intended to bear the lion which was also fashioned out of the same gold--the symbol of the burning sun, the image of the Lydian god. The four golden bricks formed the uppermost steps. The total amount of the gold dedicated at Delphi and Miletus reached 270 talents. For the presents at Miletus Croesus used the property of Sadyattes, which he had confiscated at the beginning of his reign, dedicated, and applied as an offering.[18] When Croesus sent the gifts to Delphi, he inquired of the oracle, as Gyges had previously done. At this time--about 140 years before Croesus--the question had been who was to ascend the throne of Lydia; now the question was, whether the descendant of Gyges would maintain it in the conflict against Persia. The answer of the priestess, which Aristotle and Diodorus have preserved in metre,[19]--"That Croesus by crossing the Halys would destroy a great kingdom"--is genuine, and was certainly given in the meaning that Croesus should undertake the war and would destroy the kingdom of his opponent. The object of Croesus in asking the question was to know whether he would be fortunate in his attack on Persia. If it was the object of the priesthood to give a dubious answer to this question, they could not possibly have answered the further question--whether he should take allies to help him,--with the command that he must take the "most powerful of the Hellenes." At that time the Spartans were beyond all question the most powerful of the Hellenes. How could the priests of Delphi, who owing to the close connection in which they stood to Sparta were well aware that the oracle would be a law to that state, send the Spartans to defeat and destruction, if they foresaw such a thing?[20] That at Delphi, owing to the impression made on the Greeks by the power, greatness, and splendour of the Lydian empire, the remote and unknown Persians were underrated is quite probable, and indeed sufficiently proved by the subsequent embassy of the Spartans to Cyrus. The first response did not entirely remove the doubts of Croesus, so he asked a second time--"whether his dominion would continue long," and this question received a thoroughly satisfactory answer, _i.e._ an answer which, in the obscure form purposely adopted by oracles, deferred the defeat of the Lydians to distant times, and impossible conditions.