The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6). Duncker Max

the question whether it was the manner of the Greek gods to deceive those who had done them kindness. Following, no doubt, the legend of the Delphic priesthood, Herodotus then gives the defence of the priestess, that Crœsus had not rightly understood the oracles, – though as we shall see, he had understood them correctly enough. The priestess further tells Crœsus, that he was destined to pay the penalty for the offence, which his ancestor Gyges had committed against Candaules, though the Delphic oracle had sanctioned this crime and carried it out. Then destiny has to bear the blame. No man can escape his doom; the god of Delphi had deferred the fall of Crœsus for three years, and saved him from the flames of the funeral pyre. The god of Delphi had thus announced the truth (to prove this Cyrus is made the son of a Median mother), and had shown his gratitude for the gifts of Crœsus by delaying his overthrow, and rescuing him from the flames, as Crœsus must himself confess. Xenophon dwells yet more on the justification. Crœsus had placed himself in the wrong with the god, by putting it to the test whether he could tell the truth; then he hopes that he has appeased him by rich presents, but he misunderstands the further response of the god, "that he will be happy when he knows himself," for in descent, bravery, and generalship he holds himself the equal of Cyrus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus the gift of speech to the deaf and dumb son, the quenching of the pyre, – in Herodotus also the delay of destiny, and in Ctesias, the miraculous loosing of the fetters, – are proofs that the dedicatory gifts of Crœsus and his piety had not been in vain. They could not avert his doom, but they had alleviated it; the god of the Greeks, whom he serves, has at the last saved him from the most cruel fate, and brought it about that Crœsus ends his days, if not as a ruler, yet in peace and dignity.

      In spite of all the national and individual points of view which mark Herodotus' account of the fall of Crœsus, and the legends which he has woven into it, and used for his own purposes – the fanciful colours which stamp it as fabulous – it nevertheless contains a nucleus of historical truth, and we can give it a place before the rest as a narrative of facts. We have seen above how suddenly the successful rebellion of Cyrus put an end to the close relations between Babylonia, Lydia, and Media; how Lydia was touched by this change, how clearly the intervention of Lydia was needed, and what reasons could induce Crœsus to defer it. Crœsus was obviously brought to abandon his delay by the successes which Cyrus achieved in establishing his dominion over the Medes, and extending it to North and South, but above all by his conquests in the West and the advance of the Persian border to the Halys. Herodotus' account shows us very clearly that Cappadocia had become subject to Cyrus. When, on a previous occasion, the Medes reached the Halys, Alyattes, the father of Crœsus, had taken up arms; was he to fall short of this example, in the presence of a power which had grown up more rapidly and threatened greater danger than the Medes? As Herodotus told us, it was his intention to attack Cyrus before he became too powerful. We may conclude with certainty from what Herodotus relates, that Crœsus did not hide from himself the importance and difficulty of the undertaking. Above all he sought to win the favour of Sandon the national deity (I. 564). The Lydians offered large burnt-sacrifices to this deity, their sun-god; on a huge pyre they burnt numerous victims, gold and silver vessels, and costly robes in his honour. Herodotus tells us that Crœsus bade the Lydians sacrifice from their own stores on that occasion; hence the great sacrifice, the gold of which Crœsus dedicated to the god of Miletus and Delphi, was a national offering, which Crœsus presented to Sandon. We have already shown that the Greeks recognised in the sun-god of the Lydians their own Apollo and Hercules, while the Lydians found their solar deity in the Apollo of the Greeks. When Gyges undertook to overthrow the old royal family which claimed to spring from this sun-god, and could not succeed in his attempt, an answer was sought from the sun-god of Delphi. The god of the Greeks then dethroned the descendants of the Lydian deity. In the year 556 B.C.17 Crœsus had already sent to Delphi, and given dedicatory offerings to the god of Delphi and to the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes; and at the present time, when he had resolved to enter on a severe struggle for his throne and kingdom, he called to mind the god, to whose oracle his house owed its position; he would now receive by his favour both kingdom and crown. So Apollo of Miletus and Delphi received silver and gold which had been consecrated by the fire. The bricks into which it was formed were intended to bear the lion which was also fashioned out of the same gold – the symbol of the burning sun, the image of the Lydian god. The four golden bricks formed the uppermost steps. The total amount of the gold dedicated at Delphi and Miletus reached 270 talents. For the presents at Miletus Crœsus used the property of Sadyattes, which he had confiscated at the beginning of his reign, dedicated, and applied as an offering.18 When Crœsus sent the gifts to Delphi, he inquired of the oracle, as Gyges had previously done. At this time – about 140 years before Crœsus – the question had been who was to ascend the throne of Lydia; now the question was, whether the descendant of Gyges would maintain it in the conflict against Persia. The answer of the priestess, which Aristotle and Diodorus have preserved in metre,19– "That Crœsus by crossing the Halys would destroy a great kingdom" – is genuine, and was certainly given in the meaning that Crœsus should undertake the war and would destroy the kingdom of his opponent. The object of Crœsus in asking the question was to know whether he would be fortunate in his attack on Persia. If it was the object of the priesthood to give a dubious answer to this question, they could not possibly have answered the further question – whether he should take allies to help him, – with the command that he must take the "most powerful of the Hellenes." At that time the Spartans were beyond all question the most powerful of the Hellenes. How could the priests of Delphi, who owing to the close connection in which they stood to Sparta were well aware that the oracle would be a law to that state, send the Spartans to defeat and destruction, if they foresaw such a thing?20 That at Delphi, owing to the impression made on the Greeks by the power, greatness, and splendour of the Lydian empire, the remote and unknown Persians were underrated is quite probable, and indeed sufficiently proved by the subsequent embassy of the Spartans to Cyrus. The first response did not entirely remove the doubts of Crœsus, so he asked a second time – "whether his dominion would continue long," and this question received a thoroughly satisfactory answer, i. e. an answer which, in the obscure form purposely adopted by oracles, deferred the defeat of the Lydians to distant times, and impossible conditions.

