[442] The passage of such nomadic hordes from one government in the East to another, has been always, and is even down to the present day, a frequent cause of dispute between the different governments: they are valuable both as tributaries and as soldiers. The Turcoman Ilats—so these nomadic tribes are now called—in the north-east of Persia frequently pass backwards and forwards, as their convenience suits, from the Persian territory to the Usbeks of Khiva and Bokhara: wars between Persia and Russia have been in like manner occasioned by the transit of the Ilats across the frontier from Persia into Georgia: so also the Kurd tribes near Mount Zagros have caused by their movements quarrels between the Persians and the Turks. See Morier, Account of the Iliyats, or Wandering Tribes of Persia, in the Journal of the Geographical Society of London, 1837, vol. vii, p. 240, and Carl Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, West-Asien, Band ii, Abtheilung ii, Abschnitt ii, sect. 8, p. 387. [443] Herodot. i, 74-103. [444] Compare the analogous case of the prediction of the coming olive crop ascribed to Thalês (Aristot. Polit. i, 4, 5; Cicero, De Divinat. i, 3). Anaxagoras is asserted to have predicted the fall of an aërolithe (Aristot. Meteorol. i, 7; Pliny, H. N. ii, 58; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 5). Thalês is said by Herodotus to have predicted that the eclipse would take place “in the year in which it actually did occur,”—a statement so vague that it strengthens the grounds of doubt. The fondness of the Ionians for exhibiting the wisdom of their eminent philosopher Thalês, in conjunction with the history of the Lydian kings, may be seen farther in the story of Thalês and Crœsus at the river Halys (Herod. i, 75),—a story which Herodotus himself disbelieves. [445] Consult, for the chronological views of these events, Larcher ad Herodot. i, 74; Volney, Recherches sur l’Histoire Ancienne, vol. i, pp. 330-355; Mr. Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i, p. 418 (Note ad B. C. 617, 2); Des Vignoles, Chronologie de l’Histoire Sainte, vol. ii, p. 245; Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, p. 209.