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The two armies met in the plain before Sardis. It is a vast flat,
bare of trees, watered by the Hyllus and a number of other streams,
which all flow into one larger than the rest, called the Hermus.
This river rises in the sacred mountain of the Dindymenian Mother,
and falls into the sea near the town of Phocaea.
When Cyrus beheld the Lydians arranging themselves in order of battle
on this plain, fearful of the strength of their cavalry, he adopted a
device which Harpagus, one of the Medes, suggested to him. He
collected together all the camels that had come in the train of his army
to carry the provisions and the baggage, and taking off their loads,
he mounted riders upon them accoutred as horsemen. These he commanded
to advance in front of his other troops against the Lydian horse;
behind them were to follow the foot soldiers, and last of all the
cavalry. When his arrangements were complete, he gave his troops
orders to slay all the other Lydians who came in their way without
mercy, but to spare Croesus and not kill him, even if he should be
seized and offer resistance. The reason why Cyrus opposed his camels
to the enemy's horse was because the horse has a natural dread of the
camel, and cannot abide either the sight or the smell of that animal.
By this stratagem he hoped to make Croesus's horse useless to him,
the horse being what he chiefly depended on for victory. The two
armies then joined battle, and immediately the Lydian war-horses,
seeing and smelling the camels, turned round and galloped off; and so
it came to pass that all Croesus's hopes withered away. The
Lydians, however, behaved manfully. As soon as they understood what
was happening, they leaped off their horses, and engaged with the
Persians on foot. The combat was long; but at last, after a great
slaughter on both sides, the Lydians turned and fled. They were
driven within their walls and the Persians laid siege to Sardis.
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