Alyattes' Median War

Alyattes' Median War
Author(s): H. M. T. Cobbe
Source: Hermathena, No. 105 (Autumn 1967), pp. 21-33
Published by: Trinity College Dublin
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23039968
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Alyattes' Median War

by
H. M. T. Cobbe*
I
The war between Alyattes and Media has recently been discussed
in the light of a fragment from Oxyrhynchus published in 1963.1
The problem presented by the fragment is that it seems to mention
a war between Alyattes and, not Cyaxares, as in Herodotus, but
Astyages, implying that either there was a separate war between
Lydia and Media not mentioned in Herodotus or else Astyages took
over command, either as king or as general in place of Cyaxares,
before the war was finished. I propose to show (1) that there was
stronger evidence for such a tradition extant before the papyrus was
discovered than has so far been pointed out; (2) to construct a
coherent outline of events, independent of Herodotus, that may well

have been known to the author of the fragment; (3) to examine the
implications of this account.
There are two interesting passages in Roman literature concerned
with an eclipse, which is said to have been foretold by Thales, in
May 585 B.C.:2
(1) Cicero, De divinatione 1.49/112: ' Et quidem idem (sc.
Thales) defectionem solis, quae Astyage regnante facta est, praedixisse
fertur.'
(2) Pliny, Naturalis historia 2.53: ' Apud Graecos autem invest
igavit primus omnium Thales Milesius Olympiadis XLVIII anno

quarto, praedicto solis defectu qui Alyatte regnante factus est Urbis
conditae anno CLXX.'
One striking similarity between the two passages is that in both

cases the eclipse is associated with a reigning king despite the fact
that Thales, the central figure in both passages, is not known to be
associated with either of the two kings mentioned. In the accounts
that Cicero and Pliny knew, the eclipse was associated with both
Astyages and Alyattesthis is clear if one puts the two passages
* The notes begin on p. 31.
21
H. M. T. Cobbe
togetherbut neither author says why these two kings in particular
should have been associated with it. However a passage of Solinus

relates the two rulers:
(3) Solinus, 15.16: ' Scythae . . . haustu mutui sanguinis foedus
sanciunt non suo tantum more sed Medorum quoque usurpata

disciplina. Bello denique quod gestum est Olympiade nona et quadra
gesima, anno post Ilium captum sexcentesimo quarto, inter Alyatten
Lydum et Astyagen Mediae regem, hoc pacto firmata sunt iura pads.'
So here we have a connexion between Alyattes and Astyages, with
no mention of the eclipse at all. The three passages, when taken

together, form a coherent tradition thus: There was a war between
Alyattes and Astyages, and an eclipse occurred which had been

foretold by Thales; somehow this eclipse was connected with the
war. We can go further than this by examining the dates given by
Pliny and Solinus. Pliny dates the eclipse to OI.48.4, i.e. to 585/4 B.C.
(He is slightly out, however, since May 585 B.C. falls in the Olympic
year 586/5 B.C.OI.48.3but this does not affect the argument

at this stage.) Solinus dates what is presumably the end of the war
and the peace to OI.49 (584/3-581/0), fixing the actual year within
the Olympiad by stating that it was the 604th year after the fall of
Troy. Now it so happens that one of the dates for the fall of Troy
that has come down to us fits in here very wellthe Apollodoran
1184/3 B.C. gives 582/1 B.C.3 Thus we are given a minimum of
three years' duration for the war, this being the interval between the
eclipseat which time the war must have been in progress, for
otherwise there would have been no reason for associating the eclipse
with the two kingsand the peace.4
This is about as far as we can go in reconstruction, using these
three passages alone; however Eusebius' Chronicle also mentions this

war, and can be related to what has been discussed. The entries in
this work that deal with the war, and the Olympic dates under which
they appear, are as follows in the two extant versions (St Jerome's
and the Armenian versionhereafter St J. and AV):
AV5
01.49.2:'Die Sonne ward verfinstert nach Thales des Weisen

Vorauskiindigung. Aliates und Azhadak lieferten eine Schlacht.'
OI.51.2: 'Azhadak lieferte gegen die Lyder einen heftigen
Kampf.'
22
Alyattes' Median war

St J.6
OI.48.3 : ' Solis facta defectio cum futuram earn Thales ante
dixisset.'
01.49.3 : ' Alyattes et Astyages dimicaverunt.'

