Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/247

PHRAORTES.- KYAXARES. 231 band of Scythian nomads, who, having quitted the territory of Kyaxares in order to escape seventies with which they were menaced, had sought refuge as suppliants in Lydia. 1 The war, indecisive as respects success, was brought to its close by a re- markable incident : in the midst of a battle between the Median and Lydian armies, there happened a total eclipse of the sun, which occasioned equal alarm to both parties, and induced them immediately to cease hostilities. 2 The Kilikian prince Syennesis, and the Babylonian prince Labynetus, interposed their mediation, and effected a reconciliation between Kyaxares and Alyattes, one of the conditions of which was, that Alyattes gave his daughter Aryenis in marriage to Astyages son of Kyaxares. In this man- ner began the connection between the Lydian and Median kings which afterwards proved so ruinous to Croesus. It is affirmed that the Greek philosopher Thales foretold this eclipse ; but we may reasonably consider the supposed prediction as not less apo- cryphal than some others ascribed to him, and doubt whether at that time any living Greek possessed either knowledge or scientific capacity sufficient for such a calculation. 3 The eclipse itself, and 1 The passage of such nomadic hordes from one government in the East to another, has been always, and is even down to the present day, a frequent cause of dispute between the different governments : they are valuable both as tributaries and as soldiers. The Turcoman Hats so these nomadic tribes are now called in the north-east of Persia frequently pass backwards and forwards, as their convenience suits, from the Persian territory to the Usbcks of Khiva and Bokhara: wars between Persia and Russia have been in like manner occasioned by the transit of the Hats across the frontier from Persia into Georgia : so also the Kurd tribes near Mount Zagros have caused by their movements quarrels between the Persians and the Turks. See Morier. Account of the Iliyats, or "Wandering Tribes of Persia, in the Journal of the Geographical Society of London, 1837. vol. vii, p. 240, and Carl Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, West-Asien. Band ii, Abtheilung ii. Abschnitt ii, sect. 8, p. 387. 2 Herodot. i, 74-103. 3 Compare the analogous case of the prediction of the coming olive crop ascribed to Thales (Aristot. Polit. i, 4, 5 ; Cicero. De Divinat. i, 3). Anax agoras is asserted to have predicted the fall of an aerolithe (Aristot Metcorol i, 7 ; Pliny, H. N. ii, 58 ; Plutarch. Lysand. c. 5). Thales is said by Herodotus to have predicted that the eclipse would take place "in the year in which it actually did occur," a statement so vague that it strengthens the grounds of doubt. The fondness of the lonians for exhibiting the wisdom of their eminent