King croesus
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Croesus hosted Solon at his palace and, after a few days of flouting his riches, asked the Athenian who he thought was the happiest man he’d seen, fully expecting to hear his own name. After Atys’ marriage, Adrastus, son of the Phrygian king Gordias, having been exiled by his father, came to Croesus seeking purification for the accidental killing of his brother.
All these factors made Croesus the richest man in the ancient world. He might, for example, conquer Cappadocia and Armenia. As the king of Lydia, he became the first ruler to mint gold coins in his name. He clearly never visited Sardes (he says that the houses had thatched roofs, whereas they were in fact made of roof tiles), but is well-informed about the relation between the Mermnad kings and Delphi.
When he arrived back in Sardis, Croesus dismissed the mercenaries in his army, then sent messengers to the Spartans, Egyptians, and Babylonians to assemble at Sardis in five months’ time when winter was over.
However, against all expectations, Cyrus marched his army into Lydia. The coins minted by Croesus spread widely in the ancient world and influenced other civilizations, marking a significant step in the development of monetary systems.
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(This story is more or less identical to the legend of Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to Artemis but rescued by the goddess and brought to the Taurians in the north.) The second stage can be found in Herodotus' Histories: he rationalized the story - the mythological Hyperboreans disappeared and Croesus' second life was in Persia.
This page was created in 1996; last modified on 24 September 2020.
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Croesus didn’t like Solon’s response and sent him away.Portents and Prophecies
After Solon left, Croesus had a dream that his favored son, Atys, would be killed by an iron spear.
With the rise of the Persian Empire, Croesus consulted the Oracle of Delphi to determine whether he should go to war against the Persians. Aubrey de Selincourt.]
This is a bit exaggerated. Eventually, Croesus was saved by his baker, and after much bloodshed the thirty-five year old man could establish himself as sole ruler of Lydia.
Instead, he blamed the god who had sent him the dream. He had a sister Aryenis who was in 585 old enough to be married to king Astyages of Media, as part of a border treaty between Lydia and Media.
Croesus told him of his dream and assured his son that it was not due to a fault in his character that he wasn’t sending him but because he wanted to protect him. One of Cyrus’ soldiers noticed a Lydian descend from this spot, chasing after a dropped helmet and then climbing back up. The only way to determine if a person’s life is happy is if their life ends well.
He had a glorious death in battle after routing the enemy and was buried with honors at public expense.
Assuming this was just a nationalistic bias, Croesus then asked who Solon thought was the second happiest, figuring that surely if he wasn’t first, he’d be second. Until then, the best that can be said is that they are lucky.
Solon said that in an assumed lifespan of 70 years, a person has 26,250 days, none of which are the same as the last, and each may bring with them fortune or misfortune. He told his men to douse the fire, but the flames were too strong.