ideal of a Dorian state. This is, perhaps, in singularly foreign to the business of a statesone sense, more, and in another less, than he man; but we know that some of the greatest, really attempted, and the opinion seems to af- both in ancient and modern times, have been fect the character of the Dorians rather than the nourished in such speculations, and the effects views of Pythagoras. His leading thought ap- of the exercise are not to be measured by the pears to have been, that the state and the individ-importance of the scientific results. ual ought, each in its way, to reflect the image of that order and harmony by which he believed the universe to be sustained and regulated; and he only expressed the religious side of this thought when he said that the highest end of human existence was to follow or resemble the Deity. But he was aware that this sublime idea can never be fully imbodied in this sublunary world, and that a wise man will be content with slowly approaching the unattainable mark, and in working upon others will adapt his exertions to the circumstances in which he is placed, and to the imperfection of those whom he has to deal with. He had before him the example of Lycurgus, and, still nearer, those of Zaleucus and Charondas, who had legislated, not many generations earlier, the one for Locri, the other for Catana, on principles so agreeable to his own, that in the traditions of later times they were numbered among his disciples. This, however, was probably something more than the state of affairs which he found at Croton would have permitted him to undertake, and yet less than he might hope to accomplish by different means. He did not frame a constitution or a code of laws, nor does he appear ever to have assumed any public office. He instituted a society-an order we might now call it-of which he became the general. It was composed of young men carefully selected from the noblest families, not only of Croton, but of other Italiot cities. Their number amounted, or was confined to three hundred; and if he expected by their co-operation to exercise a sway firmer and more lasting than that of a lawgiver or a magistrate, first over Croton, and in the end over all the Italian colonies, his project, though new and bold, ought not to be pronounced visionary or extrav-attachment, and exalted their veneration for agant. According to our view of this celebrated society, it is not surprising that it should have presented such a variety of aspects as to mislead those who fixed their attention on any one of them, and withdrew it from the rest. It was at once a philosophical school, a religious brotherhood, and a political association; and all these characters appear to have been inseparably united in the founder's mind. It must be considered as a proof of upright intentions in Pythagoras, which ought to rescue him from all suspicion of selfish motives, that he chose for his coadjutors persons whom he deemed capable of grasping the highest truths which he could communicate, and was not only willing to teach them all he knew, but regarded the utmost cultivation of their intellectual faculties as a necessary preparation for the work to which he destined them. His lessons were certainly not confined to particular branches of mathematical or physical science, but were clearly meant to throw the fullest light on the greatest questions which can occupy the human mind. Those who were to govern others were first to contemplate the world, and to comprehend the place which they filled in it. The Pythagorean philosophy may, indeed, appear VOL. I.-E E It is certain that religion was intimately connected with the institutions of Pythagoras, and it may not be too much to say,* that it was the centre in which they rested, or the corner-stone of the whole fabric, and the main bond of union among his followers. But it is by no means clear either what kind of religion it was, or in what manner it acted. And its importance may have been the cause of this obscurity; for it is highly probable that the secrecy in which the proceedings of the fraternity were enveloped related not to its philosophical doctrines, nor even to its political designs, but to its religious observances. In what relation, however, this mystic religion stood to that of the public temples is very doubtful. Pythagoras is said to have inveighed as bitter as Xenophanes against Homer and Hesiod for degrading their divine personages,† but he professed the highest reverence for the objects of the popular superstition. It is true that he reduced the gods to so many numbers; but this was a theological nicety, and did not concern the multitude which saw him bow at their altars. There is no reason to think that these mysteries conveyed any doctrines inconsistent with the common opinions. It is most probable-and the story which was current among the Greeks on the Hellespont about the imposture of Zamolxis seems to confirm this conjecture‡-that the chief object of the mysteries was to inculcate the dogma of the immortality and migrations of the soul, which might be easily applied to the purpose of strengthening a generous enthusiasm. But there can be no doubt that religion was made to hallow all the relations into which the associates entered, that it cemented their mutual their master. It is also important to observe that the mysteries appear to have been open, though perhaps not in their last stage, to persons who were not members of the political society. Thus women seem to have been admitted to them, and hence we find a long list of female Pythagoreans. It is easy to imagine how much the influence of the institution must have been enlarged by such an accession. It Whether Pythagoras had formed any definite political theory is another disputable point. is not even certain that he wished to see his disciples placed in public offices, though the state was to be their proper and highest sphere of action-much less that he designed they should constitute a separate body, clothed with legal authority. His preference of one form of government to another probably depended on the facility with which it lent itself to his views; but that, in general, his sentiments were rigidly aristocratical, could scarcely be doubted, even if there were no direct evidence of the fact.