Media’s King Cyaxares and Lydia’s King Alyattes…

Media’s King Cyaxares and Lydia’s King Alyattes war from 590, instigated by a Median attempt to take over Urartu.

Herodotus (Histories, 1.73-74) states that there were two reasons for the war; the two sides clashing interests in Anatolia, but also there was a motive of revenge.

Some Scythian hunters employed by the Medes who once returned empty-handed were insulted by Cyaxares.

In revenge the hunters slaughtered one of his sons and served him to the Medes.

The hunters then fled to Sardis, the capital of the Lydians.

When Cyaxares asked for the Scythians to be returned to him, Alyattes refused to hand them over; in response, the Medes invaded.

The two armies oppose each other at the Halys River (Turkish: Kızılırmak, "Red River") , the boundary between Asia Minor and the rest of Asia, and also the boundary between Pontos and Paphlagonia.

As the site of the Battle of Halys or Battle of the Eclipse on May 28, 585 BCE, between the Medes and the Lydians, it is the border between Lydia to the west and Media to the east.

Since renamed as the Battle of the Eclipse, this final battle of the five-year war between Lydia and Media ends abruptly due to a total solar eclipse; the eclipse was perceived as an omen, indicating that the gods wanted the fighting to stop.

A truce is hastily arranged.

The war ends end through negotiations by the ruler of Babylonia and the Syenneses, kings of Cilicia.

As part of the terms of the agreement, Alyattes's daughter Aryenis is married to Cyaxares's son Astyages, and the river Halys is declared to be the border of the two warring nations.

Since the exact dates of eclipses can be calculated, the Battle of the Eclipse is the earliest historical event of which the date is known with such precision.