Herodotus' account
Herodotus writes that in the sixth year of the war, the Lydians and the Medes were engaged in an indecisive battle when suddenly day turned into night, leading to both parties halting the fighting and negotiating a peace agreement. Herodotus also mentions that the loss of daylight had been predicted by Thales of Miletus. He does not, however, mention the location of the battle. [3]
Afterwards, on the refusal of Alyattes to give up his suppliants when Cyaxares sent to demand them of him, war broke out between the Lydians and the Medes, and continued for five years, with various success. In the course of it the Medes gained many victories over the Lydians, and the Lydians also gained many victories over the Medes. Among their other battles there was one night engagement. As, however, the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on. [4]
As part of the terms of the peace agreement, Alyattes's daughter Aryenis was married to Cyaxares's son Astyages, and the Halys River (present-day Kızılırmak River) was declared to be the border of the two warring nations. [1]
Modern interpretations
If the description by Herodotus of the event is read as a solar eclipse, then based on modern astronomical calculations it can be identified with the Eclipse of Thales, yielding an exact date for the battle: May 28, 585 BCE. [5] For the location of the battle, some scholars assume the Halys River, as it was located in the border region between both kingdoms. [1] As Isaac Asimov notes, this would be the earliest recorded eclipse the date of which was accurately determined in advance of its occurrence. [6]
However, such a reading is disputed by various scholars. For example, the known astronomical knowledge available of that time was not sufficient for Thales to predict the eclipse. Also, the eclipse would have occurred shortly before sunset at any plausible site of the battle, and it was very uncommon for battles to take place at that time of day. Furthermore, based on the list of Medean kings and their regnal lengths reported elsewhere by Herodotus, Cyaxares died 10 years before the eclipse. [7] [8]
An alternative theory regarding the date of the battle suggests that Herodotus was recounting events that he did not personally witness, and that furthermore, the solar eclipse story is a misinterpretation of his text. [9] According to this view, what happened could have been a lunar eclipse right before moonrise, at dusk. If the warriors had planned their battle activities expecting a full moon as in the previous few days, it would have been a shock to have dusk fall suddenly as an occluded moon rose. If this theory is correct, the battle's date would not be 585 BCE (date given by Pliny based on date of solar eclipse), but possibly September 3, 609 BCE, or July 4, 587 BCE, dates when such dusk-time lunar eclipses did occur. [9]
Alyattes, sometimes described as Alyattes I, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. He died after a reign of 57 years and was succeeded by his son Croesus.
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom situated in the west of Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis.
Thales of Miletus was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages, founding figures of Ancient Greece.
The 6th century BC started on the first day of 600 BC and ended on the last day of 501 BC.
This article concerns the period 589 BC – 580 BC.
The year 585 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as year 169 Ab urbe condita. The denomination 585 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Croesus was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi. The fall of Croesus had a profound effect on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least", J. A. S. Evans has remarked, "Croesus had become a figure of myth, who stood outside the conventional restraints of chronology."
Cyaxares was the third king of the Medes. He ascended to the throne in 625 BCE, after his father Phraortes lost his life in a battle against the Assyrians.
The Battle of Pteria was fought in 547 BC between the Persian forces of Cyrus the Great and the Lydian forces of Croesus. Both armies suffered heavy casualties in this indecisive battle.
Astyages was the last king of the Median kingdom, reigning from 585 to 550 BCE. The son of Cyaxares, he was dethroned by the Persian king Cyrus the Great.
Aryenis was, according to Herodotus, the daughter of King Alyattes of Lydia and the sister of King Croesus of Lydia.
Madyes was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in West Asia in the 7th century BCE.
The Median dynasty was, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, a dynasty composed of four kings who ruled for 150 years under the Median Empire. If Herodotus' story is accurate, the Medes were unified by a man named Deioces, the first of the four kings who would rule the Median Empire; a mighty empire that included large parts of Iran and eastern Anatolia.
The eclipse of Thales was a solar eclipse that was, according to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, accurately predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. If Herodotus' account is accurate, this eclipse is the earliest recorded as being known in advance of its occurrence. Many historians believe that the predicted eclipse was the solar eclipse of 28 May 585 BC. How exactly Thales predicted the eclipse remains uncertain; some scholars assert the eclipse was never predicted at all. Others have argued for different dates, but only the eclipse of May 585 BC matches the conditions of visibility necessary to explain the historical event.
The Medo-Persian conflict was a military campaign led by the Median king Astyages against Persis in the mid 6th-century BC. Classical sources claim that Persis had been a vassal of the Median kingdom that revolted against Median rule, but this is not confirmed by contemporary evidence. After some battles the Persians led by Cyrus the Great emerged victorious, subsequently conquering Median territories and establishing the Achaemenid Empire.
Old Smyrna is an ancient Greek exonym first known to have been applied by Strabo to a city of the endonym Σμύρνα, Smyrna. It had existed at the same location on the Bay of Smyrna, Turkey, since prehistoric times. Old Smyrna experienced what was termed dioecism (dioikismos), the removal of a city from its subordinate constituents, the reverse of synoecism, at the hands of its Lydian conquerors under their king, Alyattes, in 585 BC, in the Archaic Period of Greece. It is mentioned by Herodotus. Such a procedure, which was standard among the ancient Greeks, razes the center of the city and distributes the population to komai, or "villages,". Apparently they did not suffer andrapodismos, the massacre of the men and the sale of the women and children into slavery, but were allowed to live komedon, "in villages," albeit without a polis of their own.
The Lydian–Milesian War was a military conflict between the Kingdom of Lydia and the ancient Greek city state of Miletus. It took place during the 7th century BC in the Archaic period, traditionally set between 612 and 600 BC. The main source of the war is Herodotus, who wrote about it in the opening chapters of his Histories. The war ended after 12 years when the tyrant of Miletus, Thrasybulus of Miletus, convinced the Lydian king Alyattes to sue for peace with a ruse, after which an alliance between the two states was forged. Amongst other things, the length of the war has caused debate among modern historians.
Labinetus or Labynetus is a name that probably refers to the kings of the Chaldean dynasty in general. The Hellenized form of the name occurs only in Herodotus' Histories.
Media was a political entity centered in Ecbatana that existed from the 7th century BCE until the mid-6th century BCE and is believed to have dominated a significant portion of the Iranian plateau, preceding the powerful Achaemenid Empire. The frequent interference of the Assyrians in the Zagros region led to the process of unifying the Median tribes. By 612 BCE, the Medes became strong enough to overthrow the declining Assyrian empire in alliance with the Babylonians. However, contemporary scholarship tends to be skeptical about the existence of a united Median kingdom or state, at least for most of the 7th century BCE.