§ With Ritter, in both the works above referred to. + Diog. Laert., viii., 21. On the other hand, see Porph., De V. P., xxxii. in Her., iv., 95. Compare the story told by Hermippus Diog., viii., 41. One is rather surprised at the tone of uncertainty with which Ritter (i., p, 352) expresses himself on this point. Hundred who were admitted to the last secrets, religious, philosophical, and political, that their master had to unfold, were bound together and to him by an oath, which was perhaps invested with peculiar solemnity by its mysterious form.* It was a precept ascribed to Pythagoras to show respect to an oath, to be slow in taking it, and steadfast in keeping it.t The candidate who sought admission into the order, if his first appearance satisfied the eye of the master, who is said to have placed great reliance on his judgment of physiognomies, had to pass through a period of probation and discipline. Various accounts are given of the term and the rules of this novitiate, and of the classes into which the disciples were distributed. It seems to be plainly implied by all The ambition of Pythagoras was assuredly, the traditions on the subject that, for a time at as we have already remarked, truly lofty and least, they exchanged their domestic habits for noble: he aimed at establishing a dominion a new mode of life, which was regulated in its which he believed to be that of wisdom and minutest details by the will of Pythagoras. In virtue, a rational supremacy of minds enlightthese regulations he may have been guided by ened by philosophy and purified by religion, and the Dorian practice, which he is said to have characters fitted to maintain an ascendant over witnessed in Crete and Sparta'; though the at- others by habits of self-command. Yet the failtention which he paid to music and gymnasticsure of his undertaking, which, however, must as the two main elements of education, was not be considered as a total one, seems to have both conformable to national usage, and might been owing not altogether to the violence and have resulted spontaneously from his philosoph-malignity of the passions which he had to conical views. No dependance can be placed on tend with, but in part, also, to the weakness and the stories which are told of the abstinence rudeness of the instruments which he employwhich he is said to have prescribed. To pre-ed. He found or thought himself compelled to serve the vigour of body and mind by strict tem- become a party in a contest where the right perance was no doubt his first object; but it is certainly did not lie all on one side. We are probable enough that he also restricted the diet informed that at first he obtained unbounded of his followers by several prohibitions which influence over all classes at Croton, and effecthad no other than a symbolical meaning, and ed a general reformation in the habits of the were intended to impress some moral or reli- people, and that in other Italian cities he gaingious truths. It must, however, be observed, ed such a footing as enabled him either to counthat among his other accomplishments he was teract revolutionary movements, or to restore famed for his medical skill, and he has even aristocratical government where it had given been thought to have founded the first scientific way to tyranny or democracy. The senate of school of medicine, which before his time had Croton is said to have pressed him to guide it been almost exclusively cultivated by the priest- with his counsels, which may signify that he hood of certain temples, which were frequented was invited to accept the office of a chief magisfor the sake of miraculous cures. And his char-trate, or even a dictatorial authority. But he acter might incline him to follow many fanciful seems always to have remained in a private analogies in the regulation of diet, which is rep- station; and the conjecture that his Three Hunresented as the main point to which he applied dred formed a legal assembly, which was raised his art. If his disciples shared their ordinary above the senate, is the more improbable, bemeals together, after the Spartan custom, we cause they are said to have included several can be at no loss to account for the fabulous citizens of other states. Yet they had gained exaggeration by which they are said to have a predominance, both at Croton and elsewhere, thrown all their possessions into a common which had perhaps excited both the hostility of stock. Their union was more intimate than the party whose interests they opposed and the that of kindred; according to some authors, it jealousy of that which they espoused, long beexcited the jealousy of their relatives, who fore the event which was the immediate occasaw themselves treated comparatively as stran- sion of their ruin. We do not venture to decide gers; and many interesting anecdotes are re- what foundation there may have been for