The Delphic oracle's prophecy that Croesus would 'destroy a great empire' if he attacked Persia was fulfilled ironically, since the empire destroyed was his own kingdom of Lydia.

68:16Buoyed up by this seemingly enthusiastic advice,  Croesus immediately readied himself for war. In 547 BC, King Cyrus of Persia got news that  Croesus had marched out of his capital of Sardis and crossed the old border of the Halys River.  From there, the Lydian forces had swept into the region of Cappadocia, a landscape of strange  rock formations and white limestone gullies, and rounded on the regional capital of Pteria,  as Herodotus recounts. Croesus, then passing over

69:02his army, came to the part of Cappadocia called Pteria,  where he encamped, and laid waste the farms of the Syrians; and he took and enslaved the city of the  Pterians, and took also all the places about it, and drove the Syrians from their homes,  though they had done him no harm. When Cyrus heard the news of this Lydian invasion,  it must have troubled him. He was a new ruler in

69:35a warrior culture that revered strength above  all else. If he failed to meet this challenge, he could lose the respect of all his subjects, and  his young empire would fall apart as quickly as it had begun. He quickly gathered his forces  of combined Persian and Median warriors, and marched out to meet King Croesus in the shadow  of the now ruined city of Pteria. Cyrus, mustering his army and gathering to  him all those who dwelt upon his way,

70:12went to meet Croesus. When Cyrus had come  and encamped face to face with Croesus, the armies made trial of each other's strength  with might. The battle was stubborn. Many on both sides fell, and when they were parted  at nightfall, neither had the advantage. Croesus was clearly surprised by the strength  of Cyrus' response. Despite the famous Lydian cavalry, the clash had ended in a stalemate,  and now his invasion had lost all momentum.