BABYLON AND PERSIA

"KURUSH, THE KING, THE AKHMMENIAN."3IIhave dashed the exuberant spirits of the Lydian,whose chief mistake was overweening confidence,and to have thrown him into a confusion and vacil¬lation of which his adversary was too great a generalnot to take advantage. The tardiness of the alliesdid the rest, and Kroisos, owing to the precisionand rapidity of the Persian's movements, was actu¬ally left alone to fight out a war for which he had'thought he could not provide enough assistants. Theend came very quickly ; an outline of the event canbest be gathered (in short passages) from Herodotus'leisurely narrative :"Kroisos laid the blame of his ill success on the number .of histroops which fell very short of the enemy ; and as on the next dayKyros did not repeat the attack, he set off on his return to S.ardis,intending to collect his allies and renew the contest in the spring.He meant to call on the Egyptians to send him aid ... heintended also to summon to his assistance the Babylonians . . .and further he meant lo send word to Sparta. . . . Havmg gottogether these forces in addition to his own, he would, as soon asthe winter was past an.l springtime come, march once more againstthe Persians. With these intentions Kroisos, immediately on hisreturn, despatched heralds to his various allies, with a request thatthey would join him at Sardis i,i the course of the fifth month fromthe time of the departure of his messengers. He then disbandedthe army, consisting of mercenary troops . . . never imaguiingthat Kyros, after a battle in which victory had been so evenly bal¬anced, would venture to m.arch upon Sardis. ..."Kyros, however, when Kroisos broke up so suddenly from hisquarters after the battle, conceiving that he had marched aw.ay withthe intention of disbanding his army, considered a little, and soonsaw that it was advisable for him to advance upon Sardis in alhaste, before the Lydians could get their forces together^ a secondtime. Having thus determined, he lost no time in carrying out hisplan He marched forward with such speed, that he was himselfthe first to announce his coming to the Lydian king. That monarch,