A.C. 502.

After the battle of Thymbra between Cyrus and Croesus, which was one of the most considerable events in antiquity, as it passed the empire of Asia from the Assyrians of Babylon to the Persians, Cyrus, the conqueror, marched directly upon Sardis, the capital of Lydia. According to Herodotus, Croesus did not believe that Cyrus meant to shut him up in the city, and therefore marched out to give him battle. He says the Lydians were the bravest people in Asia. Their principal strength consisted in their cavalry; and Cyrus, in order to render this force ineffective, caused his camels to advance against the horse; and the latter animals, having an instinctive dread or dislike for the former, would not face them. The horsemen dismounted and fought on foot; after an obstinate contest, the Lydians were forced to retreat into their capital city, Sardis, which Cyrus immediately besieged, causing his engines to be brought up and his scaling-ladders to be prepared, as if he meant to take it by assault. But this was a feint; he had been made acquainted with a private way into the city by a Persian slave, who had formerly been in the service of the governor, and at night he quietly made himself master of the citadel. At break of day, he entered the city without resistance. Perceiving that the Chaldeans quitted their ranks and began to disperse themselves, his first care was to prevent the city from being plundered. To effect this required nothing less than the perfect ascendancy which Cyrus had obtained over his troops. He informed the citizens that the lives of themselves and their children, with the honour of their women, were perfectly safe, provided they brought him all their gold and silver. This condition they readily complied with, and Croesus, the proverbially richest man in the world, was one of the first to lay his wealth at the foot of the conqueror. The siege of Sardis has nothing remarkable in it, except the change of empires which followed it; but there are several anecdotes connected with it, which our young readers would not forgive us for omitting.

When Cyrus had given all proper directions concerning the city, he had a private conversation with the king, of whom he asked what he now thought of the oracle of Delphi, and of the god who presided over it, whom Croesus held in great veneration. Croesus acknowledged that he had justly incurred the indignation of that god, by having shown a distrust of the truth of his answers, and by having put him to the trial by an absurd and ridiculous question; and he then added, that he had still no reason to complain of him, for that, having consulted him that he might know what to do in order to lead a happy life, the oracle had given him as answer, that he should enjoy a perfect and lasting happiness when he had come to the knowledge of himself. “For want of this knowledge,” said he, “and believing myself, through the excessive praises bestowed upon me, to be something very different from what I am, I accepted the title of generalissimo of the whole army, and unadvisedly engaged in war against a prince infinitely my superior in all respects. But now that I am instructed by my defeat, and begin to know myself, I believe that I am going to be happy; and if you prove favourable to me,—and my fate is in your hands,—I shall certainly be so.” Cyrus, touched with compassion at the misfortunes of the king, who was fallen in a moment from so great an elevation, and admiring his equanimity under such a reverse of fortune, treated him with a great deal of clemency and kindness, suffering him to enjoy both the title and authority of king, under the restriction of not having the power to make war; which was, as Croesus said, relieving him of the great burden of royalty, and leaving him the power of leading a happy life. Thenceforward Cyrus took him with him upon all his expeditions, either out of esteem for him, and to have the benefit of his counsels, or out of policy, and to be more secure of his person. We consider this to have been a sad realization of poor Croesus’s dream of happiness.

There are other wonders connected with this event, about which we can only say that great historians have related them. For our own parts, we are not so sceptical regarding the remote events of history as some readers and authors are. We see, constantly, matters that must some day belong to history, put in as false a light by the passions and interests of contemporaries, as if they were viewed through the mist of past ages. Again, that which is wonderful is not necessarily untrue. When Marco Paolo returned from his long pilgrimage, his accounts were all received as fables; now, almost all of them prove to be bare truth. We shall never reject a story told by a respectable historian, on account of its being a little miraculous, provided it be amusing, instructive, and elevating, and at the same time a thing with which well-educated youth ought to be acquainted.

The only son Croesus had living was dumb. This young prince, seeing a soldier about to cut down the king, whom he did not know, with his scimitar, made such a violent effort to save his father’s life, that he broke the string which had confined his tongue, and cried out,—“Soldier! spare the life of Croesus!”

The account of Cyrus’s conversation, given above, is from Xenophon’s CyropÆdia; the following, which greatly differs from the circumstances attending it, is from Herodotus.—How are we to choose? The CyropÆdia is by some writers looked upon as little more than a romance; and Herodotus abounds in apocryphal stories.

