Cyaxares on his part, was not content to bring against the confederates merely the power of Media.  He requested and obtained a contingent from the Babylonian monarch, Nabopolassar, and may not improbably have had the assistance of other allies also.  With a vast army drawn from various parts of inner Asia, he invaded the territory of the Western Powers, and began his attempt at subjugation.  We have no detailed account of the war; but we learn from the general expressions of Herodotus that the Median monarch met with a most stubborn resistance; numerous engagements were fought with varied results; sometimes the Medes succeeded in defeating their adversaries in pitched battles; but sometimes, and apparently as often, the Lydians and their allies gained decided victories over the Medes.  It is noted that one of the engagements took place by night, a rare occurrence in ancient (as in modern) times.  The war had continued six years, and the Medes had evidently made no serious impression, when a remarkable circumstance brought it suddenly to a termination.  The two armies had once more met and were engaged in conflict, when, in the midst of the struggle, an ominous darkness fell upon the combatants and filled them with superstitious awe.  The sun was eclipsed, either totally or at any rate considerably, so that the attention of the two armies was attracted to it; and, discontinuing the fight, they stood to gaze at the phenomenon.  In most parts of the East such an occurrence is even now seen with dread—­the ignorant mass believe that the orb of day is actually being devoured or destroyed, and that the end of all things is at hand—­even the chiefs, who may have some notion that the phenomenon is a recurrent one, do not understand its cause, and participate in the alarm of their followers.  On the present occasion it is said that, amid the general fear, a desire for reconciliation seized both armies.  Of this spontaneous movement two chiefs, the foremost of the allies on either side, took advantage.  Syennesis, king of Cilicia, the first known monarch of his name, on the part of Lydia, and a prince whom Herodotus calls “Labynetus of Babylon”—­probably either Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar—­on the part of Media, came forward to propose an immediate armistice; and, when the proposal was accepted on either side, proceeded to the more difficult task of arranging terms of peace between the contending parties.  Since nothing is said of the Scythians, who had been put forward as the ostensible grounds of quarrel, we may presume that Alyattes retained them.  It is further clear that both he and his allies preserved undiminished both their territories and their independence.  The territorial basis of the treaty was thus what in modern diplomatic language is called the status quo; matters, in other words, returned to the position in which they had stood before the war broke out.  The only difference was that Cyaxares gained a friend and an ally where he had previously had a jealous enemy; since it was agreed