ghboring cities, summoning all the troops
in them to hasten to the capital. He enrolled all the inhabitants of
the city that were capable of bearing arms. By these means he
collected, in a very short time, quite a formidable force, which he
drew up, in battle array, on a great plain not far from the city, and
there waited, with much anxiety and solicitude, for Cyrus to come on.

The Lydian army was superior to that of Cyrus in cavalry, and as the
place where the battle was to be fought was a plain, which was the
kind of ground most favorable for the operations of that species of
force, Cyrus felt some solicitude in respect to the impression which
might be made by it on his army. Nothing is more terrible than the
onset of a squadron of horse when charging an enemy upon the field
of battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes consisting of many
thousands, with the speed of the wind, the men flourishing their
sabers and rending the air with the most unearthly cries, those in
advance being driven irresistibly on by the weight and impetus of the
masses behind. The dreadful torrent bears down and overwhelms every
thing that attempts to resist its way. They trample one another and
their enemies together promiscuously in the dust; the foremost of the
column press on with the utmost fury, afraid quite as much of the
headlong torrent of friends coming on behind them, as of the line of
fixed and motionless enemies who stand ready to receive them before.
These enemies, stationed to withstand the charge, arrange themselves
in triple or quadruple rows, with the shafts of their spears planted
against the ground, and the points directed forward and upward to
receive the advancing horsemen. These spears transfix and kill the
foremost horses; but those that come on behind, leaping and plunging
over their fallen companions, soon break through the lines and put
their enemies to flight, in a scene of indescribable havoc and
confusion.

Croesus had large bodies of horse, while Cyrus had no efficient
troops to oppose them. He had a great number of camels in the rear of
his army, which had been employed as beasts of burden to transport
the baggage and stores of the army on their march. Cyrus concluded to
make the experiment of opposing these camels to the cavalry. It is
frequently said by the ancient historians that the horse has a natural
antipathy to the camel, and can not bear either the smell or the sight
of one, though this is not found