54 RICH AS CROESUS. 



erected this extraordinary structure to please his wife, 

 who came from the highlands of Media, and who, 

 weary of the interminable plains, coveted meadows on 

 mountain tops, such as her native land contained. 

 The Euphrates ran through the centre of the city, and 

 was crossed by a stone bridge, which was a marvel for 

 its time. But more wonderful still, there was a kind of 

 Thames Tunnel passing underneath the river, and con- 

 necting palaces on either side. The city was united 

 to its provinces by roads and fortified posts ; rafts 

 inflated with skins, and reed boats pitched over with 

 bitumen, floated down the river with timber from the 

 mountains of Armenia, and stones for purposes of 

 building. A canal, large enough for ships to ascend, 

 was dug from Babylon to the Persian Gulf; and on its 

 banks were innumerable machines for raising the water 

 and spreading it upon the soil. 



The third kingdom was that of the Lydians, a people 

 in manners and appearance resembling the Greeks. 

 They did not consider themselves behind the rest of 

 the world. They boasted that they had invented dice, 

 coin, and the art of shopkeeping, and also that the 

 famous Etruscan state was a colony of theirs. They 

 inhabited Asia Minor, a sterile, rugged table land, but 

 possessing a western coast enriched by nature, and 

 covered with the prosperous cities of the Asiatic 

 Greeks. Hitherto Ionia had never been subdued, but 

 the cities were too jealous of one another to combine, 

 and Croesus was able to conquer them one by one. 

 This was the man whose wealth is still celebrated in 

 a proverb ; he obtained his gold from the washings 

 of a sandy stream. Croesus admired the Greeks ; 

 he was the first of the lion-hunters, and invited 

 all the men of the day to visit him at Sardis, where 



