Note 495 — Chapter XVII · LYDIANS. — MEDES. — CIMMERIANS. — SCYTHIANS.

Herodot. v, 28. κατύπερθε δὲ τουτέων, ἐπὶ δύο γενέας ἀνδρῶν νοσήσασα τὰ μάλιστα στάσει.

Alyattês reigned fifty-seven years, and the vigorous resistance which the Milesians offered to him took place in the first six years of his reign. The “two generations of intestine dissension” may well have succeeded after the reign of Thrasybulus. This, indeed, is a mere conjecture, yet it may be observed that Herodotus, speaking of the time of the Ionic revolt (500 B. C.), and intimating that Milêtus, though then peaceable, had been for two generations at an earlier period torn by intestine dissension, could hardly have meant these “two generations” to apply to a time earlier than 617 B. C.