      Crœsus had not waited for the oracle to provide himself with sufficient support in his undertaking. Yet it suited him to enter into negotiations with the Spartans, who after a series of successful contests against the Pisatae, Argos, and some cantons of Arcadia, had obtained the foremost place in the Peloponnesus. At an earlier time Crœsus had sent the Spartans a considerable present for the erection of a statue of Apollo, and their grateful feeling towards him would certainly be strengthened by the authority of the Delphian oracle, whose response was known to the Spartans, as Herodotus expressly states (p. 9). Even in Xenophon's account they declared themselves ready to send auxiliary troops to Sardis.21 Crœsus did not stop here: he sent Eurybatus to obtain yet more troops in Hellas. Herodotus told us that Crœsus was in league with Egypt and Babylonia against Persia before he made the treaty with Sparta. Amasis, king of Egypt, had determined to support Crœsus, perhaps in return for the service which Gyges had once rendered to Psammetichus, when he sent soldiers to aid him against his fellow-princes, the vassals of Assyria (III. 301). The attitude of Babylonia must be decisive. If Lydia and Babylonia, who were both equally threatened by the new power, united in a firm military alliance, they might hope to contend successfully with the prince of the Persians. At Babylon, after the accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C., the royal power was again in strong hands. According to Herodotus, there was a league between Crœsus and Nabonetus against Persia. Xenophon represents Crœsus as coming to the aid of the king of Babylon. Justin states that Cyrus was at war with Babylon when Crœsus attacked him; Cyrus drove him back, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried the war to Lydia. From all this we may assume that Lydia and Babylonia were united, and that they undertook the war against Persia in common.

      Crœsus then might consider that careful preparations had been made for his enterprise, when in the year 549 B.C., and as we may pre-suppose with certainty, in the spring of the year, he took the field.22 He crossed the Halys, and directed

17

Marmor Parnium, ep. 41.

18

Boeckh, "Staatshaushaltung" 1. 10, 11; H. Stein on Herod. 1, 50.

19

Aristot. "Rhetor." 3, 5; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 25, 26[=9, 31].

20

Herod. 1, 69.

21

"Cyri inst." 6, 2, 10, 11.

