qual advantage on both sides. But the battle fought in the sixth
year was very remarkable on account of an eclipse of the sun, which
happened during the engagement, when on a sudden the day was turned into a
dark night. Thales, the Milesian, had foretold this eclipse. The Medes and
Lydians, who were then in the heat of the battle, equally terrified with
this unforeseen event, which they looked upon as a sign of the anger of
the gods, immediately retreated on both sides, and made peace. Syennesis,
king of Cilicia, and Nabuchodonosor,(1074) king of Babylon, were the
mediators. To render it more firm and inviolable, the two princes were
willing to strengthen it by the tie of marriage, and agreed, that
Halyattes should give his daughter Aryenis to Astyages, eldest son of
Cyaxares.

The manner these people had of contracting an alliance with one another,
is very remarkable. Besides other ceremonies, which they had in common
with the Greeks, they had this in particular; the two contracting parties
made incisions in their own arms, and licked one another's blood.

(M187) Cyaxares's first care, as soon as he found himself again in peace,
was to resume the siege of Nineveh, which the irruption of the Scythians
had obliged him to raise.(1075) Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, with whom
he had lately contracted a particular alliance, joined with him in a
league against the Assyrians. Having therefore united their forces, they
besieged Nineveh, took it, killed Saracus the king, and utterly destroyed
that mighty city.

God had foretold by his prophets above a hundred years before, that he
would bring vengeance upon that impious city for the blood of his
servants, wherewith the kings thereof had gorged themselves, like ravenous
lions; that he himself would march at the head of the troops that should
come to besiege it; that he would cause consternation and terror to go
before them; that he would deliver the old men, the mothers, and their
children, into the merciless hands of the soldiers; that all the treasures
of the city should fall into the hands of rapacious and insatiable
plunderers; and that the city itself should be so totally and utterly
destroyed, that not so much as a vestige of it should be left; and that
the people should ask hereafter, Where did the proud city of Nineveh
stand?

But let us hear the language of the prophets themselves: Woe unto the
bloody city, (cries Nahum,) it is all full of lies and robbery:(1076) he