Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 5 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.
Today's book is the Robin Waterfield translation of The Histories by Herodotus.
Croesus was Lydian by birth. He was the son of Alyattes and ruled over all the various peoples who live west of the River Halys, which flows from the south (between where the Syrians and the Paphlagonians live) and in the north issues into the sea which is known as the Euxine Sea. Croesus was the first non-Greek we know to have subjected the Greeks to the payment of tribute., though he made alliances with some of them. The ones he made his tributaries were the Ionians, Aeolians, and the Asian Dorians, while he allied himself with the Lacedaemonians. Before Coresus' reign all Greeks were free; the Cimmerian expedition which reached Ionia before Croesus' time was a raiding party, intent on pillage, and not a conquest of the communities there.
Put today's excerpt in a baseball context.
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