the lated of the purity and constancy of their friend-charge which was brought against them, of atship. We can readily believe that the Three Gell, N. A., i., 9. The most general distinction seems to be that between the Ezoteric and Esoteric: some authors believed that the same distinction was expressed by the terms Pythagorist and Pythagorean. These terms only signify certain gradations, without marking the nature of the subject as religious, philosophical, or political. Whereas others spoke of a division into sebastici, politici, and mathematici, or a class of religion, a class of politics, and a class of science; but to this they added three gradations: Pythagorici, Pythagorei, Pythagrista, according to the more or less familiar intercourse enjoyed with the master. Ritter conceives that the distinction of classes related only to the religious mysteries. Yet there seems to be nothing improbable in such a scale of degrees in philosophy as Gellius describes (i., 9) under the names Acustici, Mathematici, Physici. Some authors represent him as forbidding all animal food, others all kinds of fish, others beans; whereas Aristoxenus, a writer of great credit, asserted that he preferred beans to all other vegetables. It seems probable that he enly interdicted certain parts of animals and certain kinds of fish, and perhaps of pulse. Wachsmuth, H. A., iii., p. 487. Schlosser, 1. i., p. 399, supposes him to have found a school of medicine at Croton. lamblich., De P. V., 255. tempting to abolish the popular assembly, which seems from the first to have been very narrowly limited in its powers. But the charge would not be refuted by any professions of attachment to the ancient Constitution which they may have made when innovations were proposed on the side of democracy,¶ even if it related to the period preceding their final breach with the commonalty. It would seem, however, that they fell chiefly through an overweening confidence in their own strength. The civil dissensions of Sybaris had at length come to a head, and broke out in a general insurrection against the oligarchs, who probably drew the supplies of their proverbial luxury to reap its fruits. When the question arose as from encroachment, either violent or fraudu- to the distribution of the spoil and of the conlent, on the popular rights. The insurgents, quered land, they insisted on retaining the headed by a leader named Telys, who was whole in the name of the state, and refused to most likely a member of the ruling class, and concede any share to those who had earned it had some private animosity to gratify, did not all by their toil and blood. It may have been observe the modesty of the Roman plebeians. now that they thought they saw a favou able They not only compelled their lords, to the opportunity of silencing all opposition by supnumber of five hundred, to quit the city, but, pressing the popular assembly. But if this was when the exiles had taken refuge at Croton, the case, they probably miscalculated the efsent an insolent message to demand that they fects of the public success, which may have should be surrendered. Pythagoras is said to raised the spirits of their domestic adversaries have exerted his influence with the senate and as high as their own. The commonalty was the people of Croton to induce them to reject not awed, but only irritated by the attempt. Its this imperious requisition, and on this occasion fury was directed against the society, chiefly, he must have had the good feelings of all par- it is said, by Cylon, a noble and wealthy man, ties on his side. It would, indeed, be a strong who is believed to have been rejected by Pyindication of the progress of discontent at thagoras, when he sought to be admitted among home, if on such a point he had any opposition his followers. A tumult took place, in which to encounter. The summons, however, was the populace set fire to Milo's house, where the resisted, and Croton accepted the challenge Pythagoreans were assembled. Many perished, which accompanied it, and armed for war. Syb- and the rest only found safety in exile. It is aris is said to have sent three hundred thou- not clear whether Pythagoras himself was at sand men, perhaps her whole serviceable popu- Croton during this commotion; the general belation, into the field. The forces of Croton lief seems to have been that he died, not long amounted to no more than a third of this num- after, at Metapontum. The rising at Croton ber; but they were commanded by Milo, a dis- appears to have been followed by similar scenes ciple of Pythagoras, who seems to have united in several other Italian cities, as at Caulonia, the abilities of a general with the bodily strength Locri, and Tarentum, which would prove the for which he was celebrated above all his con- extensive ramifications of the order, and that it temporaries. They were also animated by the everywhere disclosed the same political charpresence of Callias, a seer sprung from the gift-acter. Many of the fugitives took refuge in ed lineage of Iamus, who came over to them Greece, but confusion and bloodshed continued from Sybaris with tidings that their enemies to prevail for many years in the cities which were threatened by adverse omens ; † and there had been seats of the society. Tranquillity was a tradition that they were exasperated by was at length restored by the mediation of the the cruel fate of thirty of their citizens, who Achæans of the mother-country, and sixty of had been sent on an embassy to Sybaris, and the exiles returned to their homes. But their were barbarously murdered