CROESUS.
B.C. 718-545
The wealth of Croesus.--The Mermnadae.--Origin of the Mermnadean
dynasty.--Candaules and Gyges.--Infamous proposal of
Candaules.--Remonstrance of Gyges.--Nyssia's suppressed
indignation.--She sends for Gyges.--Candaules is assassinated.--Gyges
succeeds.--The Lydian power extended.--The wars of
Alyattes.--Destruction of Minerva's temple.--Stratagem of
Thrasybulus--Success of the stratagem.--A treaty of peace
concluded.--Story of Arion and the dolphin.--The alternative.--Arion
leaps into the sea.--He is preserved by a dolphin.--Death of
Alyattes.--Succession of Croesus.--Plans of Croesus for subjugating
the islands.--The golden sands of the Pactolus.--The story of
Midas.--Wealth and renown of Croesus.--Visit of Solon.--Croesus and
Solon.--What constitutes happiness.--Cleobis and Bito.--Croesus
displeased with Solon.--Solon treated with neglect.--The two sons
of Croesus.--The king's dream.--Arrival of Adrastus.--The wild
boar.--Precautions of Croesus.--Remonstrance of Atys.--Explanation
of Croesus.--Atys joins the expedition.--He is killed by
Adrastus.--Anguish of Adrastus.--Burial of Atys.--Adrastus kills
himself.--Grief of Croesus.
The scene of our narrative must now be changed, for a time, from
Persia and Media, in the East, to Asia Minor, in the West, where the
great Croesus, originally King of Lydia, was at this time gradually
extending his empire along the shores of the AEgean Sea. The name of
Croesus is associated in the minds of men with the idea of boundless
wealth, the phrase "as rich as Croesus" having been a common proverb
in all the modern languages of Europe for many centuries. It was to
this Croesus, king of Lydia, whose story we are about to relate,
that the proverb alludes.
The country of Lydia, over which this famous sovereign originally
ruled, was in the western part of Asia Minor, bordering on the AEgean
Sea. Croesus himself belonged to a dynasty, or race of kings, called
the Mermnadae. The founder of this line was Gyges, who displaced the
dynasty which preceded him and established his own by a revolution
effected in a very remarkable manner. The circumstances were as
follows:
The name of the last monarch of the old dynasty--the one, namely, whom
Gyges displaced--was Candaules. Gyges was a household servant in
Candaules's family--a sort of slave, in fact, and yet, as such slaves
often were in those rude days, a personal favorite and boon companion
of his master. Candaules was a dissolute and unprincipled tyrant. He
had, however, a very beautiful and modest wife, whose name was Nyssia.
Candaules was very proud of the beauty of his queen, and was always
extolling it, though, as the event proved, he could not have felt for
her any true and honest affection. In some of his revels with Gyges,
when he was boasting of Nyssia's charms, he said that the beauty of
her form and figure, when unrobed, was even more exquisite than that
of her features; and, finally, the monster, growing more and more
excited, and having rendered himself still more of a brute than he was
by nature by the influence of wine, declared that Gyges should see for
himself. He would conceal him, he said, in the queen's bed-chamber,
while she was undressing for the night. Gyges remonstrated very
earnestly against this proposal. It would be doing the innocent
queen, he said, a great wrong. He assured the king, too, that he
believed fully all that he said about Nyssia's beauty, without
applying such a test, and he begged him not to insist upon a proposal
with which it would be criminal to comply.
The king, however, did insist upon it, and Gyges was compelled to
yield. Whatever is offered as a favor by a half-intoxicated despot to
an humble inferior, it would be death to refuse. Gyges allowed himself
to be placed behind a half-opened door of the king's apartment, when
the king retired to it for the night. There he was to remain while the
queen began to unrobe herself for retiring, with a strict injunction
to withdraw at a certain time which the king designated, and with the
utmost caution, so as to prevent being observed by the queen. Gyges
did as he was ordered. The beautiful queen laid aside her garments
and made her toilet for the night with all the quiet composure and
confidence which a woman might be expected to feel while in so sacred
and inviolable a sanctuary, and in the presence and under the
guardianship of her husband. Just as she was about to retire to rest,
some movement alarmed her. It was Gyges going away. She saw him. She
instantly understood the case. She was overwhelmed with indignation
and shame. She, however, suppressed and concealed her emotions; she
spoke to Candaules in her usual tone of voice, and he, on his part,
secretly rejoiced in the adroit and successful manner in which his
little contrivance had been carried into execution.
