them in that fashion, he himself drove away with the useless part of the army. And on coming to the lake, like those very deeds that the queen of the Babylonians had done concerning the river and concerning the lake, he himself did other deeds; for the river with a trench he led into the lake which is marsh and caused the ancient channel to be fordable on the river’s sinking. So, when that had been done like that, the very Persians that had been arrayed for that very purpose at the stream of the Euphrates river after its having sunk pretty near about to a man’s mid-thigh at that point went into Babylon. Now, if the Babylonians had learned by inquiry beforehand or had come to know what was done by Cyrus, they then would have allowed the Persians to enter into the city and destroyed them in the worst way, because, by shutting all the little gates that extended to the river and their own going up on the fences that were drawn by the lips of the river, they would have gotten hold of them as if in a wheel. But as it was, unexpectedly the Persians stood by them. And because of the size of the city, as is said by those settled there, those round the edges of the city having been captured, those of the Babylonians who were settled in its middle were not aware they had been captured, but, since they in fact were holding a festival, they danced during that time and were engaged in enjoyments, until the very time when they learned it by inquiry very much. And Babylon thus then for the first time was captured.

The power of the Babylonians in many other ways I will make clear how great a thing it is and, moreover, in this: by the Great King for his nourishment and his host’s has been divided up, besides the tribute, all the land that he rules. Accordingly, of the twelve months coming to a year, four months the Babylonian country provides him nourishment and eight of the months all the rest of Asia. Thus the Assyrian country is equal in its power to all the rest of Asia. And the rule of that country, which the Persians call a satrapy, is of all the rules somewhat far the best, inasmuch as for Tritantaechmes, the son of Artabazus, who from the king had that district, of silver came in each day a full artaba (the artaba is a Persian measure holding three Attic choenices more than an Attic medimnus) and his horses there alone were, besides those for war, eight hundred who mount the females and sixteen thousand who are mounted; for each of those males mounted twenty horses. Further, of Indian dogs just so great a multitude were provided nourishment that four large villages of those in the plain, being free from all the other taxes, were assigned to supply the dogs food. So to the ruler of Babylon belonged possessions that were like that.

The land of the Assyrians is rained on little and that is what nourishes the root of the wheat. However, being watered by the river, the standing crop ripens, and the wheat is grown, not just as in Egypt where the river itself rises into the fields, but by being watered by hand and swipes. For the whole Babylonian country, just as the Egyptian, is cut up into trenches and the largest of the trenches is navigable, turned to the sun in winter, and stretches from the Euphrates to another river, to the Tigris, alongside which the city of Ninus had its settlement. It is of all countries far the best of those that we know of at bringing forth Demeter’s fruit, because indeed it doesn’t even try to begin with to bring up all the rest of the trees, neither a fig nor a vine nor an olive, but Demeter’s fruit it is so good at bringing forth that it yields two-hundredfold usually and, whenever it itself produces its best, it brings forth three-hundredfold. Moreover, the blades of the wheat and the barley there in their breadth amount to four fingers easily, while from a seed of millet and of sesame how large a tree in size is grown, although I have thorough knowledge, I will not make mention, since I know well that for those who have not come to the Babylonian country what’s said pertaining fruits has come to much disbelief. They use oil from the olive not at all, but make it from sesame seeds. Theirs are palms grown throughout the whole plain, the greater number of them fruit-bearing, from which they make themselves breads, wine and honey; them like figs they tend in all other respects and the fruit of those palms that the Greeks call male they tie round with the date-bearing of the palms, that the gall-insect may bring them the date to maturity by creeping in and the fruit of the palm not fall off; for indeed the male carry gall-insects in their fruit exactly just as the caprifigs.

