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Inheriting from his father a war with the Milesians, he pressed the
siege against the city by attacking it in the following manner. When
the harvest was ripe on the ground he marched his army into Milesia to
the sound of pipes and harps, and flutes masculine and feminine. The
buildings that were scattered over the country he neither pulled down
nor burnt, nor did he even tear away the doors, but left them standing
as they were. He cut down, however, and utterly destroyed all the
trees and all the corn throughout the land, and then returned to his
own dominions. It was idle for his army to sit down before the place,
as the Milesians were masters of the sea. The reason that he did not
demolish their buildings was that the inhabitants might be tempted to
use them as homesteads from which to go forth to sow and till their
lands; and so each time that he invaded the country he might find
something to plunder.
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