this oracle: "Flee and tarry not when a mule[1] shall be king of the Medes." Deeming the accession of a mule to the Persian throne altogether impossible, he inferred the oracle to mean that his empire should last forever.
Thus encouraged in his purpose, Crœsus prepared to make war upon Persia. But he had miscalculated the strength and activity of his enemy. Cyrus marched across the Halys, defeated the Lydian army in the field, and after a short siege captured Sardis; and Lydia became a province of the new Persian empire.
There is a story which tells how Cyrus had caused a pyre to be erected on which to burn Crœsus, but at the last moment was
struck by hearing the unfortunate monarch repeatedly call the name of Solon. Seeking the meaning of this, he was told that Crœsus in his prosperous years was visited by the Greek sage Solon, who, in answer to the inquiry of Crœsus as to whether he did not deem him a happy man, replied, "Count no man happy until he is dead." Cyrus was so impressed with the story, so the legend tells, that he released the captive king, and treated him with the greatest kindness.
This war between Crœsus and Cyrus derives a special importance from the fact that it brought the Persian empire into con-
- ↑ The allusion is to the (traditional) mixed Persian and Median descent of Cyrus.