What is the greatest marvel for me of all those there, at least after the city itself, I am going to point out. Boats are theirs that make their way down the river to Babylon, which are all circular and leather; for, whenever among the Armenians who have their settlements upstream of the Assyrians they cut for themselves and build ribs of willow, they stretch round them watertight hides on the outside like a bottom, without either distinguishing a stern or drawing a prow to a point, but, making circular like a shield and filling with straw that whole boat, they let it go to be borne down the river after filling it with wares; they carry down especially jars made of palm full of wine. Steering is done by two rudders and two men standing upright; one pulls his rudder inwards and the other thrusts his outwards. Those boats are made both very large and smaller and the largest of them actually has a burden of five thousand talents. On each boat is a live ass and on the larger ones a greater number. Accordingly, whenever they come sailing to Babylon and dispose of their cargo, then the boat’s ribs and all the straw they auction off and the hides they load on the asses and drive off to the Armenians; for indeed up the river it is not possible to sail in any manner because of the river’s quickness and on account of that they build their boats not out of wood but out of hides. So whenever they drive their asses and come back to the Armenians, they build other boats in the same manner.

Their boats, then, are like that and they wear clothing like this, a linen tunic that reaches the foot; then over it another tunic of wool one puts on, a white small cloak wraps round and wears native sandals pretty near to Boeotian slippers. Moreover, since they grow their hair long, they bind up their heads with turbans, and they’re anointed over their whole body; each has a signet ring and a handmade staff and on top of each staff is fashioned either an apple or a rose or a lily or an eagle or something else, because their law is not to have a staff without a device.

Installment 8                
 That, then, is their equipment round their body and their established laws are these: the wisest in our judgement’s this, which I have learned by inquiry the Enetians among the Illyrians observed too; in each of the villages once each year was done this: whenever the maidens became ripe for marriage, at whichever time they brought them all together, to one place they brought them gathered and round them stood a crowd of men. Then, making each stand up, one by one, a herald sold them, first the best looking of all and afterward, whenever she fetched much gold and was sold, another he heralded for sale who after her was the best looking, and they were sold for cohabitation. All the happiest of the Babylonians, then, who were marriageable, trying to outbid one another, bought up those who were most the beautiful, while all of the common people who were marriageable, those for their part wanted good looks not at all, but they would take money and uglier maidens. For, right when the herald by selling went through the best looking of the maidens, he would make the most misshapen stand up or any of them who was crippled, and her he heralded for sale to whoever wished to take the least gold and cohabit with her, until she fell to him who offered to receive the least, and the gold would come from the good looking maidens and thus the shapely would give in marriage the misshapen and crippled. So to give in marriage his own daughter to whomever each wanted was not permitted nor without a surety for the buyer to bring away the maiden, but he had to establish sureties to swear that yea verily he would cohabit with her and thus bring her away, but if they could not agree, a law was laid down to bring back the gold. However it was permitted to whoever wanted, even if he came from another village, to strike a bargain. Now, that was their most beautiful law, but it continued not to be now and they have invented recently something else to be done, in that, when after their being captured they had been distressed and ruined economically, everyone of the people, since they lacked livelihood, prostituted their female offspring.

Second in wisdom has been established this other law of theirs: their sick they carry out into the public square, because in fact they do not use physicians. And so they go to the sick one and give advice about his illness, any of them who suffered whatsoever kind of illness that the sick one has or saw another suffer; that, when they go to him, they advise and recommend whichever one oneself did and fled from a similar illness or saw another do and flee. So silently to pass by is not permitted to them, before one should ask what illness he has. Their burials are in honey and threnodies pretty near to those in Egypt.

As many times as a Babylonian man has intercourse with his wife, he sits round burning incense and on the other side his wife does that same thing and, at dawn’s coming, both bathe, since they will touch no vessel before they should bathe. The Arabians too do that same thing.

Quite the most shameful of the Babylonians’ laws is this: every native woman must sit in the shrine of Aphrodite once in her life and have intercourse with a foreign man. Many, thinking unbefitting themselves to be mixed with all the others, inasmuch as they are high minded because of wealth, on chariots in covered carriages drive to the shrine and stand and a large retinue follows them behind, while the greater number act this way: in Aphrodite’s precinct many women sit down with a wreath of string round their heads; some go forward and some go back. And straight as a line ways that go through to the women extend every direction along the roads, through which the foreigners go and make their selection. Whenever a woman sits there, she departs to her house not before one of the foreigners should throw silver onto her knees and have intercourse with her outside the shrine. And with this throwing it on her he has to say this much: “I invoke over you the goddess Mylitta.” (The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta.) The silver in amount is ever so little, because she will not thrust it away, since it is not right for her, in that that silver becomes sacred. So the first to throw it on her she follows and will reject none. But, whenever she has intercourse, after acquitting herself of her holy obligation to the goddess, she departs to her house and from then on nothing so great you will offer her that of her you will take hold. Now, all who have attained looks and height quickly depart, while all of them who are misshapen a long time wait unable to fulfil the law; for in fact several wait three years or four years time. In some places on Cyprus too is a law pretty near to that.

