the shortest route in order to warn
his ally, and if necessary to claim his promised help.

* Ploigl, who was the first to refer a certain passage in
the _Annals of Nabonidus_ to the expedition against Croesus,
restored Is[parda] as the name of the country mentioned, and
saw even the capture of Sardes in the events of the month
Iyyar, in direct contradiction to the Greek tradition. The
connection between the campaign beyond the Tigris and the
Lydian war seems to me incontestable, but the Babylonian
chronicler has merely recorded the events which affected
Babylonia. Cyrus' object was both to intimidate Nabonidus
and also to secure possession of the most direct, and at the
same time the easiest, route: by cutting across Mesopotamia,
he avoided the difficult marches in the mountainous
districts of Armenia. Perhaps we should combine, with the
information of the _Annals_, the passage of Xenophon, where
it is said that the Armenians refused tribute and service to
the King of Persia: Cyrus would have punished the rebels on
his way, after crossing the Euphrates.

Croesus, when he received them, had with him only the smaller portion of
his army, the Lydian cavalry, the contingents of his Asiatic subjects,
and a few Greek veterans, and it would probably have been wiser to defer
the attack till after the disembarkation of the Lacedaemonians; but
hesitation at so critical a moment might have discouraged his followers,
and decided his fate before any action had taken place. He therefore
collected his troops together, fell upon the right bank of the Halys,*
devastated the country, occupied Pteria and the neighbouring towns,
and exiled the inhabitants to a distance. He had just completed the
subjection of the White Syrians when he was met by an emissary from the
Persians; Cyrus offered him his life, and confirmed his authority on
condition of his pleading for mercy and taking the oath of vassalage.**
Croesus sent a proud refusal, which was followed by a brilliant
victory, after which a truce of three months was concluded between the
belligerents.***

* On this point Herodotus tells a current story of his time:
Thaies had a trench dug behind the army, which was probably
encamped in one of the bends made by the Halys; he then
diverted the stream into this new bed, with the result that
the Lydians found themselves on the rig