to negotiate an armistice, and that they were soon successful in bringing the rival powers to an agreement.* The Halys remained the recognised frontier of the two kingdoms, but the Lydians probably obtained advantages for their commerce, which they regarded as compensatory for the abandonment of their claim to the district of Pteria.  To strengthen the alliance, it was agreed that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in marriage to Ishtuvigu, or, as the Greeks called him, Astyages, the son of Cyaxares.** According to the custom of the times, the two contracting parties, after taking the vow of fidelity, sealed the compact by pricking each other’s arms and sucking the few drops of blood which oozed from the puncture.***

* The name Labynetos given by Herodotus is a transcript of Nabonidus, but cannot here designate the Babylonian king of that name, for the latter reigned more than thirty years after the peace was concluded between the Lydians and the Medes.  If Herodotus has not made the mistake of putting Labynetos for Nebuchadrezzar, we may admit that this Labynetos was a prince of the royal family, or simply a general who was commanding the Chaldoan auxiliaries of Cyaxares.

** The form Ishtuvigu is given us by the Chaldoan documents.  Its exact transcript was Astuigas, Astyigas, according to Ctosias; in fact, this coincides so remarkably with the Babylonian mode of spelling, that we may believe that it faithfully reproduces the original pronunciation.

*** Many ancient authors have spoken of this war, or at least of the eclipse which brought it to an end.  Several of them place the conclusion of peace not in the reign of Cyaxares, but in that of Astyages—­Cicero, Solinus, and the Armenian Eusebius—­and their view has been adopted by some modern historians.  The two versions of the account can be reconciled by saying that Astyages was commanding the Median army instead of his father, who was too old to do so, but such an explanation is unnecessary, and Cyaxares, though over seventy, might still have had sufficient vigour to wage war.  The substitution of Astyages for Cyaxares by the authors of Roman times was probably effected with the object of making the date of the eclipse agree with a different system of chronology from that followed by Herodotus.

Cyaxares died in the following year (584), full of days and renown, and was at once succeeded by Astyages.  Few princes could boast of having had such a successful career as his, even in that century of unprecedented fortunes and boundless ambitions.  Inheriting a disorganised army, proclaimed king in the midst of mourning, on the morrow of a defeat in which the fate of his kingdom had hung in the balance, he succeeded within a quarter of a century in overthrowing his enemies and substituting his supremacy for theirs throughout the whole of Western Asia.  At his accession Media had occupied only a small portion of the Iranian table-land;