contingents to their liege of Sardes, and garrisons lodged in their
citadels as well as military stations or towns founded in strategic
positions, such as Prusa** in Bithynia, Cibyra, Hyda, Grimenothyræ, and
Temenothyræ,*** kept strict watch over them, securing the while free
circulation for caravans or individual merchants throughout the whole
country. Croesus had achieved his conquest just as Media was tottering
to its fall under the attacks of the Persians.

* This is proved by the history of the Prince Adrastus in
Herodotus. Herodotus probably alluded to this colonisation
by Crcesus, when he said that the Mysians of Olympus were
descendants of Lydian colonists.

** Strabo merely says that the Kibyrates were descended from
the Lydians who dwelt in Cabalia; since Croesus was, as far
as we know, the only Lydian king who ever possessed this
part of Asia, Radet, with good reason, concludes that Kibyra
was colonised by him.

*** Radet has given good reasons for believing that at least
some of these towns were enlarged and fortified by Croesus.

Their victory placed the Lydian king in a position of great perplexity,
since it annulled the treaties concluded after the eclipse of 585, and
by releasing him from the obligations then contracted, afforded him an
opportunity of extending the limits within which his father had confined
himself. Now or never was the time for crossing the Halys in order to
seize those mineral districts with which his subjects had so long had
commercial relations; on the other hand, the unexpected energy of which
the Persians had just given proof, their bravery, their desire for