01.50.4 : ' Astyages contra Lydos pugnat.'
Eusebius' original pattern, so far as the entries, but not the dates,
are concerned, is made clear by placing the two series of entries side
by side; and the resultant pattern is this :
(a) eclipse,
(1b) battle between Astyages and Alyattes,
(c) war waged by Astyages against the Lydians.
However the dates given by the two versions differ considerably, and
they may be expressed in terms of Christian years thus:
AV St J.
Eclipse 582/1 B.C. 586/5 B.C.
Battle 582/1 582/1

War 574/3 577/6
The remarkable point is that St Jerome's dates for the first two
entries correspond closely with the dates for the eclipse and the peace
in Pliny and Solinus respectively,8 and so would appear to come from
the same tradition; consequently we may take it that Eusebius' battle
between Astyages and Alyattesthe middle entry in the series out

lined abovewas the final engagement of the war and marks the
end of it.9 It is also remarkable that AV agrees with St J. in putting
the battle in the year 582/1 B.C., and we may assume that this was
the date given in Eusebius' original text. There is no principle
underlying the variations in the dates given by the two versions, apart
from that outlined in note 7, and so any point of agreement need

not be automatically suspect. The fact that AV puts both the eclipse
and the battle in the same year would naturally lead one to suppose
that Herodotus' eclipse battle is intended.10 However since St J. does
not associate the two events, it seems more likely that this later battle
in Eusebius has been confused with the eclipse battle in Herodotus by
the compiler of AV and that, as a result, the eclipse has been brought
down to the year of the battle to make them coincide.
So far then the Eusebian tradition can be reconciled with that of
Cicero, Pliny and Solinuswhich I shall hereafter call the CPS
tradition for convenience. However there is one entry in the Chronicle

that has so far been neglected, the last entry in both the A V and the
23
H. M. T. Cobbe
St J. series. This mentions an entirely different war which Astyages

waged against the Lydians and is worded in very much the same way
in both versions. Couched in more general terms than the preceding
entry, it definitely seems to imply a second war, begun by Astyages,
taking place after the one already considered. This second war is
dated 574/3 by AV and 577/6 by St /., but these divergent dates
can be reconciled: we have seen that we need have little hesitation
in lowering the St J. date for the eclipse by one year;11 thus the
interval between the eclipse year and the year of the second war
becomes eight years. Now in AV the interval is also eight years, and
so it is likely that in the original text of the Chronicle these two events
were placed eight years apart; it has already been suggested that the
eclipse has been lowered by three years to the same year as the battle
(582/1 B.C.) in AV because of confusion with the eclipse battle. As

a result of this, the lower limit of the period had to be lowered also
in order to preserve the eight year interval; therefore Eusebius' own
date for the second war was probably the one that now appears in
St J.
The preceding argument has, I hope, shown that we have the

outline of a tradition in Eusebius, for the earlier part of which there
is evidence in the CPS tradition also; in other words, that the earlier
three authors between them indicate a coherent tradition which also
appears to lie behind a series of entries in Eusebius; the Eusebian

series, however, goes further in such a way as to make it probable
that it is continuing the same tradition, although this cannot be
confirmed from elsewhere. This tradition, then, has a war in progress
between Astyages and Alyattes at the time of the ' Thales-eclipse',

in OI.48.4. There was a peace three years later, at which the oaths
were consecrated ' haustu mutui sanguinis', but five years after that
Astyages declared war on Lydia, and so the two powers fought once
again.
The origin of the CPS tradition is by no means enshrouded in
mystery. One of the prominent features of the passages in Pliny and

