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74.
After this, since Alyattes would not give up the Scythians to Cyaxares at his demand, there was war between the Lydians and the Medes for five years; each won many victories over the other, and once they fought a battle by night.
[2]
They were still warring with equal success, when it happened, at an encounter which occurred in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen.1
[3]
So when the Lydians and Medes saw the day turned to night, they stopped fighting, and both were the more eager to make peace. Those who reconciled them were Syennesis the Cilician and Labynetus the Babylonian;
[4]
they brought it about that there should be a sworn agreement and a compact of marriage between them: they judged that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis to Astyages, son of Cyaxares; for without strong constraint agreements will not keep their force.
[6]
These nations make sworn compacts as do the Greeks; and besides, when they cut the skin of their arms, they lick each other's blood.
1 All evidence, historical and astronomical, fixes the date of this eclipse as May 28, 585 B.C. There was another eclipse of the sun in Alyattes' reign, on Sept. 30, 610; but it appears that this latter was not total in Asia Minor: and Pliny's mention of the phenomenon places it in the 170th year from the foundation of Rome. Thales died at an advanced age in 548 B.C.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (43 total)
- Commentary references to this page (2):
- Cross-references to this page
(15):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.3
- Harper's, Cyaxăres
- Harper's, Persia
- Harper's, Thales
- Harper's, Triŏpas
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CILI´CIA
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter VI
- Smith's Bio, Alyattes
- Smith's Bio, Asty'ages
- Smith's Bio, Cyaxares
- Smith's Bio, Cyaxares
- Smith's Bio, Labyne'tus
- Smith's Bio, Sye'nnesis
- Smith's Bio, Thales
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(26):
- LSJ, Θα^λῆς
- LSJ, ἀναλείχω
- LSJ, ἐξαιτ-έω
- LSJ, ἐξαπι?́ν-ης
- LSJ, ἐπαλλ-α^γή
- LSJ, ἐπιτέμνω
- LSJ, ἐθέλω
- LSJ, εἰρήν-η
- LSJ, γιγνώσκω
- LSJ, ἴσος
- LSJ, ἰσχυ_ρός
- LSJ, μεταβολ-ή
- LSJ, μεταλλ-α^γή
- LSJ, νυκτο-μα^χία
- LSJ, ὅσπερ
- LSJ, ὁμό-χροια
- LSJ, παύω
- LSJ, προα^γορ-εύω
- LSJ, σπεύδω
- LSJ, σύμβα^σις
- LSJ, συμβι^β-άζω
- LSJ, συμβολ-ή
- LSJ, συμφέρω
- LSJ, συμμένω
- LSJ, συνίστημι
- LSJ, τε
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