18 Croesus Attacks Cappadocia (§§71-78)

While Croesus is preparing to attack Cyrus and the Persians, a man regarded as wise and, afterwards, very famous indeed (as Herodotus puts it), Sandanis, advises Croesus not to go to war. His argument is that the Persians have nothing worth the risk: they wear leather pants, drink water, not wine, and have nothing good to eat.^[1] If Lydia should lose, the Persians would be hard to displace, for having tasted the good things of Lydia, they would struggle to keep them. Sandanis, who seems to under­ stand his king’s motives (the only motive that Herodotus has so far attrib­uted to Croesus is that of preempting a strike from Persia), clearly thinks that his king will respond to the observation that the material gain is value­ less. He does not convince Croesus (71). And now Herodotus fills out the panoply of motives (73): the king longs for more territory, he trusts the oracle, and he wants to take vengeance on Cyrus for wrongs done to Astyages, Croesus’s brother-in-law. The “later” Herodotus spoke of—when Sandanis became very famous—must be when Cyrus, in accordance with Croesus’s advice, has transformed Lydia from a warlike nation into a peaceful nation of shopkeepers (1.155-56); it is then that the Lydians probably realize Sandanis’s wisdom and afford him his enhanced reputa­tion.

Sandanis seems to be suggesting that if the Persians had desirable luxury items, then it would a good idea to conquer them. He does, after all, express his gladness and gratitude to the gods that the Persians haven’t had the idea to attack Lydia. We should observe that Herodotus himself is endorsing Sandanis’s view of what justifies war. But here and elsewhere, when he discusses barbarian motives for war, he is characterizing the parties. The key idea here is that conquest for the sake of luxuries was approved by the Lydians; conquest for vengeance and mere arid territory was not approved. Later, the Persian monarch Darius will be characterized by the motives that stir him. Consider Atossa’s speech and the arguments by which she tries to persuade Darius (3.134):

My lord, you have very great power and yet you sit idle. You have not added any nation or power to the empire of Persia. It is but right for a man who is young and is master of great wealth to achieve something for all to see, that the Persians may know that he who rules them is truly a man. Indeed, there is a double benefit in such a course; the Persians will know that their leader is a man, and also they themselves will be worn down by the war and will not plot against you—as they might, were they at leisure.

What delightful arguments! Darius should consent to send his people to war, in which many, many will be killed, for no other reasons than to impress them with his manliness and to keep them too busy to plot against him.^[2] In the lines following the quoted passage, she adds as a reason for attacking Greece in particular, as distinct from Scythia, her desire to have Greek servants.

We might append one last word about Sandanis. He has thanked the gods that Persia had no plans to attack Lydia. His view of the geopolitical situation is considerably different therefore from Croesus’s and is much less sophisticated. We shall learn later from Herodotus himself that the Persians are indeed committed to conquest and are by no means satisfied with their lot. It is, perhaps, significant that Sandanis’s good reputation later is among the Lydians; they are no doubt considering the disastrous result of the conflict upon themselves rather than the objective excellence of his advice.

The effect on Herodotus’s audience of all these scenes about going to war naturally would be to provoke some reflection on their own war motives. They should contrast themselves with the Lydians and the Persians and ask whether their war is sensible. Over and over again, throughout the text, Herodotus will prompt his audience to such reflection.

Before describing the battle itself, Herodotus pauses to fill in some of the geographical details about the extent of the Lydian and Persian domains and about the considerable distances involved. He also wants to fill in the details about Croesus’s relationship with Astyages. The way Herodotus tells the story the details bring no credit to anyone, and it does not require much perspicacity to see through the façade of the motives that Croesus alleged.

When Cyaxares was king of Media, a group of Scythians came to him as suppliants and were received so well that Cyaxares entrusted to their care some Median children to learn their language and their skill in archery. The Scythians made a practice of hunting for the king and returning with gifts of game. One day, because they returned empty-handed, the king showed his bad temper and scolded them very harshly. The Scythians, in revenge for the harsh rebuke, took one of the Median lads entrusted to their care, chopped him up, dressed him as if he were game, and fed him to Cyaxares. Meanwhile the Scythians fled to Croesus’s father Alyattes appealing as suppliants for protection. When Alyattes refused to surrender the suppliants to Cyaxares, a war lasting five years broke out between the Medes and Lydians. In the sixth year of the war there occurred an eclipse that frightened both parties into making peace. Mediating between the combatants were Syennesis the Cilician and Labynetus the Babylonian,^[3] who argued that agreements needed strong ties to persist and suggested a dynastic marriage between Croesus’s sister and Astyages.

The tale brings discredit to all the participants:^[4] Cyaxares certainly is guilty of unseemly temper, but the Scythians’ behavior is a violation of all standards of civilized life; Alyattes is guilty of offering protection to individuals wholly unworthy, though, perhaps, since they have come as suppliants he is less guilty than the others. That an eclipse frightened both sides into peace perhaps is intended to contrast the parties with the Greeks, one of whom-Thales-predicted it.^[5] For if a wise Greek philosopher can predict an eclipse, surely it is rather a phenomenon of nature to be studied than a portent of the gods to be feared.

