he season was
already far advanced; he thought that the Persians, threatened in the
rear by the Babylonian troops, would shrink from the prospect of a
winter campaign, and he fell back upon Sardes without further lingering
in Phrygia. But Nabonidus did not feel himself called upon to show the
same devotion that his ally had evinced towards him, or perhaps the
priests who governed in his name did not permit him to fulfil his
engagements.**

* Herodotus makes the attempted corruption of the Ionians to
date from the beginning of the war, even before Cyrus took
the field.

** The author followed by Pompeius Trogus has alone
preserved the record of this treaty. The fact is important
as explaining Croesus' behaviour after his defeat, but
Schubert goes too far when he re-establishes on this ground
an actual campaign of Cyrus against Babylon: Radet has come
back to the right view in seeing only a treaty made with
Nabonidus.

As soon as peace was proposed, he accepted terms, without once
considering the danger to which the Lydians were exposed by his
defection. The Persian king raised his camp as soon as all fear of an
attack to rearward was removed, and, falling upon defenceless Phrygia,
pushed forward to Sardes in spite of the inclemency of the season. No
movement could have been better planned, or have produced such
startling results. Croesus had disbanded the greater part of his feudal
contingents, and had kept only his body-guard about him, the remainder
of his army--natives, mercenaries, and allies--having received orders
not to reassemble till the following spring. The king hastily called
together all his available troops, both Lydians and foreigners,
and confronted his enemies for the second time. Even under these
unfavourable conditions he hoped to gain the advantage, had his cavalry,
the finest in the world, been able to take part in the engagement. But
Cyrus had placed in front of his lines a detachment of camels, and the
smell of these animals so frightened the Lydian horses that they snorted
and refused to charge.*

* Herodotus' mention of the use of camels is confirmed, with
various readings, by Xenophon, by Polysenus, and by AElian;
their employment does not necessarily belong to a legendary
form of the story, especially if we suppose that the camel,
unknown before in Asia Minor, was first introduced there by
the Persian army. T