* Herodotus makes the attempted corruption of the Ionians to
     date from the beginning of the war, even before Cyrus took
     the field.

** The author followed by Pompeius Trogus has alone preserved the record of this treaty.  The fact is important as explaining Croesus’ behaviour after his defeat, but Schubert goes too far when he re-establishes on this ground an actual campaign of Cyrus against Babylon:  Radet has come back to the right view in seeing only a treaty made with Nabonidus.

As soon as peace was proposed, he accepted terms, without once considering the danger to which the Lydians were exposed by his defection.  The Persian king raised his camp as soon as all fear of an attack to rearward was removed, and, falling upon defenceless Phrygia, pushed forward to Sardes in spite of the inclemency of the season.  No movement could have been better planned, or have produced such startling results.  Croesus had disbanded the greater part of his feudal contingents, and had kept only his body-guard about him, the remainder of his army—­natives, mercenaries, and allies—­having received orders not to reassemble till the following spring.  The king hastily called together all his available troops, both Lydians and foreigners, and confronted his enemies for the second time.  Even under these unfavourable conditions he hoped to gain the advantage, had his cavalry, the finest in the world, been able to take part in the engagement.  But Cyrus had placed in front of his lines a detachment of camels, and the smell of these animals so frightened the Lydian horses that they snorted and refused to charge.*

* Herodotus’ mention of the use of camels is confirmed, with various readings, by Xenophon, by Polysenus, and by AElian; their employment does not necessarily belong to a legendary form of the story, especially if we suppose that the camel, unknown before in Asia Minor, was first introduced there by the Persian army.  The site of the battle is not precisely known.  According to Herodotus, the fight took place in the great plain before Sardes, which is crossed by several small tributaries of the Hermus, amongst others the Hyllus.  Radet recognises that the Hyllus of Herodotus is the whole or part of the stream now called the Kusu-tchai, and he places the scene of action near the township of Adala, which would correspond with Xenophon’s Thymbrara.  This continues to be the most likely hypothesis.  After the battle Croesus would have fled along the Hermus towards Sardes.  Xenophon’s story is a pure romance.

Croesus was again worsted on the confines of the plain of the Hermus, and taking refuge in the citadel of Sardes, he despatched couriers to his allies in Greece and Egypt to beg for succour without delay.  The Lacedaemonians hurried on the mobilisation of their troops, and their vessels were on the point of weighing anchor, when the news arrived that Sardes had fallen in the early days of December, and that Croesus himself was a prisoner.* How the town came to be taken, the Greeks themselves never knew, and their chroniclers have given several different accounts of the event.**