Those, then, are established as laws for the Babylonians and there are among them three clans that eat nothing else except fish alone, to which, whenever they catch and dry them in the sun, they do this: they put into a mortar and, after grinding with pestles, squeeze them through linen cloth and whoever of them wants kneads as if barley-cake and eats them, whereas another bakes them like wheat bread.




When that nation too had been conquered by Cyrus, he conceived a desire to put the Massagetians under him. That nation is said to be both large and valorous and is settled toward the east and the sun’s risings, on the other side of the Araxes river and opposite the Issedonian men. There are some who even say that nation is Scythian.

The Araxes is said to be both larger and smaller than the Ister. Regarding the islands in it they say that numerous are pretty near to Lesbos in size and on them are human beings who dig up and eat roots of all kinds in the summer and lay up for food tree-fruits in their season found out by them and eat them in the winter time; that moreover other trees have been found out by them with fruits of a kind which, whenever they come together to the same place in bands and kindle a fire, sitting round in a circle, they throw on the fire and, smelling the thrown on fruit as it burns, they grow drunk on the odor just as Greeks on wine and, as more fruit is thrown on, they grow drunker, until they stand up for dancing and come to singing. That is said to be their way of life. The Araxes river flows from the Matienians, from the very spot whence the Gyndes does that Cyrus had split into three hundred and sixty trenches, and empties itself through forty mouths, all of which except one discharge into marshes and shallows, among which they say human beings are settled down who eat fish raw and as clothing are accustomed to use seal’s skins, while that one of the Araxes’ mouths flows cleanly into the Caspian sea.

The Caspian sea is by itself, since it mixes not with the other sea. For the whole of that sea on which the Greeks voyage, the sea outside of the Pillars of Heracles called Atlantic and the Red are in fact one, but the Caspian is another by itself, which is in length fifteen days’ sailing for one who rows and in breadth, where it is its broadest, itself eight days’. And by the parts of that sea that lie toward the west the Caucasus extends, being of mountains both greatest in extent and tallest in height. The Caucasus has in it many nations of human beings of all kinds, all the many living off wild forest. Among them, it is said that trees exist that furnish leaves of this kind of a sort with which, after pounding and admixing water, they paint figures for themselves on their clothing, and the figures cannot be washed out, but grow old together with the rest of the wool just as had they been woven in to begin with and that the intercourse of those human beings is in the open just as it is in the case of the cattle.

The parts of that sea called the Caspian toward the west, then, the Causasus skirts, while those toward the east and the sun’s rising a plain follows after boundless in breadth for as far as eye can see. So of that great plain then not the smallest portion the Massagetians have as their share, against whom Cyrus had a desire to advance with an army; for many and great were the things that stirred up and urged him on, first his birth, its seeming to be something more than a human being’s, and second the good fortune that had come about in the wars, in that, whither Cyrus aimed to advance with an army, that nation was unable to contrive a way of escaping.

Her husband having died, a woman was queen of the Massagetians; Tomyris was her name. That woman Cyrus, sending men, wooed in speech, since he wished to have her as wife and Tomyris, understanding he wooed not her but the kingdom of the Massagetians, rejected his advance. Cyrus after that, when success could not be his by treachery, drove to the Araxes and out in the open made an expedition against the Massagetians by joining shores with bridges over the river as a means of crossing for his army and building towers on the boats that ferried over the river.

To him who had that toil, Tomyris sent a herald and said this: “O king of the Medes, stop hastening what you are hastening; for you cannot know whether it will be brought to an end in season for you. So stop and be king of your own men and endure seeing us rule the very men we rule. Then you will refuse to observe what presently suggests itself, but rather at all events prefer to be at rest. However, if you are greatly eager to make trial of the Massagetians, come, leave you off the labor that you have in bridging the river and, at our falling back from the river three days journey, cross you over to our land or, if you prefer to receive us into yours, do you that same.” On hearing that, Cyrus called together the first of the Persians and, after his having them gathered together, put forward the matter in their midst and asked their advice on which action he should take.

