Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
The largest, tomb of Alyattes, still measures 3400 feet in circumference, and the length of its slope is 650 feet. "What can those strange-looking earth-heaps mean?" said Darius, the leader of the troop, to Prexaspes, Cambyses' envoy, who rode at his side. "They are the graves of former Lydian kings," was the answer.
"The middle one is in memory of the princely pair Panthea and Abradatas, and the largest, that one to the left, was erected to the father of Croesus, Alyattes. It was raised by the tradesmen, mechanics, and girls, to their late king, and on the five columns, which stand on its summit, you can read how much each of these classes contributed to the work. The girls were the most industrious.
Since nothing is said of the Scythians, who had been put forward as the ostensible grounds of quarrel, we may presume that Alyattes retained them. It is further clear that both he and his allies preserved undiminished both their territories and their independence.
A cause of quarrel, however, arose after a while; and the Scyths, disliking their position or distrusting the intentions of their lords towards them, quitted the Median territory, and, marching through a great part of Asia Minor, sought and found a refuge with Alyattes, the Lydian king.
It seems that Alyattes supposed that Thrasybulus had been reduced to great distress by the loss and destruction of provisions and stores in various parts of the country, and that he would soon be forced to yield up his kingdom.
We know nothing of the extent of Lydian power towards the east, unless the suggestions already based on the passage of Herodotus concerning the meeting of Alyattes of Lydia with Kyaxares the Mede on the Halys, some years later than the date of our present survey, are well founded.
Cleodemus said: My friend Niloxenus, it becomes kings to propound and resolve such questions; but the insolence of that barbarian who would have Amasis drink the sea would have been better fitted by such a smart reprimand as Pittacus gave Alyattes, who sent an imperious letter to the Lesbians. He made him no other answer, but to bid him spend his time in eating his hot bread and onions.
This was, in fact, the case; but Thrasybulus determined to disguise his real condition, and to destroy, by an artifice, all the hopes which Alyattes had formed from the supposed scarcity in the city.
"Periander, son of Cypselus, had sent three hundred youths of the noblest young men of the Corcyraeans to Alyattes, at Sardis; for the purpose of emasculation." Herodotus, iii, chapter 48.
The largest, tomb of Alyattes, still measures 3400 feet in circumference, and the length of its slope is 650 feet. "What can those strange-looking earth-heaps mean?" said Darius, the leader of the troop, to Prexaspes, Cambyses' envoy, who rode at his side. "They are the graves of former Lydian kings," was the answer.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking