his friend and most loyal counsellor; he accepted from him the fief of
Barênê in Media, often accompanied him in his campaigns, and on more
than one occasion was of great service to him by the wise advice which
he gave.

We may well ask what would have taken place had he gained the decisive
victory over Cyrus that he hoped. Chaldæa possessed merely the semblance
of her former greatness and power, and if she still maintained her hold
over Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and parts of Arabia, it was because
these provinces, impoverished by the Assyrian conquest, and entirely
laid waste by the Scythians, had lost the most energetic elements
of their populations, and felt themselves too much enfeebled to
rise against their suzerain. Egypt, like Chaldæa, was in a state of
decadence, and even though her Pharaohs attempted to compensate for the
inferiority of their native troops by employing foreign mercenaries,
their attempts at Asiatic rule always issued in defeat, and just as the
Babylonian sovereigns were unable to reduce them to servitude, so they
on their part were powerless to gain an advantage over the sovereigns of
Babylon. Hence Lydia, in her youth and vigour, would have found little
difficulty in gaining the ascendency over her two recent allies, but
beyond that she could not hope to push her success; her restricted
territory, sparse population, and outlying position would always have
debarred her from exercising any durable dominion over them, and though
absolute mistress of Asia Minor, the countries beyond the Taurus were
always destined to elude her grasp. If the Achæmenian, therefore, had
confined himself, at all events for the time being, to the ancient
limits of his kingdom, Egypt and Chaldæa would have continued to
vegetate each within their respective area, and the triumph of Croesus
would, on the whole, have caused but little change in the actual balance
of power in the East.