at the coming of the Lydians and exchanged oaths of friendship and
alliance: for they were bound to Crœsus also by some services rendered
to them even before this time; since the Lacedemonians had sent to
Sardis and were buying gold there with purpose of using it for the
image of Apollo which is now set up on Mount Thornax in the
Lacedemonian land; and Crœsus, when they desired to buy it, gave it
them as a gift. 70. For this reason therefore the Lacedemonians
accepted the alliance, and also because he chose them as his friends,
preferring them to all the other Hellenes. And not only were they
ready themselves when he made his offer, but they caused a mixing-bowl
to be made of bronze, covered outside with figures round the rim and
of such a size as to hold three hundred amphors,[84] and this they
conveyed, desiring to give it as a gift in return to Crœsus. This bowl
never came to Sardis for reasons of which two accounts are given as
follows:--The Lacedemonians say that when the bowl was on its way to
Sardis and came opposite the land of Samos, the men of Samos having
heard of it sailed out with ships of war and took it away; but the
Samians themselves say that the Lacedemonians who were conveying the
bowl, finding that they were too late and hearing that Sardis had been
taken and Crœsus was a prisoner, sold the bowl in Samos, and certain
private persons bought it and dedicated it as a votive offering in the
temple of Hera; and probably those who had sold it would say when they
returned to Sparta that it had been taken from them by the Samians.

71. Thus then it happened about the mixing-bowl: but meanwhile Crœsus,
mistaking the meaning of the oracle, was making a march into
Cappadokia, expecting to overthrow Cyrus and the power of the
Persians: and while Crœsus was preparing to march against the
Persians, one of the Lydians, who even before this time was thought to
be a wise man but in consequence of this opinion got a very great name