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While Croesus was still in this mind, all the suburbs of Sardis were
found to swarm with snakes, on the appearance of which the horses left
feeding in the pasture-grounds, and flocked to the suburbs to eat
them. The king, who witnessed the unusual sight, regarded it very
rightly as a prodigy. He therefore instantly sent messengers to the
soothsayers of Telmessus, to consult them upon the matter, His
messengers reached the city, and obtained from the Telmessians an
explanation of what the prodigy portended, but fate did not allow them
to inform their lord; for ere they entered Sardis on their return,
Croesus was a prisoner. What the Telmessians had declared was that
Croesus must look for the entry of an army of foreign invaders into his
country, and that when they came they would subdue the native
inhabitants; since the snake, said they, is a child of earth, and
the horse a warrior and a foreigner. Croesus was already a prisoner
when the Telmessians thus answered his inquiry, but they had no
knowledge of what was taking place at Sardis, or of the fate of the monarch.
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