Solinus is that the two authors go out of their way to give a date for
the events they mention. Here, unlike the Eusebian passages where
the whole point of the entry is the date attached to it, the emphasis
lies not on the date but, in the one case, on the eclipse, which is the
topic that Pliny happens to be dealing with at the time, and, in the
other, on the fact that both the Scyths and the Medes consecrate their
oaths in the same way; so it would seem that the two dates were
included because they happened to be readily available in the source
24
that was being used; and, if so, this is a clear hint that this source
was a work of a chronographic nature, presumably hellenistic. The
fact that Eusebius has the same datesand his source cannot have
been anything other than chronographiclends strong support for
this hypothesis. The origin of the CPS tradition is probably to be

ascribed to Apollodorus since, firstly, Solinus synchronises the 604th
year after the fall of Troy with the 49th Olympiad, a combination
that only makes sense in terms of the Apollodoran 1184/3 B.C., as

has already been pointed out; secondly, there is another instance of
Solinus using an Apollodoran date in a Lydian contextfor the fall of
Sardis;12 and thirdly, Apollodorus dated the eclipse to the same year
as Pliny and St J.585 B.C.and used it as the on<nr| on which to
base his dates for Thales.13
Such then is the CP.S'-chronographic tradition dealing with

Alyattes' wars with Media, as it stood in Roman times, and, as has
been shown, it can be traced back at least as far as Apollodorus,
i.e. as far back as the mid-second century B.C.
II
Herodotus mentions the war in three places1.16.2, 1.74 and

1.103.2. In the first passage he simply says that Alyattes fought with
Cyaxares and the Medes, giving no more detail than that; the last
passage is equally brief:
ouros (sc. o Kuaapr|s) o xoTcrt Au8oia( ecrri (jaxecr&nsvos ots vu f]
f|(Jiepr| gyevETO crqn (iaxopivoicri kccI o tt]V "AAuos ttotcxijoO avco 'Acririv
Traaav avorrio-as iaurw.
This passage is a back reference to the second of the three passages

with which we are concerned, where the main account of the war
appears1.73.3 f-14 This main account is in fact introduced as a
parenthesis to explain why Croesus felt impelled to avenge Astyages,
rather than in its proper chronological place in 1.16. This displace
ment may be due to Herodotus' artistic arrangement of his work, or
else to an afterthought, a realisation that the war needed more detailed
treatment than he had supposed, because of its significance in relation
to Croesus' attitude to Cyrus.

The passage at 1.73.3 f- gives a cause for the war, a brief outline
of its course and some remarks on its conclusion. The cause of the
war was closely connected with a band of Scyths. Now there is very
likely to be more here than meets the eye, especially if one bears in
mind that (1) the Scythian invasion of the near East was originally
25
H. M. T. Cobbe
in pursuit of the Cimmerians,15 (2) Alyattes fought the Cimmerians
and expelled them from Asia Minor,16 and (3) the Scythians
dominated the Levant and Mesopotamia for a period until they were
expelled by the Medes." The first two points would imply at least a
common cause between Alyattes and the Scyths, and the last gives
very solid grounds for enmity between Cyaxares and the Scyths;
the three taken together indicate a slightly more plausible basis for
the war than that given by Herodotus, i.e. perhaps Alyattes aided
the Scyths when they were being expelled from Media, in return for
aid against the Cimmerians.

The points in Herodotus' account of the course of the war at
1.73.3 f- are 38 follows:
(1) It lasts for five years with neither side gaining the upper hand
in that time; (2) the eclipse battle occurred in the sixth year and this
made both sides eager for peace;18 (3) Syennesis the Cilician and
Labynetus the Babylonian acted as arbitrators19 and a marriage was

organised between Cyaxares' son, Astyages, and Aryene, the daughter
of Alyattes; (4) the oaths were consecrated in a similar manner to

that used by the Greeks, except that the participants mixed each
other's blood and drank it.
This account agrees with the CPS tradition on the following
points:
(1) The eclipse battle : although Cicero and Pliny do not mention
it, it is clear, when one compares the passages, that this battle must
lie behind their statements; it provides an excellent means of associ
ating Alyattes and the Median king with the eclipse. There is no
occasion for them to have mentioned the battle in the contexts of
their statements, which are purely concerned with the eclipse. (2) The
eclipse itself was said to have been predicted by Thalesthis is quite
clear from all the accounts we have. (3) The form in which the oaths
were consecrated appears also in the Solinus passage,20 and this can
mean either of two things : the form of taking the oaths was a feature
of the tradition that must eventually lie behind both Herodotus and
the chronographers, or else Solinus' source took the dates and the
name of the king from the chronographic tradition but such detail
as this from Herodotus.
Many of the other points in Herodotus' account can be reconciled
with the CPS traditioni.e. as being detail that may or may not
have been in the CPS tradition also. Examples of this are the
vuKTOiictxfa (if it is not the same as the eclipse battle), the mediation
by Syennesis of Cilicia and Labynetus of Babylon, the marriage of