Their judgements concurred to the same, as they bade receive Tomyris and her army into their country, but, being present and finding fault with that judgement, Croesus the Lydian showed forth an opposite to the proposed judgement by saying this: “O king, I said even before to you that, since Zeus has given me to you, whatever stumbling-block I see is your house’s, according to my ability I will avert. My sufferings have proven to be unagreeable lessons. If you think you are immortal and rule a host like that, it would be no trouble for me to declare my judgements to you, but if you have come to know that both you are a human being and rule others like this, first learn that lesson how there is a cycle in human affairs and, as it goes round, it allows on each and every occasion not the same to be of good fortune. Therefore by now I have a judgement the contrary of what those do. For, if you will wish to receive the enemy into your country, here’s your danger in that: worsted, you lose besides your whole rule, because it’s quite clear that, if they prevail, the Massagetians will not flee back, but will drive against what you rule. Moreover, if you prevail, you prevail not so much as you would if, after crossing over into their land you should prevail over the Massagetians and pursue them as they flee; for I will offset the same outcome against that former, that, if you prevail over your opponents, you will drive straight to the rule of Tomyris. Finally, apart from what has been related, it’s shameful and unendurable for Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, to yield to a woman and retreat from his country. Accordingly it now seems good to me that you should cross over and go forth howsoever much they withdraw and thereafter, on doing this, try to overcome them since, as I know by inquiry, the Massagetians are without knowledge of Persian goods and without experience of great beauties, for those men then, after chopping up and dressing many of the cattle unsparingly, you should put them forth in our camp as a banquet and, in addition, unsparingly both bowls of unmixed wine and food of all sorts; you should do that and, leaving behind the meanest of your host, you who are the rest again should go back out to the river, because, if I miss not the mark in my judgement, they at the sight of many goods will turn to them and for us thereafter is left the showing forth of great actions.”

Those were the judgements at issue and Cyrus, after letting go the first judgement and choosing that of Croesus, proclaimed to Tomyris that she should go back on the ground that he for his part would cross over to her. She then went back just as she had promised first and Cyrus put Croesus in the hands of his own son, Cambyses, the very one to whom he gave his kingdom, and often enjoined on him to honor and treat him well, if the crossing over to the Massagetians succeeded not; he enjoined that and dispatched them to the Persians; then he himself crossed over the river and his army as well.

After he had passed over the Araxes, at night’s advancing he saw a vision, while he slept, in the Massagetians’ country like this: Cyrus dreamt in his sleep that he saw the oldest of the sons of Hystaspes with wings on his shoulders and with one of them he overshadowed Asia and with the other Europe. Of Hystaspes, the son of Arsames, who was an Achaemenid, the oldest of the sons was Darius, being then in age somewhere near to twenty years, and he was left behind among the Persians, because he was not yet of the age to advance with an army. So then after he had awakened, he deliberated with himself about the vision and, as the vision seemed to him to be significant, on calling Hystaspes and catching him alone, he said, “Hystaspes, your son has been caught plotting against me and my rule and I will indicate how I know that exactly. The gods care for me and foreshow me everything that impends; by now in the past night, while I slept, I saw the oldest of your sons with wings on his shoulders and with one of them he overshadowed Asia and with the other Europe. Accordingly there is no way to contrive on the basis of that vision that he plots not against me. You then make your quickest way back to the Persians and bring about that, whenever I subject these parts here and come to there, thus you will establish your son for examination.”

Cyrus, thinking Darius plotted against him, said this, but for him the divinity brought to light beforehand that he himself was to meet with his end right there and his kingdom would fall to Darius. Then indeed Hystaspes replied with this: “O king, would that no Persian might be born who plots against you, but if he is, would that he might perish as quickly as possible; it’s you who caused the Persians to be free men instead of slaves and to rule everyone instead of being ruled by others. If then a vision announces back to you my son plots revolution against you, I hand you him over to make that use of him which you want.” Hystaspes, after replying with that and crossing over the Araxes, went to the Persians to guard his son Darius for Cyrus and Cyrus went forth from the Araxes a day’s journey and did what Croesus had suggested.

