s belonging to them; but Europe and the Hellenic race
they consider to be parted off from them.

5. The Persians for their part say that things happened thus; and they
conclude that the beginning of their quarrel with the Hellenes was on
account of the taking of Ilion: but as regards Io the Phenicians do not
agree with the Persians in telling the tale thus; for they deny that
they carried her off to Egypt by violent means, and they say on the
other hand that when they were in Argos she was intimate with the master
of their ship, and perceiving that she was with child, she was ashamed
to confess it to her parents, and therefore sailed away with the
Phenicians of her own will, for fear of being found out. These are the
tales told by the Persians and the Phenicians severally: and concerning
these things I am not going to say that they happened thus or thus, 401
but when I have pointed to the man who first within my own knowledge
began to commit wrong against the Hellenes, I shall go forward further
with the story, giving an account of the cities of men, small as well
as great: for those which in old times were great have for the most part
become small, while those that were in my own time great used in former
times to be small: so then, since I know that human prosperity never
continues steadfast, I shall make mention of both indifferently.

6. Croesus was Lydian by race, the son of Alyattes and ruler of the
nations which dwell on this side of the river Halys; which river,
flowing from the South between the Syrians 5 and the Paphlagonians, runs
out towards the North Wind into that Sea which is called the Euxine.
This Croesus, first of all the Barbarians of whom we have knowledge,
subdued certain of the Hellenes and forced them to pay tribute, while
others he gained over and made them his friends. Those whom he subdued
were the Ionians, the Aiolians, and the Dorians who dwell in Asia; and
those whom he made his friends were the Lacedemonians. But before the
reign of Croesus all the Hellenes were free; for the expedition of the
Kimmerians, which came upon Ionia before the time of Croesus, was not a
conquest of the cities but a plundering incursion only. 6

7. Now the supremacy which had belonged to the Heracleidai came to the
family of Croesus, called Mermnadai, in the following manner:--Candaules,
whom the Hellenes call Myrsilos, was ruler of Sardis and a descendant of
Alcaios, son of Heracles: for Agron, the son of Ninos,