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Region of Asia Minor in what is today's central Turkey.
After being part of the Median empire, Cappadocia had become part of the Persian empire in the time of Cyrus the Great toward the middle of the VIth century B. C. It was populated by Hittites that the Greeks called Syrians (Herodotus' Histories, I, 72). In his attempt to overthrow Cyus, Croesus, king of Lydia, tried unsucessfully to invade Cappadocia before being defeated by Cyrus (Herodotus' Histories, I, 71-77). In this attempt, he was helped by Thales of Miletus who was said to have devised a way to make his army cross the Halys river, then at the border between Lydia and Cappadocia, by rerouting it through a channel behind the army (Herodotus' Histories, I, 75).