Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/274

 258 HISTORY OF GREECE. Croesus obtained the throne, at the death of his father, by ap- pointment from the latter. But there was a party among the Lydians who had favored the pretensions of Lis brother Paiita- leon ; one of the richest chiefs of which party was put to death afterwards by the new king, under the cruel torture of a spiked carding-machine, his property confiscated. 1 The aggressive reign of Croesus, lasting fourteen years (559-545 B. c.), formed a marked contrast to the long quiescence of his father during a reign of fifty-seven years. Pretences being easily found for war against the Asiatic Greeks, Croesus attacked them one after the other. Unfortunately, we know neither the particulars of these successive aggressions, nor the previous history of the Ionic cities, so as to be able to explain how it was that the fifth of the Mermnad kings of Sardis met with such unqualified success, in an enterprise which his prede- cessors had attempted in vain. Miletus alone, with the aid of Chios, had resisted Alyattes and Sadyattes for eleven years, and Croesus possessed no naval force, any more than his father and grandfather. But on this occasion, not one of the towns can have displayed the like individual energy. In regard to the Mi- lesians, we may perhaps suspect that the period now under con- sideration was comprised in that long duration of intestine con- flict which Herodotus represents (though without defining exactly when) to have crippled the forces of the city for two generations, and which was at length appeased by a memorable decision of some arbitrators invited from Paros. These latter, called in by mutual consent of the exhausted antagonist parties at Miletus, found both the city and her territory in a state of general neglect and ruin. But on surveying the lands, they discovered some which still appeared to be tilled with undiminished diligence and skill ; to the proprietors of these lands they consigned the gov- ernment of the town, in the belief that they would manage the public affairs with as much success as their own. 2 Such a state 1 Herodot. i, 92. TU fiufaara ardaci. Alyattes reigned fifty-seven years, and the vigorous resistance which the M'lesians offered to him took place in the first six years of his reign. The ' two generations of intestine dissension" may well have succeeded after thf
 * Herodot. v, 28. KarvKeptie 6s rovreuv, ini duo yeveaf uvdpui vorijouoa