In addition, as Cyrus is Astyages’s grandson as well as a victim of Astyages’s cruelty, if Croesus had any respect for justice, he would have declined to wage war against Cyrus. But Croesus’s motives are, I believe, meant to be seen as superficial and as mere pretexts for conquest. The historian reminds us (1.75) that Croesus continues to think about the oracle, which confirms his confidence; his confidence, mingled with his greed, constitutes his real motive.^[6]

Herodotus believes that Croesus brought his army over the Halys River on bridges. Still, he tells in great detail the story, attributed to Greeks, that Thales, who was in Croesus’s camp, dug trenches that divided the river and thereby so weakened it that the army could easily ford it.^[7] As we have seen earlier, when Herodotus tells stories that he does not believe, he nevertheless deliberately conveys an impression that lingers in his audience’s mind. Here he is able to introduce the motif of abusing bodies of water, a motif that will recur throughout the History and always announce doom to those who are guilty. The most famous case is of course that of Xerxes, whose lashing of the Hellespont receives its due in defeats in a series of sea-battles.^[8] The motif features an appropriate punishment because it too involves water. One reason Herodotus may not believe that Croesus actually divided the Halys is that Croesus was defeated in land battles involving no water and thus seemed to avoid the usual suffering that came to those who violated the sanctity of water.^[9]

Croesus crosses into Cappadocia, to a place called Pteria. There he captures the main city, enslaves the people, captures the neighboring towns, and drives the Syrians from their homes, even though, Herodotus points out, they had done no harm to him (1.76), The insertion of this comment shows, I think, the historian’s moral disapproval of Croesus, and though Croesus is in general portrayed sympathetically, his injustice here distances him from the audience. Once again Herodotus gives the lie to Croesus’s “honorable” motives. Surely the historian is decrying just the kind of behavior we see so often in Athens, the kind later immortalized in the Melian dialogue of Thucydides.

Herodotus has spent many pages preparing us for the climactic confron­tations between Croesus and Cyrus. Yet the whole first battle is waged in less than three sentences. Indeed, it is introduced as the second half of a sentence that records Cyrus’s inability to secure the Ionians as allies (1.76):

Now, on the one hand, the Ionians were not persuaded, so Cyrus, on the other hand, came and encamped opposite Croesus, and there in Pterian land they made trial according to the strength of each other. The battle being fierce and many falling on both sides, in the end, they desisted, neither winning and night coming on. Both armies had struggled hard.

How different from a richly detailed description of a battle in Homer! Perhaps Herodotus prefers to give the sketchiest of accounts rather than provide embellishment or glory to unknown barbarians. Whatever the motive, he clearly he does not think the details important for his message or his story.

A more significant consideration, however, is this: in epic, as in  cine­matic presentations, the audience spends its time watching the actions themselves, and in the imitations of the actions the audience has its emotions stirred up. The stirring up of emotions is indeed the principal function of art. But Herodotus’s purpose here is very different: he is discussing the fate of nations and empires; what matters here are results, outcomes, and, that we may understand these, the causes and sources of responsibility. But the actual warfare, like the actual responses of Solon when he gazed on Croesus’s treasures, are not strictly necessary to the description of either causes or outcomes. The History aims at a reflective response, and thus, throughout the History, Herodotus aims at giving the reader a degree of aloofness from all the characters, that there be little identification with any figures and consequently a greater possibility of objective reasoning. In aiming at objective fairness Herodotus is trying something startlingly new, different from the personal identification we have with the characters in epic and the intensely personal feelings we share with the writers of lyric.

The king, Herodotus tells us, blames his defeat on Cyrus’s greater number of troops, so he resolves to gather his allies to try again the next spring to defeat Cyrus. Having sent messengers to enlist the allies, Sparta, Egypt, and Babylon, he dismisses his mercenaries. It does not occur to him that Cyrus will march on Sardis, doubtless because he is encouraged by the oracle predicting success.

While Croesus is thinking about these things, a great portent occurs in Sardis: part of the city is filled with snakes, which grazing horses come and eat. Croesus, ever ready to rely on interpreters, sends to Telmessians (for they had the gift of divination) for an explanation, but their response will reach Croesus when he has already been taken prisoner. Nevertheless, their response accurately predicts Croesus’s downfall: the snake is a native, the horse an enemy and newcomer to the land. Since, in a sense, Croesus will be betrayed by his own horses, there is irony in the pronouncement. Snakes are generally seen as more menacing than horses; there is something eerie about having benignant horses devour snakes. One might wonder whether there be a submerged warning for Athens in Herodotus’s inclusion of this particular omen: the snake is a holy symbol of Athena, “whose fosterling Erechtheus is ‘earth-born’ and snake-like in form;”^[10] her serpent might fail her too. In any case, as the response from the Telmessians does not arrive till later, it is included to affirm the validity of omens, a validity stressed in Herodotus’s report that the Telmessians delivered the response before knowing what had happened in Sardis.