Contented with his successes, and satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him from attack on the part of the only power which he had need to fear, Croesus had for some years given himself up to the enjoyment of his gains and to an ostentatious display of his magnificence.

It was a rude shock to the indolent and self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism, which looked that "to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more abundant," when tidings came that revolution had raised its head in the far south-east, and that an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life, and untrammelled by dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from his throne, and girt his own brows with the Imperial diadem.

Croesus, according to the story, was still in deep grief on account of the untimely death of his eldest son, when the intelligence reached him.

Instantly rousing himself from his despair, he set about his preparations for the struggle, which his sagacity saw to be inevitable.
After consultation of the oracles of Greece, he allied himself with the Grecian community, which appeared to him on the whole to be the most powerful.

At the same time he sent ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis, to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis, with proposals for an alliance offensive and defensive between the three secondary powers of the Eastern world against that leading power whose superior strength and resources were felt to constitute a common danger.