* Thrasybulus’ stratagem is said to have taken place at Priene by Diogenes Laertes and by Polysenus.  The war begins under Ardys, lasts for five years under Sadyattes, instead of the six years which Herodotus attributes to it, and five years under Alyattes.

Alyattes rewarded the oracle by the gift of a magnificent bowl, the work of Glaucus of Chios, which continued to be shown to travellers of the Roman period as one of the most remarkable curiosities of Delphi.  Alyattes continued his expeditions against the other Greek colonies, but directed them prudently and leisurely, so as not to alarm his European friends, and provoke the formation against himself of a coalition of the Hellenic communities shattered over the isles or along the littoral of the AEgean.  We know that towards the end of his reign he recovered Colophon, which had been previously acquired by Gyges, but had regained its independence during the Cimmerian crisis;* he razed Smyrna to the ground, and forced its inhabitants to occupy unfortified towns, where his suzerainty could not be disputed;** he half devastated Clazomense, whose citizens saved it by a despairing effort, and he renewed the ancient alliances with Ephesus, Kyme, and the cities of the region of the Caicus and the Hellespont,*** though it is impossible to attribute an accurate date to each of these particular events.

* Polysenus tells the story of the trick by which Alyattes, after he had treated with the people of Colophon, destroyed their cavalry and seized on their town.  The fact that a treaty was made seems to be confirmed by a fragment of Phylarchus, and the surrender of the town to the Lydians by a fragment of Xenophanes, quoted in Athenseus.  Schubert does not seem to believe that the town was taken by Alyattes; I have adopted the opinion of Ladet on this point.

** Herodotus and Nicolas of Damascus confine themselves to relating the capture of the city; adds that the Lydians compelled the inhabitants to dwell in unfortified towns.  Schubert thinks that the passage in Strabo refers, not to the time of Alyattes, but to a subsequent event in the fifth century; he relies for this opinion on a fragment of Pindar, which represents Smyrna as still flourishing in his time.  But, as Busolt has pointed out, the intention of the text of Pindar is to represent the state of the city at about the time of Homer’s birth, and not in the fifth century.

*** The peace between Ephesus and Lydia must have been troubled for a little while in the reign of Sadyattes, but it was confirmed under Alyattes by the marriage of Melas II. with one of the king’s daughters.

Most of them had already taken place or were still proceeding when the irruption of the Medes across the Halys obliged him to concentrate all his energies on the eastern portion of his kingdom.