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brought about an interchange of marriages; for they decided that
Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis to Astyages the son of
Kyaxares, seeing that without the compulsion of a strong tie
agreements are apt not to hold strongly together. Now these nations
observe the same ceremonies in taking oaths as the Hellenes, and in
addition to them they make incision into the skin of their arms, and
then lick up the blood each of the other.

75. This Astyages then, being his mother's father, Cyrus had conquered
and made prisoner for a reason which I shall declare in the history
which comes after.[90] This then was the complaint which Crœsus had
against Cyrus when he sent to the Oracles to ask if he should march
against the Persians; and when a deceitful answer had come back to
him, he marched into the dominion of the Persians, supposing that the
answer was favourable to himself. And when Crœsus came to the river


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