[326] About the province of Persis, see Strabo, xv, p. 727; Diodor. xix, 21; Quintus Curtius, v, 13, 14, pp. 432-434, with the valuable explanatory notes of Mützell (Berlin, 1841). Compare, also, Morier’s Second Journey in Persia, pp. 49-120, and Ritter, Erdkunde, West Asien, pp. 712-738. The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of the Median kings. And if we may believe Ktêsias, even the distant province of Baktria had been before subject to those kings: it at first resisted Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of Astyagês as well as master of his person, it speedily acknowledged his authority.[327] [327] Ktêsias, Persica, c. 2. According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus and Crœsus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyagês, and before the conquest of Baktria.[328] Crœsus was the assailant, wishing to avenge his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian conqueror, and to increase his own dominions: his more prudent councillors in vain represented to him that he had little to gain, and much to lose, by war with a nation alike hardy and poor. He is represented, as just at that time recovering from the affliction arising out of the death of his son. To ask advice of the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a step which no pious king would omit; but in the present perilous question, Crœsus did more,—he took a precaution so extreme, that, if his piety had not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary munificence to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the suspicion of a guilty skepticism.[329] Before he would send to ask advice respecting the project itself, he resolved to test the credit of some of the chief surrounding oracles,—Delphi, Dôdôna, Branchidæ near Milêtus, Amphiaraus at Thebes, Trophônius at Lebadeia, and Ammôn in Libya. His envoys started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on the hundredth day afterwards to ask at the respective oracles how Crœsus was at that precise moment employed. This was a severe trial: of the manner in which it was met by four out of the six oracles consulted, we have no information, and it rather appears that their answers were unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit undiminished, and Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at Branchidæ, solved the question with such unerring precision, as to afford a strong additional argument against persons who might be disposed to scoff at divination. No sooner had the envoys put the question to the Delphian priestess, on the day named, “What is Crœsus now doing?” than she exclaimed, in the accustomed hexameter verse,[330] “I know the number of grains of sand, and the measures of the sea; I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who speaks not.