there. The spirit presence seems to have given rise to fresh thus infused into them would better explain troubles, perhaps through their opposition to the issue of the conflict than either the prowess the democratical institutions which Croton and of Milo, to which Diodorus absurdly attributes other cities adopted from Achaia ;† and at a lait, or the singular stratagem by which they ter period we find some celebrated Pythagowere reported to have thrown the enemy's cav- reans in Greece, who had been driven out of alry into disorder. The two hosts met on the Italy by their political adversaries, while others banks of the Trionto, and victory declared it- remained there, and endeavoured, with partial self for Croton. It was probably after the bat- success, to revive the ancient influence of the tle that a reaction, which, if it had happened order.‡ sooner, must have put a stop to hostilities, took place at Sybaris, in which Telys and his principal partisans were massacred at the altars.|| But this sally of revenge or despair came too late to save the unfortunate city from its doom. The conquerors advanced with irresistible force, and resolved to sweep Sybaris away from the face of the earth. She was emptied of her remaining inhabitants, sacked, and razed to the ground, and a river (the Crathis) was turned through the ruins, to obliterate all traces of her departed greatness.¶ The senate of Croton and the Pythagorean associates seem to have been elated with this victory, and to have fancied that it was the triumph of their cause, and that they alone were It is possible that these may be the Trazenians mentioned by Aristotle, Pol., v., 2, 10. But it is not so clear from the context as Wesseling (on Diod., xii., 9) represents. + Her., v., 44. The Sybarites consoled themselves with the belief that their conquerors had been also aided by the arms of Dorieus, the younger brother of the Spartan king Cleomenes. + Phylarchus in Athen., xii., p. 521, D. Aristotle in Athen., p. 520, D. Heracl. Pont. in Athen., p. 521 F. Strabo, vi., p. 263. *It seems clear that the conquered land was the princi pal subject of contention. The many desired rv čoporn- On the history of Pythagoras and his society, the principal sources of information are the accounts of his life in Diogenes, Porphyrius, and lamblichus, which, however, require to be read with great caution. They are carefully political character of the society there are some excellent sifted by Ritter in the two works above mentioned. On the remarks in Welcker's Introduction to Theognis, p. xlv.-l. This is also the main subject of Krische's Essay De Scopo, &c., which, though written with a strong bias, will convey more information than Micali's diffuse and rhetorical narrative. We cannot close this slight sketch of the vast and deeply interesting subject treated in the present chapter, without expressing our regret that it has not yet employed some able hand in a separate work worthy of its magnitude and importance. M. Raoul Rochette's history, we are compelled to say, notwithstanding our respect for its industrious and intelligent author, will be chiefly useful to his successor as an example of almost all the faults which he ought to avoid. At least one half of it is a mass of the dullest and most unpoetical fictions, expanded into the empty form of a political history; and in the remainder we should seek in vain for any of the facts which alone render the subject interesting. No view of any social relations enlivens the dry investigation of dates, events, and persons. This, however, is not to be considered as a defect, but as a limit which the author prescribed to himself. But it is to be hoped that some one will be found to undertake and ao CHAPTER XIII. ers passed like a tempest over the land. The fiercest of these were the Treres and the Cim AFFAIRS OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS TO THE YEAR merians, who are so described as to make it B.C. 521. doubtful whether they were distinct nations or branches of the same race. The fragments preserved of the most ancient elegiac poetry express the terror with which the Ionians, and Ephesus in particular, viewed the approach of the Cimmerians, who had taken Sardis, and were encamped with their wagons on the banks of the Cayster, when the Ephesian poet Callinus earnestly implored Jupiter to save his native city from their ferocious host. At a later the Mæander, was utterly destroyed by the Treres, and the cruelty of the savage invaders made the calamity of the ruined city proverbial; but their inroad was only transient, and the next year the Milesians took possession of the vacant site. The Cimmerians, however, afflicted the peninsula during a longer term; and, issuing from their strongholds in the mountains of Paphlagonia, more than once overran the fertile plains of the south. In the reign of Ardys, the successor of Gyges, they again took Sardis, all but the citadel; they were, perhaps, called away by tidings which they may have heard of the still fiercer Scythians, who had entered Asia, it is said, in pursuit of them, of Ardys, Alyattes, was powerful enough finally to deliver Asia from the Cimmerians, about the same time that it was freed by the Medes from the presence of the Scythians. WHILE the Greek colonies on the coast of Asia were flourishing in freedom, commerce, wealth, arts, and arms, a power was growing up by their side, which, strong in their disunion, gradually encroached on their territory, and in the end crushed their independence. Between the foot of Mount Tmolus and the River Hermus, on the