22

The Parian marble mentions a mission of Crœsus to Delphi in the year 556. The date of the year for the capture of Sardis is destroyed, and cannot be even approximately restored, as the nearest dates are either mutilated or destroyed. The dates in Eusebius are derived from Apollodorus, who in turn draws from Eratosthenes. Eusebius puts the testing of the oracles in Olymp. 57,3 = 550 B.C., the march of Cyrus against Crœsus in Ol. 57,4 = 549 B.C., the capture of Crœsus in Ol. 58,3 = 546 B.C. Jerome represents Crœsus as beginning the war in Ol. 57,3 = 550 B.C. and puts his capture in Ol. 58,1 = 548 B.C. According to the statement of Syncellus (1,455, ed. Bonn.), Crœsus was defeated in the 14th year of Cyrus, which would give 547 B.C., if with Eusebius, who allows Cyrus to reign 31 years, we put his accession in 560 B.C. (V. p. 381 n.). The interval of three years which Eusebius (549-546) and two years which Jerome (550-548) places between the beginning of the war and the capture of Crœsus, appears to be due to the three years for which, according to Herodotus, Apollo delayed the overthrow of Crœsus; the presents came to Delphi three years before the fall (Herod. 1, 91). According to Herodotus the campaign occupies only one summer and autumn. The temple of Delphi was burned down in 548 B.C. (Ol. 58,1; Pausan. 10, 5, 13), and as Herodotus represents the temple as intact at the time when Crœsus sent to Delphi after his fall, this must have taken place before 548 B.C., and therefore Crœsus must have been conquered by Cyrus in 549 B.C. If the justification of the oracle in Herodotus is merely an invention of the priests, yet in things so well known the existing circumstances could not be left out of sight. It is certain that if the presents of Crœsus had been injured by the burning of the temple before his fall, this evil omen would not have been left out of sight by the legend, or by Herodotus, who himself saw and mentions the lion of Crœsus at Delphi which had been injured by the fire (1, 50). I have therefore no scruple in putting the fall of the Lydian kingdom in the year 549 B.C. Though the reign given by Herodotus for Crœsus, fourteen years and fourteen days, may have arisen out of the fourteen Lydian boys who wished to be sacrificed with their king (p. 12), yet Eusebius, Jerome, and Syncellus put the reign of Crœsus at 15 years. It may therefore be regarded as an established fact that his reign ended in the fifteenth year. According to Herodotus (1, 64, 65), it might seem as though he were of opinion that Crœsus sought allies in Hellas at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant for the third time over Athens. But this would be an error due to Herodotus' habit of anticipation. We can only be concerned with the second tyranny of Pisistratus, which belongs to the years 550 and 549 B.C. Against the argument here used – that the priests could not leave out of sight the actual circumstances in things so widely known, even in their inventions, Büdinger objects: "The chronological relations in Lydian-Persian history were neither various nor generally known, when Herodotus visited Delphi." The objection would be pertinent if the legend of the priests had only been manufactured during Herodotus' stay at Delphi, and for his use. This is not tenable. The fall of Crœsus was an event which deeply moved the Hellenic world, and created the most lively astonishment; the responses of Delphi had allured him to war; the oracle must at once justify itself if it were not to lose considerably in its authority. The justification must, therefore, have been invented at once; in the cities of Anatolia it would be best known at that time how and when the Mede came into the land with the fall of Crœsus (πηλίκος ἦσθ’ ὅθ’ ὁ Μῆδος ἀφίκετο; Xenophanes in Athenaeus, p. 54), and it was also known everywhere how long before the great presents of Crœsus had come to Miletus and Delphi. This must be noticed by the Delphian priests. But, as I have expressly said, I have not laid any great stress on this fact, but on the burning of the temple in 548 B.C., for that is the only certain point which can be gained. It does not seem possible to me to make Xenophon's account of the Lydian and Babylonian wars of Cyrus in the Cyropaedia a reason for placing the overthrow of Crœsus in 541 B.C. and putting back the beginning of the third tyranny of Pisistratus to that date in order to suit this account. There are also reasons of fact against such a date, which are given elsewhere.