held responsible for its
loyalty; the administrator paid over the tribute to the sovereign's
treasurers, levied the specified contingent and took command of it in
time of war, settled any quarrels which might occur, and was empowered,
when necessary, to exile turbulent and ambitious persons whose words
or actions appeared to him to be suspicious. Croesus treated with
generosity those republics which tendered him loyal obedience, and
affected a special devotion to their gods. He gave a large number of
ex-voto offerings to the much-revered sanctuary of Bran-chidse, in the
territory of Miletus; he dedicated some golden heifers at the Artemision
of Ephesus, and erected the greater number of the columns of that temple
at his own expense.**

* He treated thus the Ephesians and the Ilians.

** The fragments of columns brought from this temple by Wood
and preserved in the British Museum have on one of the bases
the remains of an inscription confirming the testimony of
Herodotus.

At one time in his career he appears to have contemplated extending his
dominion over the Greek islands, and planned, as was said, the equipment
of a fleet, but he soon acknowledged the imprudence of such a project,
and confined his efforts to strengthening his advantageous position on
the littoral by contracting alliances with the island populations and
with the nations of Greece proper.*

* He seems to have been deterred from his project by a
sarcastic remark made, as some say, by Pittakos the
Mitylenian, or according to others, by Bias of Priene.

Following the diplomacy of his ancestors, he began by devoting himself
to the gods of the country, and took every pains to gain the good graces
of Apollo of Delphi. He dispensed his gifts with such liberality that
neither his contemporaries nor subsequent generations grew weary
of admiring it. On one occasion he is said to have sacrificed three
thousand animals, and burnt, moreover, on the pyre the costly contents
of a palace--couches covered with silver and gold, coverlets and robes
of purple, and golden vials. His subjects were commanded to contribute
to the offering, and he caused one hundred and seventeen hollow
half-bricks to be cast of the gold which they brought him for this
purpose. These bricks were placed in regular layers within the treasury
at Delphi where the gifts of Lydia from the time of Alyattes were
deposited, and the top of the pile was surm