After that, Cyrus and the sound part of the Persians’ army having driven back to the Araxes and the useless part having been left, a third portion of the Massagetians’ army in going out in opposition killed those left of Cyrus’ host when they resisted and, when they had seen the banquet put forth, after they had mastered those opposed, they reclined and feasted and filled with food and wine slept. Then the Persians in their going out in opposition killed many of them and still far more took alive, both others and the queen Tomyris’ son, who was general of the Massagetians, whose name was Spargapises. She, when she had learned by inquiry what had happened to her host and what to her son, sent a herald to Cyrus and said this: “Insatiate of blood, Cyrus, be not at all elated at the matter that has come about, if by the very vine’s fruit, by which you yourselves are filled up and go so mad that, as the wine goes down into the body, evil words float up to the surface, by a drug like that with treacherous dealing you got mastery of my son, but not by battle with force. Therefore, since I am recommending well, now take up my speech; give back to me my son and go away from this my country unpunished, although you treated a third portion of the Massagetians’ army with utter insolence, but, if you will not do that, by the sun, the Massagetians’ master, I swear to you that yea verily, even though you are insatiate of blood, I will glut you with it.”

Cyrus, when those words were brought back, considered them of no account, and the son of the queen Tomyris, Spargapises, after the wine had let him go and he had learned in what misfortune he was, in fact asked of Cyrus to be released from bonds and, as soon as he had been released and gotten mastery over his hands, did himself to death.

And so he in a manner like that met with his end and Tomyris, since Cyrus had not listened to her, collected her whole force and engaged in an encounter with Cyrus. That battle of quite all the battles among barbarian men that were fought I judge proved the most violent and, what’s more, I know by inquiry it was fought thus: first, it is said, they themselves stood apart and shot at one another with bows and afterward, when their missiles had been shot out, fell together and were locked together with their spears and their daggers; for much time indeed they stood together fighting and each side refused to flee. Finally the Massagetians overcame and the greater part of the Persian host indeed right there was destroyed and Cyrus himself met his end who had been king the whole of thirty years but one. Then, after filling a skin with human blood, Tomyris searched among the Persians’ dead for the corpse of Cyrus and, when she had found it, let his head fall into the skin; maltreating the dead body she said over it this: “As you destroyed me, while I lived and had prevailed over you in battle, by taking my son by treachery, so I, just as I threatened, will glut you with blood.” As to the events of the end of Cyrus’ life, then, although many speeches are spoken, here has been spoken the most persuasive to me.




The Massagetians wear clothing and have a way of life similar to the Scythian and are horsemen and non-horsemen --for they have a share of both --and bowmen as well as spear-bearers with the custom of carrying battleaxes. They have all kinds of uses for gold and bronze, in that in all that’s for spearheads, arrow points and battleaxes, they use bronze while in all that’s round the head, belts and chest-bands they adorn themselves with gold. In the same way round the chest area of their horses they put bronze breastplates and the areas of the bridles, bits and cheek-pieces are of gold. Iron and silver, however, they use not at all, because in fact they are not even in their country, whereas gold and bronze are abundant.

The laws they observe are like this: each marries a wife, but they use them in common. For, of what the Greeks assert the Scythians do, not the Scythians are the doers but the Massagetians; with the woman that a Massagetian man conceives a desire for, after hanging up his quiver in front of her wagon, he has intercourse without fear. No other boundary of their life is assigned to them, but, whenever one becomes very old, all his relatives come together and sacrifice him and other cattle with him; then they boil the meat and feast on it. That is considered by them the most prosperous thing, and him who meets with his end through illness they do not devour, but cover with earth, and they think misfortune that he comes not to be sacrificed. They sow nothing, but live off herds and fish --the latter grow ungrudgedly in the Araxes river --and they are milk drinkers. They reverence the sun alone of gods, to whom they sacrifice horses. And that is the meaning of the sacrifice; for the quickest of the gods the quickest of all things mortal they divide off.


end of Book 1