** Alyattes had been the ally of Periander, as is proved by
an anecdote in Herodotus. This friendship continued under
Crosus, for after the fall of the monarchy, when the special
treasuries of Lydia were suppressed, the ex-voto offerings
of the Lydian kings were deposited in the treasury of
Corinth.

*** According to Theopompus, the Lacedaemonians, wishing to
gild the face of the statue of the Amyclsean, Apollo, and
finding no gold in Greece, consulted the Delphian
prophetess: by her advice they sent to Lydia to buy the
precious metal from Croesus.

This, however, constituted merely one side of his policy, and the
negotiations which he carried on with his western neighbours were
conducted simultaneously with his wars against those of the east.
Alyattes had asserted his supremacy over the whole of the country on the
western side of the Halys, but it was of a very vague kind, having no
definite form, and devoid of practical results as far as several of the
districts in the interior were concerned. Croesus made it a reality, and
in less than ten years all the peoples contained within it, the Lycians
excepted--Mysians, Phrygians, Mariandynians, Paphlagonians, Thynians,
Bithynians, and Pamphylians--had rendered him homage. In its
constitution his empire in no way differed from those which at that time
shared the rule of Western Asia; the number of districts administered
directly by the sovereign were inconsiderable, and most of the states
comprised in it preserved their autonomy. Phrygia had its own princes,
who were descendants of Midas,* and in the same way Caria and Mysia
also retained theirs; but these vassal lords paid tribute and furnished