[501] Herodot. i, 141. Ἴωνες δὲ, ὡς ἤκουσαν—τείχεά τε περιεβάλλοντο ἕκαστοι, etc.: compare also the statement respecting Phôkæa, c. 168. Thus completely successful in his aggressions on the continental Asiatic Greeks, Crœsus conceived the idea of assembling a fleet, for the purpose of attacking the islanders of Chios and Samos, but was convinced,—as some said, by the sarcastic remark of one of the seven Greek sages, Bias or Pittakus—of the impracticability of the project. He carried his arms, however, with full success, over other parts of the continent of Asia Minor, until he had subdued the whole territory within the river Halys, excepting only the Kilikians and the Lykians. The Lydian empire thus reached the maximum of its power, comprehending, besides the Æolic, Ionic, and Doric Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor, the Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandynians, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thynian and Bithynian Thracians, Karians, and Pamphylians. And the treasures amassed by Crœsus at Sardis, derived partly from this great number of tributaries, partly from mines in various places as well as the auriferous sands of the Paktôlus, exceeded anything which the Greeks had ever before known. We learn, from the brief but valuable observations of Herodotus, to appreciate the great importance of these conquests of Crœsus, with reference not merely to the Grecian cities actually subjected, but also indirectly to the whole Grecian world. “Before the reign of Crœsus, observes the historian, all the Greeks were free; it was by him first that Greeks were subdued into tribute.” And he treats this event as the initial phenomenon of the series, out of which grew the hostile relations between the Greeks on one side, and Asia as represented by the Persians on the other, which were uppermost in the minds of himself and his contemporaries.