Index

The once dominant Assyrian Empire fell to the combined power of the Medes and Babylonians c. 612 BC. The Medes extended their empire westwards across the highland plateau of Anatolia to the Kizilirmak (The Red River) and built an immense new city, called Pteria by Herodotus, on the Kerkenes Dag. Herodotus tells us that the Medes fought a protracted war with the Lydians which came to an end in the sixth year when, during a fierce battle, day was turned to night as predicted for that same year by Thales. This "Battle of the Eclipse", as it came to be known, took place on the afternoon of May 28, 585 BC. The ensuing peace treaty, brokered by the Cilicians and the Babylonians, settled the imperial borders and was consolidated by royal marriages between the protagonists. The Median city of Pteria was, according to Herodotus, the most strongly defended place in central Cappadocia. In 1999 the true scale of these defences was revealed for the first time since the city was burnt and its strong stone wall was partly destroyed at the hands of Croesus, king of Lydia. Croesus had asked the famed oracle at Delphi what would happen if he crossed the Kizilirmak. He was given the answer he required, “a mighty empire will be destroyed”. With the support of the gods, as he thought, he moved his army eastwards, captured Pteria and enslaved its inhabitants, only to bring upon himself the wrath of the charismatic Persian ruler, Cyrus the Great. Around 547 BC the Persian and Lydian armies met in a drawn battle outside Pteria. Croesus went home to Sardis expecting no further hostilities that year. Cyrus swept after him, however, capturing the Lydian capital, Sardis. The oracle was correct; Croesus had destroyed an empire: his own.

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