In spite of all the national and individual points of view which mark Herodotus' account of the fall of Croesus, and the legends which he has woven into it, and used for his own purposes--the fanciful colours which stamp it as fabulous--it nevertheless contains a nucleus of historical truth, and we can give it a place before the rest as a narrative of facts. We have seen above how suddenly the successful rebellion of Cyrus put an end to the close relations between Babylonia, Lydia, and Media; how Lydia was touched by this change, how clearly the intervention of Lydia was needed, and what reasons could induce Croesus to defer it. Croesus was obviously brought to abandon his delay by the successes which Cyrus achieved in establishing his dominion over the Medes, and extending it to North and South, but above all by his conquests in the West and the advance of the Persian border to the Halys. Herodotus' account shows us very clearly that Cappadocia had become subject to Cyrus. When, on a previous occasion, the Medes reached the Halys, Alyattes, the father of Croesus, had taken up arms; was he to fall short of this example, in the presence of a power which had grown up more rapidly and threatened greater danger than the Medes? As Herodotus told us, it was his intention to attack Cyrus before he became too powerful. We may conclude with certainty from what Herodotus relates, that Croesus did not hide from himself the importance and difficulty of the undertaking. Above all he sought to win the favour of Sandon the national deity (I. 564). The Lydians offered large burnt-sacrifices to this deity, their sun-god; on a huge pyre they burnt numerous victims, gold and silver vessels, and costly robes in his honour. Herodotus tells us that Croesus bade the Lydians sacrifice from their own stores on that occasion; hence the great sacrifice, the gold of which Croesus dedicated to the god of Miletus and Delphi, was a national offering, which Croesus presented to Sandon. We have already shown that the Greeks recognised in the sun-god of the Lydians their own Apollo and Hercules, while the Lydians found their solar deity in the Apollo of the Greeks. When Gyges undertook to overthrow the old royal family which claimed to spring from this sun-god, and could not succeed in his attempt, an answer was sought from the sun-god of Delphi. The god of the Greeks then dethroned the descendants of the Lydian deity. In the year 556 B.C.[17] Croesus had already sent to Delphi, and given dedicatory offerings to the god of Delphi and to the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes; and at the present time, when he had resolved to enter on a severe struggle for his throne and kingdom, he called to mind the god, to whose oracle his house owed its position; he would now receive by his favour both kingdom and crown. So Apollo of Miletus and Delphi received silver and gold which had been consecrated by the fire. The bricks into which it was formed were