Pindarus, summoned to surrender, refused, but
as he had not sufficient troops to defend the entire city, he evacuated
the lower quarters, and concentrated all his forces on the defence of
the citadel; he refused to open negotiations until after the fall of a
tower at the moment when a practicable breach had been made, and
succeeded in obtaining an honourable capitulation for himself and his
people by a ruse.

* The history of Sadyattes and of his part in the conspiracy
results from points of agreement which have been established
between various passages in Herodotus and in Nicolas of
Damascus, where the person is sometimes named and sometimes
not.

He dedicated the town to Artemis, and by means of a rope connected
the city walls with the temple, which stood nearly a mile away in
the suburbs, and then entreated for peace in the name of the goddess.
Croesus was amused at the artifice, and granted favourable conditions to
the inhabitants, but insisted on the expulsion of the tyrant. The latter
bowed before the decree, and confiding the care of his children and
possessions to his friend Pasicles, left for the Peloponnesus with his
retinue. Bphesus up to this time had been a kind of allied principality,
whose chiefs, united to the royal family of Lydia by marriages from
generation to generation, recognised the nominal suzerainty of the
reigning king rather than his effective authority. It was in fact
a species of protectorate, which, while furthering the commercial
interests of Lydia, satisfied at the same time the passion of the Greek
cities for autonomy. Croesus, encouraged by his first success, could
not rest contented with such a compromise. He attacked, successively,
Miletus and the various Ionian, AEolian, and Dorian communities of
the littoral, and brought them all under his sway, promising on their
capitulation that their local constitutions should be respected if they
became direct dependencies of his empire. He placed garrisons in such
towns as were strategically important for him to occupy, but everywhere
else he razed to the ground the fortresses and ramparts which might
afford protection to his enemies in case of rebellion, compelling the
inhabitants to take up their abode on the open plain where they could
not readily defend themselves.* The administration of the affairs of
each city was entrusted to either a wealthy citizen, or an hereditary
tyrant, or an elected magistrate, who was