Alyattes

Alyattes the Lydian, his war with the Milesians finished, died after a reign of fifty-seven years.

For Alyattes had supposed that there was great scarcity in Miletus and that the people were reduced to the last extremity of misery;

so presently the Lydians and Milesians ended the war and agreed to be friends and allies, and Alyattes built not one but two temples of Athena at Assesos, and recovered from his illness.

The palace of Alyattes falls into ruins countless city the Pactolus whirling with [gold runs red with blood], women are brutally led out of the well-built halls.

And Eudemus, in his Astrological Histories, says that Thales foretold the eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time when the Medes and the Lydians joined battle with one another, in the reign of Cyaxares, the father of Astyages, over the Medes, and of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, over the Lydians.

A story is told that, while Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened two mules and drove them into the camp, and that the king, when he saw them, was amazed at the good condition of the citizens actually extending to their beasts of burden.

Enraged at this, he dispatched the sons of the Corcyraeans to Alyattes that he might make eunuchs of them;

but the insolence of that barbarian who would have Amasis drink the sea would have been better fitted by such a smart reprimand as Pittacus gave Alyattes, who sent an imperious letter to the Lesbians.