26

Aryene to Astyages and finally, arguably I think, the length of the
war itself. The impression given by Herodotus is that the war lasted
five years, and in the sixth came the eclipse battle which led very
quickly to the establishment of peace. Now it is quite possible that
here Herodotus is using the period of five years as an approximate
rather than as an exact period of time. There are two places where he
uses iretxTTTTi f| fieri] f|npfl to indicate 'a few days later';21 further,
there is one passage which is an exact analogy of the present one;

and this strongly suggests that here also Herodotus is only indicating
a rough period of time,22 so that the figure given here need not be
taken too seriously. In fact there need not be any basic discrepancy
between the Herodotus and the CPS tradition on this point.

There are however some points of disagreement between these
two traditions, (i) The war appears uniformly elsewhere as being
between Alyattes and Astyages; yet in Herodotus it would appear
to have been entirely between Alyattes and Cyaxares.23 (2) We have
seen that Herodotus implies, without actually saying so, that the
peace followed fairly shortly after the eclipse battle. The CPS
tradition, however, gives a period of three years between the eclipse
and the peace (585/4-582/1 B.C.); it may be that Herodotus (like

AV) is confusing the battle which appears in Eusebius under the same
year as the peace in Solinusand is therefore presumably directly

connected with the peacewith the eclipse battle, and attaches the
peace to the wrong one; the fact that his remarks on the connexion
between the eclipse battle and the peace are rather vague may be
due to this confusion. (3) The final point of difference between the
two traditions is that Herodotus makes no mention whatsoever of a
second war between Media and Lydia, but yet such a war seems to
be clearly recorded in Eusebius.24 Perhaps Herodotus has confused
two wars, which took place in quick succession, and rolled them into
one; but on the other hand Eusebius is by no means a thoroughly
reliable source, and one hesitates at this stage to build up too elaborate
a theory on such a basis. One can do little more than bear in mind
the possibility of a second war.
Of these three points of disagreement, the real problem, as Huxley
points out, is posed by the first: who was on the throne of Media
at the time of the earlier war? It is possible to reconcile Herodotus
and the CPS tradition to a certain degree. When Solinus talks of the
peace, he says quite definitely that the war was waged between
Alyattes and Astyages; and there is nothing in the text of
Herodotus that is incompatible with Astyages being on the throne

27
H. M. T. Cobbe
of Media by the end of the war, although one might have expected
Herodotus to say that Cyaxares died during the war, if he knew this
to have been sobut the argumentum e silentio is fraught with

danger.25 The Lydians would have felt themselves under all the
greater an obligation to avenge Astyages if the peace had been made

with him rather than with his father; also the marriage of Astyages
and Aryene would not have been so significant if Astyages was not
actually on the throne at the time that it took placethe succession
of a polygamous monarchy was never secure until the successor was
safely established in power. If Astyages was not so established, the
marriage would not have been the avayKcuri icrxupri that Herodotus
says it was.26 We can then accept that Astyages had succeeded his
father at least by the time that the war came to an end.
III
The most recent evidence on the matter is Oxyrhynchus Papyrus
No. 2506 fr. 98. This fragment comes from a commentary on the
lyric poets and appears to discuss whether or not Alcaeus died in a
certain action, together with other things; the part of this fragment
germane to the present issue are lines 14 ff.:27
. . .] 5icc to cruv(cttaa6[ai 14
rr6]Aenov ev [.]lcrr[ 'A
<tt] uayr)i tu [. .]. <p[ 'A
AuccJtttiv oo[
KT
As Huxley says,28 the supplements producing 'Acrruayr)i and

