That friendship was genuine and unaffected on the side, at any rate, of the Greeks. The relations of Crœsus with Delphi must have been largely instrumental in forming it; but what happened in relation to this very war showed clearly that the feeling of Greece towards Crœsus was built upon wider foundations. The Greeks had come to regard him as a distinguished convert to that Hellenism they so much loved. The impression may have been false, but it was powerful. “He loveth our nation” is an article in a national creed whose possibilities can be hardly exaggerated. That the feeling had become independent of the relations with Delphi is conspicuously shown in the present instance by the fact that it was Delphi which administered to it a shock which the Greek world took long to forget. The remembrance of it was evidently vivid a hundred years later in the time of Herodotus. It came about as follows. Anxious as to the issue of the great venture upon which he was entering, Crœsus sought to fortify or defeat his own resolution by inquiring of the oracles as to what the future had in store for him. ◆H. i. 53.◆ Two of the oracles consulted, of which Delphi was one, answered that “if he warred with the Persians he would overthrow a mighty empire.” The response was capable of two interpretations, of which Crœsus seized upon the most obvious; and was thus, so the Greeks thought, led to his undoing. Despite the pious faith with which Herodotus regards the utterances of the Delphic oracle, he is unable to conceal the tremendous shock which this apparent deception caused to Hellenic sentiment all the world over. To the Greek it appeared as though the oracle had betrayed its best friend and his also. Even in the cities of Asia, chafing though they were under recent subjugation, this feeling must have found some echo, whose resonance lasted till Herodotus’ own time. It is unlikely that he would ever have disclosed its existence had not the feeling been very widespread in the Hellenic world he loved. ◆H. i. 90.◆ The legendary story which he relates of the conversation between Crœsus and Cyrus, expresses evidently a feeling entertained by many besides Crœsus himself; and in the chapter which follows upon this tale, he shows that the Delphic oracle was forced by public opinion to attempt to explain away the apparent deception it had practised. #FALL OF THE LYDIAN KINGDOM.# The true explanation, which would have relieved it of a large part of the burden of the moral guilt, was one it dare not give in view of the prophetic character which it had to maintain before the eyes of the world. Prophecy founded upon intimate knowledge of Greek affairs was very far from being the mere guesswork, wrapped in enigma, of its utterances relative to matters deep in Asia, of which it can have had no real ken.