His introduction leads at once into Romance; he intends to preserve the memory of the wonderful deeds of Greeks and Barbarians, the cause of their quarrel being the abductions of women, Io, Europe, Medea, Helen. A more recent aggressor was Croesus, King of Lydia, who attacked the Greek seaboard. The earlier reigns of Lydian kings are recounted in a series of striking narratives. Gyges was the owner of the famous magic ring which made its possessor invisible. His policy of expansion was continued by his son and grandson. But Croesus, his great-grandson, was the wealthiest of all, extending his realm from as far as the Halys, the boundary of Cyrus' Persian Empire. Solon's famous but fictitious warning to him to "wait till the end comes before deciding whether he had been happy" left him unmoved. Soon clouds began to gather. A pathetic misadventure robbed him of his son; the growing power of Persia alarmed him and he applied to Delphi for advice. The oracle informed him that if he crossed the Halys he would ruin a mighty Empire and suggested alliance with the strongest state in Greece. Finding that Athens was still torn by political struggles consequent upon the romantic banishments and restorations of Peisistratus, he joined with Sparta which had just overcome a powerful rival, Tegea in Arcadia. Croesus crossed the Halys in 554. After fighting an indecisive battle he retired to his capital Sardis. Cyrus unexpectedly pursued him. The Lydian cavalry stampeded, the horses being terrified by the sight and odour of the Persian camel corps. Croesus shut himself up in Sardis which he thought impregnable. An excellent story tells how the Persians scaled the most inaccessible part of the fortress. Croesus was put on a pyre and there remembered the words of Solon. Cyrus, dreading a similar revolution of fortune, tried in vain to save him from the burning faggots; the fire was too fierce for his men to quench, but Apollo heard Croesus' prayer and sent a rainstorm which saved him. Being reproached by the fallen monarch who had poured treasure into his temple, Apollo replied that he had staved off ruin for three full years, but could not prevail against Fate; besides, Croesus should have asked whose Empire he was to destroy; at least Apollo had delivered him from death. The Lydian portion ends with a graphic description of laws, customs and monuments.