'AAucrrrriv are very cogent, particularly in the light of the evidence
already discussed. Page assigns the papyrus to the first century or

the early part of the second century A.D.29 and this would make it
belong to roughly the same context as Cicero and Pliny, which fits
in nicely as it seems to be drawing on the same tradition.80 In view
of the bad condition of the text, it is difficult to go any further than
to link up 61a to cruviaracjOca ttoAbijov with 'Acrru&yr|i and 'AAvcmriv,
and to take the general sense of the passage to be something like

'. . . because of war being joined (or ' being in progress') [between]
Alyattes [and] Astyages . . .'. Because of the lacunae the exact
significance of the cases of 'Aoru&yr)iand'AAuarrrivis lost; one inter

esting speculation, however, is this: if we take crwiaTacrOai to have
a sense of initiation, the text would imply that a war was begun
28
between Astyages and Alyattes; now whatever the obscurity in

Herodotus enshrouding the end of the war there is no doubt that
Cyaxares began it and it would be foolish to mistrust Herodotus on
the point without strong reasons; it is equally clear that the papyrus
fragment should be taken seriously, since the author presumably had
a text of Alcaeus before him. This possible discrepancywhich

admittedly only arises if ovvicrraaQai is taken to have a sense of
initiation31can be resolved if one takes the author of the papyrus
to be referring to the second war between Media and Lydia which

has already been shown to be a possibility (see above p. 24); Eusebius
says quite clearly that this was begun by Astyages against the Lydians.
The other way to deal with this discrepancy is to eliminate it by

taking cruvfcrracrQoci to have the sense of ' continue ', making the phrase
as a whole mean ' since there was a war in progress between Alyattes
and Astyages' or something like that; the text would then refer to
any part of the war after the death of Cyaxares.32 Be the detail what
it may, this papyrus fragment supports the other non-Herodotean
evidence on this war by linking Alyattes and Astyages, and its
authority in all likelihood ultimately goes back to Alcaeus himself.83

IV
We have seen that it is probable that Astyages had succeeded

Cyaxares before the end of the war; however the problem remains
as to who was on the throne at the time of the eclipse battle. Cicero
says that the eclipse took place Astyage regnante while Herodotus
says that it was Cyaxares who fought in the battle when day became
night. The problem is essentially one of chronology. The Herodotean
dates for Cyaxares are 633-594 B.C., and for Astyages 593-559 B.C.,
and as they stand these would involve giving the eclipse a Herodotean
date at least nine years earlier than either the chronographic one or
the real one;34 however since Herodotus does not notice that there
was a considerable overlap between Astyages and Cyrus, whose
accession to the Persian throne took place some time before his over
throw of Astyages, his whole Median chronology may be brought
down eight or nine years; if we do this, we get 586/5 B.C. for
Cyaxares' death35 which suits very well. In the light of this there is
a simple and possible solution to the problem of exactly when Astyages
succeeded. When dealing with the non-Herodotean evidence on this

question, we are for the most part dealing with a chronographic
tradition which, by hellenistic times, would have been aware of eastern
29
H. M. T. Cobbe
habits in chronography; now one of these habits used at Babylon

but applied to Persian chronography, at least in later times, was to
reckon the year in which a king died as the accession year of his
successor36 so that it is quite possible for the eclipse to have appeared
in chronographic records as having taken place in the reign of
Astyages,although the king of the time may well have been Cyaxares
provided that Cyaxares died in the same year, which was very
probably the case. This would then account for both traditions.
The general picture, then, is this: There was a war between Lydia
and Media that had been going on for some time before 585 B.C.,
when a battle was halted by the occurrence of a solar eclipse; the
war continued to go on for a further three years, according to a
chronographic tradition going back at least as far as Apollodorus,
and then there appears to have been a final battle; whether or not
one side or the other won a decisive victory in the event we do not
know, but at any rate a peace followed this battle, and the oaths
of this peace were consecrated by the mixing and drinking of the
blood of the two contracting parties. Some time later (five years in
Eusebius) there was a second war between the two powers started by
Astyages for some reason with unknown result. If this second war
did in fact take place, it seems much more probable that the
marriage between Astyages and Aryene was arranged after it rather

than after the earlier war.
Much of the theory just summarised had already been concluded