right bank of the torrent Pactolus, rises a lofty hill, looking down on a broad and fruitful plain, into which the vales of the Her-period, in the reign of Candaules, Magnesia, on mus and the Cayster open towards the east. This hill, steep on all sides, on one precipitous, had been from very early times the citadel of a race of kings who reigned over the surrounding region, and the city of Sardis had sprung up at its foot. The people whose capital Sardis had become in the period when Grecian history begins to be genuine and connected, were the Lydians; but their settlement in this tract was comparatively recent; for some generations after the Trojan war, the Mæonians, apparently a Pelasgian tribe, occupied the same seats; and the Lydian monarchy seems to have been founded on a conquest, by which the ancient inhabitants were either expelled or subdued. This revolution, however, is nowhere expressly re-along the shores of the Caspian. The grandson corded; it can only be inferred from the silence of Homer as to the Lydians, from the probability that the Mæonians, as most of the other tribes that were scattered over the western side of Asia Minor before the Trojan war, were In the mean while the kings of Lydia were more nearly allied to the Greeks than the Lyd-growing more and more formidable to their ians, and, finally, from the certain fact that, in Greek neighbours. The people was warlike, the period to which the Lydian conquest of yet conversant in the arts of peace, and ready Mæonia, if admitted, must be referred, great to profit by Grecian inventions, as well as to changes frequently occurred in the population blend Grecian usages with their native Asiatic of this part of Asia. Herodotus only explains manners. The country was rich, especially in the later name of the country, by relating that the precious metals, and it was from the Lydithe Mæonian people came to be called Lydians ans that the Ionians first learned the art of after Lydus, son of Atys; but, according to his coining them. It is possible that they were calculation, this event must have happened be- also indebted to them, if not for the art, for the fore the Trojan war; for the dynasty of the earliest materials of writing. The farther the Heracleids, which succeeded the descendants Lydians pushed their conquests into the heart of Lydus, is said to have reigned five hundred of Asia, the more impatient they naturally grew years before it gave way to that of the Merm- of being separated from the sea, and the more nadæ, the beginning of which precedes the sev- ambitious of subjecting the flourishing cities on enth century before our era. It is probable, the coast to their empire. The incursions of though only to be received as a conjecture, the northern barbarians long thwarted their that the accession of this last dynasty ought to plans, and for a time preserved the independbe considered as the real foundation of the ence of the Greek colonies; but when they had proper Lydian monarchy, and that this is the rid themselves of this obstacle, there was no historical substance of the tradition that Gyges, power in the west of Asia that could any longer the first of the Mermnadæ, dethroned his mas- bar their progress. Gyges is said to have taken ter Candaules. He is said to have been aided Colophon, and to have invaded the territories by Carian auxiliaries, and the Carians looked of Smyrna and Miletus. He made himself masupon the Lydians as a kindred race, and ac- ter of the whole of the Troas, and the Milesians knowledged Lydus as the brother of Car, as were obliged to obtain his permission before they well as of Mysus. founded Abydos on the northern extremity of that region. His son Ardys prosecuted the war, and made himself master of Priené. The third king, Sadyattes, bent his attacks chiefly against Miletus, and his successor Alyattes continued these hostilities. They were not, however, carried on so as either to threaten the safety of the city, or to inflict any deep wound on her prosperity. During eleven successive years, five of which belonged to the reign of Alyattes, * Strabo, xiii., p 590. It is, however, more certain and more important that, with the commencement of this new dynasty, a new period opened for the Asiatic Greeks. Hitherto the inland regions had been continually disturbed by the irruption of Thracian and other barbarous hordes, some of which permanently established themselves, while oth complish something more and better. Perhaps a greater number of particular histories monographies, as the Germans call them-is wanted to prepare a foundation. with his father in the government, and, perhaps, flushed with recent victory, when he warned him of the inconstancy of fortune, and disclosed to him the secret of human happiness. Croesus became king at the age of thirty-five (B.C. 560), and now, at least, if not before, he accomplished all that his father had undertaken. He began by laying siege to Ephesus, which was then ruled by the tyrant Pindarus, whose mother was a daughter of Alyattes. By his advice the citizens commended their town to the protection of their tutelary goddess, by fasten ing a rope between its walls and those of her temple, which stood nearly a mile off. Croesus is said to have treated them with great lenity, but to have compelled Pindarus to resign his power to his son.