Croesus being a prisoner, was condemned by the conqueror to be burnt alive. Accordingly, the funeral pile was prepared, and the unhappy prince, having been laid thereon, and on the point of execution, recollecting the conversation he had formerly had with Solon, was wofully convinced of the truth of that philosopher’s admonition, and in remembrance thereof, cried out three times,—“Solon! Solon! Solon!” Cyrus, who with his court was present, was curious to know why Croesus pronounced the name of that philosopher with so much vehemence in his extremity. “Mighty king,” replied Croesus, “when Solon in search of wisdom visited my court, I tried every means to dazzle him, and impress upon him the immense extent of my wealth. When I had displayed it all before him, I asked which man in all his travels he had found the most truly happy, expecting, after what he had seen, he would name me. But he replied, ‘One Tellus, a citizen of Athens, a very honest and good man, who, after having lived all his days without indigence, having always seen his country in a flourishing condition, has left children who are universally esteemed, has had the satisfaction of seeing those children’s children, and at last died gloriously in fighting for his country.’ I was surprised to find that my gold and silver had so little weight; but, supposing I at least might claim the next rank, I asked him, ‘Who of all he had seen was most happy after Tellus?’ Solon replied,—‘Cleobis and Biton, two brothers, of Argos, who had left behind them a perfect pattern of fraternal affection, and of the respect due from children to parents. Upon a solemn festival, when their mother, a priestess of Juno, was to go to the temple, the oxen that were to have drawn her not being ready, the two sons put themselves into the yoke and drew their mother’s chariot thither, a distance of five miles. The mothers of the place, ravished with admiration, congratulated the priestess upon having such sons. She, in the transports of her joy and thankfulness, earnestly entreated the goddess to reward her children with the best thing Heaven can bestow. Her prayers were heard. When the sacrifice was over, her two sons fell asleep in the temple, and there died in a soft and sweet slumber. In honour of their piety, the people of Argos consecrated statues to them in the temple of Delphi.’ ‘What then,’ said I, in a tone of discontent, ‘you do not reckon me amongst the happy at all?’ Solon replied, calmly: ‘King of Lydia, the gods have given us Grecians a spirit of moderation and reserve, which has produced amongst us a plain, popular kind of philosophy, accompanied with a certain generous freedom, void of pride or ostentation, and therefore not well suited to the courts of kings. This philosophy, considering what an infinite number of vicissitudes and accidents the life of man is liable to, does not allow us to glory either in any prosperity we enjoy ourselves, or to admire happiness in others, which perhaps may prove only transient or superficial. The life of man seldom exceeds seventy years, which make up in all six thousand two hundred and fifty days, of which no two are exactly alike; so that the time to come is nothing but a series of various accidents which cannot be foreseen. Therefore, in our opinion, no man can be esteemed happy but he whose happiness the gods continue to the end of his life; as for others, who are perpetually exposed to a thousand dangers, we account their happiness as uncertain as the crown is to a person engaged in battle who has not yet won the victory.’”

Upon hearing this, Cyrus reflected upon the uncertainty of sublunary things, and was touched with compassion for the prince’s misfortunes. He caused him to be taken from the pile, and treated him as long as he lived with kindness and respect. Thus had Solon the honour of saving the life of one king, and of giving a wholesome lesson of instruction to another.

SECOND SIEGE, A.C. 502.

Under the reign of Darius Ochus, the Athenians, seduced by the persuasions of Aristagoras, embarked in an ill-fated expedition against the city of Sardis. We say ill-fated, although they burnt the city, with the exception of the citadel, because this unprovoked attack was the source of all the subsequent wars between Greece and Persia, which produced so many calamities to both countries. The city being principally built of reeds, was soon fired, and as quickly destroyed; but the citadel proved impregnable. The Lydians and Persians, highly exasperated, drove the Athenians and Ionians back to Ephesus, and destroyed many of their ships. Darius being informed of the burning of Sardis, and of the part the Athenians had taken in the affair, resolved from that time to make war upon Greece; and, that he might never forget this resolution, he commanded one of his officers to cry out to him with a loud voice, every night, when he was at supper: “Sire, remember the Athenians!” In the burning of Sardis, a temple of Cybele, the peculiar goddess of that country, was consumed, which was the reason the Persians, in their invasions of Greece, destroyed every sacred edifice that fell in their power.