by Huxley in the article referred to; the aim of this paper has been
to clarify the traditions involved in the extant evidence, and to attempt
to reconcile them. It is important to remember that the reconstruction
of the chronographic tradition, as it stood in Roman times, does not
necessarily bring us any nearer to the actual historical facts of the
episode.87
30
Notes
1. For the Herodotean account see Hdt. 1.16.2, 1.74 and 1.103.2. Recent
discussion: D. L. Page in his commentary on Oxyrhynchus Papyrus no. 2506,
frag. 98 (Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 29.44-5); G. L. Huxley, ' A war between Alyattes
and AstyagesGr. Rom. Byz. Stud, vi (1965), 3.201 f.
2. This is now definitely thought to be the eclipse concerned rather than either
of those in 610 and 557 B.C.; see How and Wells, A commentary on Herodotus,
note on 1.74.2; and, more recently, H. Kaletsch, ' Zur Lydischen Chronologie
Historia vii (1958), 15-17. It is in fact highly improbable that Thales ever pre
dicted this eclipse, or any other: see O. Neugebauer, The exact sciences in
antiquity, 142 f.
3. This can be deduced from Diodorus Siculus, 1.5.1, assuming Ol.i.i to be
776/5 B.C.
4. That is, assuming that these two dates come from the same tradition, and
are not two different dates for the same event. This assumption is quite reasonable
in view of Solinus' known dependence on Pliny: see Diehl, ' Julius SolinusRE,
X. 828 f. It is likely that the whole tradition reached Solinus via one or other of
Pliny's works.
5. German translation by Karst, 187.
6. Fotheringham's edition, 178.
7. The dates in A V have been lowered here by one year in each case, since
Ol. 1.1 in this version is a year earlier than in St J. (i.e. it corresponds to the
1240th year of Abraham rather than the 1241st, as in St J.). Both versions put
the birth of Christ in the same year of Abraham (2015), but differ by one in the
Olympic year (194.4 in AV but 194.3 in St /.). This makes it clear that the error
must lie in the Olympic scale rather than in the Abrahamic scale.
8. The fact that St J. puts the eclipse entry a year earlier than Pliny can be
easily explained in terms of the tabular lay-out of the Chronicle. This lay-out
makes it difficult at times to attach entries to their correct year, especially if the
entry is a long one and takes up more space on the page than that opposite one
year. This is a notorious source of corruption in the texts of Eusebius' Chronicle:
see Helm, Eusebius" Werke, VII. xxii (1956 edition).
9. Note St J. says Alyattes et Astyages dimicaverunt, using a word that has the
sense of fighting to a clear conclusion.
10. Hdt. 1.74.1-2.
11. See note 8 above.
12. Solinus, 1.112; he dates the fall of Sardis to OI.58, which can be shown to
be the Apollodoran date for this event from Diogenes Laertius, 1.37, which is
Apollodorus, frag. 28 in Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, II B.
no. 244; for Jacoby's commentary, see F.Gr.H., II D. 726-7.
13. Jacoby, F.Gr.H., II D. 59.
14. See J. E. Powell, The History of Herodotus, 9.
15. Hdt. 1.15 and 1.103.3. See Kretschmer, ' ScythaeRE, II A. 938 f.;
Lehmann-Haupt, ' Kimmerieribid. XI. 404 f.

16. Hdt. 1.16.2; Polyaenus, Stratagemata, 7.2.
17. Hdt. 1.103.3-106.2; cf. St J. under OI.36.2 and AV under OI.36.3.
3i
H. M. T. Cobbe
18. The j'VKTo/j.a\ia in 1.74.1 provides an interesting problem: is it the

eclipse battle or not? . How and Wells (see their note ad loc.) maintain, without
giving a reason, that it is not; however it seems very much more probable that it
is and that Herodotus' text at 1.74.2 f. should be taken as an amplification of
iv Se kou vvKTOfxa^LTjv ttva 7rotTjcavTo. Herodotus saw the eclipse as a sudden
appearance of night in the middle of the dayTrjv r/fxiprjv i^airLvrji vvktu ytvtodai
and consequently a battle fought under such conditions would be a vvKTO/xa^ia.