* With like success, he at tacked, one after another, all the Greek cities on the continent that still retained their independence. The mildness of the terms he offered, his personal reputation, and the character of his government, may have contributed to make the conquest easy. He was satisfied with a moderate exercise of substantial power, with a tribute which was rather a sign of submission than a sensible burden; but in every other respect he appears to have permitted his new subjects to regulate their own concerns. Where the supreme authority had before been in the hands of one man, the tyrant, sure of protection, would generally be glad to maintain his station, though with a slight sacrifice of dignity, under the safeguard of a powerful prince; and proba the Lydian army marched every summer into the Milesian territory to the sound of festive music, as if for purposes of revelry. It wasted the fruits of the husbandman's labour, but left the houses standing, that he might not be deterred from tilling the land. Beyond this, except when they ventured to meet the enemy in the field, the Milesians suffered no harm; their town was secure from attack, and the sea supplied them with provisions in abundance. It is probable, however, that the Lydian kings reckoned on the effect these inroads might produce in disposing the citizens, when they should grow weary of a lingering war that deprived them of the enjoyment of their gardens and vineyards, to submit to their powerful neighbour. In the twelfth of these yearly expeditions. an accident happened, which, for a time, relieved the city from this vexation. The Lydions had set fire to a field of ripe corn near a temple of Athené; the flames spread till they caught and consumed the sacred building. At the end of the campaign the king fell sick, and, ascribing his illness to the sacrilege committed by his troops, listened to the admonition of the Delphic oracle, which commanded him to repair the insult offered to the sanctuary. This alarm seems to have inclined his thoughts to peace; for it is hardly conceivable that he should have been deceived by the stratagem related by Herodotus.* Miletus was at this time governed by Thrasybulus, who, informed of the oracle that Alyattes had received, made preparations, it is said, to play upon the envoy whom he ex-bly the spirit of freedom was nowhere so active pected from him. A herald came to demand an armistice till the temple should be rebuilt: he was instructed to mark the signs of the famine and distress which the king believed must by this time prevail in the city; but Thrasybulus When Croesus had thus become master of the took such measures that nothing but tokens of whole western coast, he began to cast a longing plenty and rejoicing met his eye. When Aly-eye on the adjacent islands. He was preparing attes heard the report of his messenger, he is Isaid to have been so disheartened that he not only built two new temples in the place of the one burned, but concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with Miletus. After this event, according to the same historian, he reigned more than fifty years, and at last died without gaining any other advantage over the Greeks than the reduction of Smyrna. But in his lifetime his two sons, by different mothers, Cræsus and Pantaleon, disputed the succession, and he declared in favour of Croesus, on whom he is said to have conferred the government of Adramyttium and the plain of Thebe. It may have been at this period that Croesus was engaged in a war, mentioned by Strabo, with the Bithynian prince Prusias, who founded Prusa (Brussa), at the foot of the Mysian Olympus. We also read that Croesus took a share in an expedition which his father made into Caria, though with what success is not recorded. But those who would fain find historical truth in a delightful story told by Herodotus, of a visit paid by Solon to the court of Croesus, are willing to collect from these hints that the Athenian sage, though he could not, on any reasonable calculation, have seen the son of Alyattes on the throne, might have found him associated It should, however, be thought conclusive against the fact, that a similar stratagem is said to have been played off by Bias at Prioné. Diog. Laert., i., 83. that the secure enjoyment of the existing constitution and laws might not seem cheaply purchased by the acknowledgment of dependance on a foreigner. to raise a fleet for the purpose of subduing them, when a wise Greek diverted him from his design, by reminding him that he was about to expose his Lydians to the chances of an unequal conflict, on an element to which they were strangers. He therefore turned his views to a different side, and enlarged his dominions on the main land, till they included all the nations that dwelt westward of the River Halys, the Lycians and Cilicians excepted. The Lydian empire, when it had attained this compass, was the greatest and most flourishing that the Greeks had yet known, otherwise than by distant and uncertain rumour. The fame of Cræsus resounded through Greece. The streams of Lydia were believed to roll over golden sands; the bowels of the mountains to be filled with silver; and as the king's treasure was large, his hand was open: he loved the Greeks, and gladly received them at his court, respected their oracles, and enriched them with magnificent offerings, and was disposed to cultivate the friendship of their leading states. The Lacedæmonians wanted gold to adorn the image of a god, and sent to Sardis to purchase it; Croesus gave them all they required. The Athenian Alcmæon had befriended the king's envoys at Delphi: Cræsus invited him to his capital, and *Herodotus does not mention either Pindarus, or the event of the siege, which can only be collected from the ac counts of Ælian, ii., 26, and Polyænus, vi., 50 |