Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/211

 REMONSTRANCE OF CKCESUS. 193 As to the general fact of supernatural interposition, in one way or another, Herodotus and Ktesias both agree, though they describe differently the particular miracles wrought. 1 It is cer- tain that Croesus, after some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well as of his son Kambyses : 2 Ktesias also ac- quaints us that a considerable town and territory near Ekbatana, called Barene, was assigned to him, according to a practice which we shall find not unfrequent with the Persian kings. The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians and Lydians, whereliy Croesus is said by Herodotus to have first earned this favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeat- ing ; but the indignant remonstrance sent by Croesus to the Delphian god is too characteristic to be passed over. He obtained permis- sion from Cyrus to lay upon the holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with which he had at first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed, after exhibiting to the god these ' ' Compare Herodot. i, 84-87, and Ktesias, Persica, c. 4 ; which latter ccms to have been copied by Polyasnus, vii, 6, 10. It is remarkable that among the miracles enumerated by Ktesias, no men tion is made of fire or of the pile of wood kindled: we have the chains of Croesus miraculously struck off, in the midst of thunder and lightning, but no fire mentioned. This is deserving of notice, as illustrating the fact that Ktesias derived his information from Persian narrators, who would not be likely to impute to Cyrus the use of (ire for such a purpose. The Persians worshipped fire as a god, and considered it impious to burn a dead body (Herodot. iii, 16). Now Herodotus seems to have heard the story, about the burning, from Lydian informants (Jleyerat VTTO Avduv, Herodot. i, 87) : whether the Lydians regarded fire in the same point of view as the Per- sians, we do not know ; but even if they did, they would not be indisposed to impute to Cyrus an act of gross impiety, just as the Egyptians imputed another act equally gross to Kambyses, which Herodotus himself treats as a falsehood (iii, 16). The long narrative given by Nikolaus Damaskenus of the treatment of Croesus by Cyrus, has been supposed by some to have been borrowed from the Lydian historian Xanthus. elder contemporary of Herodotus. But it Keems to me a mere compilation, not well put together, from Xenophon's Cyropaedia, and from the narrative of Herodotus, perhaps including some pariicular incidents out of Xanthus (see Nikol. Damas. Fragm. ed. Orell. pp, f>7-70, and the Fragments of Xanthus in Didot's Historic. Graecor. Fraga. p. 40). VOL. IT. 9 ISOC.
 * Justin (i, 7) seems to copy Ktesias, about the treatment of Croesus.