Two such battles in the same war would be highly remarkable, and one would
expect Herodotus to have been much more explicit, if such had taken place.
19. Huxley follows Dougherty (Nabonidus and Belshazzar, 33 f.) in the latter's
solution to the problem posed by the fact that Nabonidus (= Labynetus) did not
succeed to the throne of Babylon until 556 B.C. The problem need not be dis
cussed here except to say that this solution is simpleDougherty shows that it is
quite possible for Nabonidus to have acted as Nebuchadrezzar's agent in this

matter.
20. See p. 22 above.

21. Hdt. 1.1.3; 3.42.1.
22. Hdt. 3.59.2 : t/neivav S'iv ravrrj xal ciSai/uovrjaav iir' irea ircr . . .
fKTa) Se (Tc'i This corresponds almost exactly with the present passage: TroXeyuos
. . . iycyovee i-rr' Ire a wivrt . . . tw !kt<o Irct.
23. Were it not for the other evidence (the CPS tradition) no one would
suspect from Herodotus' account that Cyaxares was not the Median ruler right
through the war until the end. The fact that a change of reign in the middle of
the war is not contradictory to the Herodotean account is only apparent in the
light of the other evidence.
24. See p. 24 above.

25. Hdt. 1.73.1-2. Cyaxares is not mentioned at all in connexion with the peace
in Herodotus; and he is only firmly associated with the eclipse battle later at
1.103.2.
26. Hdt. 1.74.4.

27. For the full text, see Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 29. The question of Alcaeus'
and Antimenidas' involvement in this war is too vague to be profitably discussed
here.
28. Op. cit., 201.

29. Op. cit., 1.
30. Solinus would appear to date to the early third century A.D., cf. Momm
sen's edition of S. (Berlin, 1864), v f.; but he probably drew on Pliny, or, at least,
on an earlier author of about the same time.
31. This depends on whether (rvvivTanrOai is taken to be middle or passive.

If the middle and intransitive sense is taken, iroXt/xov will be the object and the
meaning will be ' since [? Alyattes] contrived [or ' was contriving '] war . . .', cf.
Isocrates, 10.49 and Polybius, 2.1.1 for 7ro\/xov as object of avvio-Taadai. If the
passive and intransitive sense is taken, noXcfuov will be the subject and the mean
ing will be ' since war was in progress . . cf. Thuc. 1.15; Hdt. 7.144 and 8.142.
See Liddell & Scott (Jones-Mackenzie) s.v. <Tvvi<TTH)fii A.III.3 and B.II.i. The
former sense seems to be the better attested of the two for later Greek.
32. The problem of the chronology of the Aeginetan Wars is also one where
the precise sense ofa-vvla-Trj/xi is important; see N. G. L. Hammond, 'Studies in
early Greek chronology ', Historia iv (1955), 408 f.
32

33- Huxley, op. cit., 206.
34. H. Strasburger, ' Herodots Zeitrechnungin W. Marg's compilation,
Herodot (Munich, 1962), 689.
35. Cf. Huxley, op. cit., 204; Strasburger, op. cit., 688-9; Kaletsch, op. cit.,
20-23. Cyaxares is established for the years 614 and 612 B.C. from cuneiform
sources (D. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldaean kings in the British Museum,
59, 61), which is well within the limits of the thirty-five years' reign given to
him by Herodotus, i.e. 620-586 B.C. when brought down (see p. 29 above),
and leaves time between the fall of Nineveh (612 B.C.) and the Lydian war for
the Scythian domination; see Wiseman, op. cit., 14 f. The Lydian war probably
followed closely on this if, as has been suggested (see pp. 25-26 above), the Scyths
were the raison d'etre for the war.
36. See R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian chronology 626 B.C.

A.D. 75 (Providence, Rhode Island; 1956). At Babylon the regnal year started on
1 Nisan, and a king's first year did not start until the 1 Nisan following his
accession, the year previous to this being reckoned as his accession year. Whether
the Persians used a similar system before they took Babylon we do not know; it is
doubtful whether the Medes did. The suggestion put forward in the text here
assumes that earlier records were later doctored to conform to Babylonian chrono
graphic conventions.
37. I wish to thank both Mr W. G. Forrest and Mr T. F. R. G. Braun who
read a draft of this paper and made many suggestions of which the greater part
has been incorporated in the text. Professor A. Andrewes very kindly gave me
some information on Babylonian habits in chronography.
33
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