herodotus

dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continuedto endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought forremedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devisedanother thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playingwith the dice and the knucklebones and the ball, and all the othergames excepting draughts (for the discovery of this last is notclaimed by the Lydians). These games they invented as a resourceagainst the famine, and thus they used to do:--on one of the days theywould play games all the time in order that they might not feel thewant of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and hadfood: and thus they went on for eighteen years. As however the evildid not slacken but pressed upon them ever more and more, thereforetheir king divided the whole Lydian people into two parts, and heappointed by lot one part to remain and the other to go forth from theland; and the king appointed himself to be over that one of the partswhich had the lot to stay in the land, and his son to be over thatwhich was departing; and the name of his son was Tyrsenos. So the oneparty of them, having obtained the lot to go forth from the land, wentdown to the sea at Smyrna and built ships for themselves, wherein theyplaced all the movable goods which they had and sailed away to seekfor means of living and a land to dwell in; until after passing bymany nations they came at last to the land of the Ombricans,[109] andthere they founded cities and dwell up to the present time: andchanging their name they were called after the king's son who led themout from home, not Lydians but Tyrsenians, taking the name from him.*****The Lydians then had been made subject to the Persians as I say: 95,and after this our history proceeds to inquire about Cyrus, who he wasthat destroyed the empire of Crœsus, and about the Persians, in whatmanner they obtained the lead of Asia. Following then the report ofsome of the Persians,--those I mean who do not desire to glorify thehistory of Cyrus but to speak that which is in fact true,--accordingto their report, I say, I shall write; but I could set forth also theother forms of the story in three several ways.The Assyrians ruled Upper Asia[110] for five hundred and twenty years,and from them the Medes were the first who made revolt. These havingfought for their freedom with the Assyrians proved themselves goodmen, and thus they pushed off the yoke of slavery from themselves andwere set free; and after them the other nations also did the same asthe Medes: and when all on the continent were thus independent, theyreturned again to despotic rule as follows:--96. There appeared amongthe Medes a man of great ability whose name was Deïokes, and this manwas the son of Phraortes. This Deïokes, having formed a desire for