ht bank of the river
without having had the trouble of crossing it.

** Nicolas of Damascus records that Cyrus, after the capture
of Sardes, for a short time contemplated making Croesus a
vassal king, or at least a satrap of Lydia.

*** We have two very different accounts of this campaign,
viz. that of Herodotus, and that of Polyonus. According to
Herodotus, Croesus gave battle only once in Pteria, with
indecisive result, and on the next day quietly retired to
his kingdom, thinking that Cyrus would not dare to pursue
him. According to Polyonus, Croesus, victorious in a first
engagement owing to a more or less plausible military
stratagem, consented to a truce, but on the day after was
completely defeated, and obliged to return to his kingdom
with a routed army. Herodotus' account of the fall of
Croesus and of Sardes, borrowed partly from a good written
source, Xanthus or Charon of Lampsacus, partly from the
tradition of the Harpagidse, seems to have for its object
the soothing of the vanity both of the Persians and of the
Lydians, since, if the result of the war could not be
contested, the issue of the battle was at least left
uncertain. If he has given a faithful account, no one can
understand why Croesus should have retired and ceded White
Syria to a rival who had never conquered him. The account
given by Polysenus, in spite of the improbability of some of
its details, comes from a well-informed author: the defeat
of the Lydians in the second battle explains the retreat of
Crcesus, who is without excuse in Herodotus' version of the
affair. Pompeius Trogus adopted a version similar to that of
Polysenus.

Cyrus employed the respite in attempting to win over the Greek cities
of the littoral, which he pictured to himself as nursing a bitter
hatred against the Mermnadae; but it is to be doubted if his emissaries
succeeded even in wresting a declaration of neutrality from the
Milesians; the remainder, Ionians and AEolians, all continued faithful
to their oaths.* On the resumption of hostilities, the tide of fortune
turned, and the Lydians were crushed by the superior forces of the
Persians and the Medes; Crcesus retired under cover of night, burning
the country as he retreated, to prevent the enemy from following him,
and crossed the Halys with the remains of his battalions. T