The next morning Nyssia sent, by some of her confidential messengers,
for Gyges to come to her. He came, with some forebodings, perhaps, but
without any direct reason for believing that what he had done had been
discovered. Nyssia, however, informed him that she knew all, and that
either he or her husband must die. Gyges earnestly remonstrated
against this decision, and supplicated forgiveness. He explained the
circumstances under which the act had been performed, which seemed, at
least so far as he was concerned, to palliate the deed. The queen was,
however, fixed and decided. It was wholly inconsistent with her ideas
of womanly delicacy that there should be two living men who had both
been admitted to her bed-chamber. "The king," she said, "by what he
has done, has forfeited his claims to me and resigned me to you. If
you will kill him, seize his kingdom, and make me your wife, all shall
be well; otherwise you must prepare to die."
From this hard alternative, Gyges chose to assassinate the king,
and to make the lovely object before him his own. The excitement of
indignation and resentment which glowed upon her cheek, and with
which her bosom was heaving, made her more beautiful than ever.
"How shall our purpose be accomplished?" asked Gyges. "The deed," she
replied, "shall be perpetrated in the very place which was the scene
of the dishonor done to me. I will admit you into our bed-chamber in
my turn, and you shall kill Candaules in his bed."
When night came, Nyssia stationed Gyges again behind the same door
where the king had placed him. He had a dagger in his hand. He waited
there till Candaules was asleep. Then at a signal given him by the
queen, he entered, and stabbed the husband in his bed. He married
Nyssia, and possessed himself of the kingdom. After this, he and
his successors reigned for many years over the kingdom of Lydia,
constituting the dynasty of the Mermnadae, from which, in process of
time, King Croesus descended.
The successive sovereigns of this dynasty gradually extended the
Lydian power over the countries around them. The name of Croesus's
father, who was the monarch that immediately preceded him, was
Alyattes. Alyattes waged war toward the southward, into the
territories of the city of Miletus. He made annual incursions into the
country of the Milesians for plunder, always taking care, however,
while he seized all the movable property that he could find, to leave
the villages and towns, and all the hamlets of the laborers without
injury. The reason for this was, that he did not wish to drive away
the population, but to encourage them to remain and cultivate their
lands, so that there might be new flocks and herds, and new stores of
corn, and fruit, and wine, for him to plunder from in succeeding
years. At last, on one of these marauding excursions, some fires which
were accidentally set in a field spread into a neighboring town, and
destroyed, among other buildings, a temple consecrated to Minerva.
After this, Alyattes found himself quite unsuccessful in all his
expeditions and campaigns. He sent to a famous oracle to ask the
reason.
"You can expect no more success," replied the oracle, "until you
rebuild the temple that you have destroyed."
But how could he rebuild the temple? The site was in the enemy's
country. His men could not build an edifice and defend themselves, at
the same time, from the attacks of their foes. He concluded to demand
a truce of the Milesians until the reconstruction should be completed,
and he sent embassadors to Miletus, accordingly, to make the proposal.
The proposition for a truce resulted in a permanent peace, by means
of a very singular stratagem which Thrasybulus, the king of Miletus,
practiced upon Alyattes. It seems that Alyattes supposed that
Thrasybulus had been reduced to great distress by the loss and
destruction of provisions and stores in various parts of the country,
and that he would soon be forced to yield up his kingdom. This was,
in fact, the case; but Thrasybulus determined to disguise his real
condition, and to destroy, by an artifice, all the hopes which
Alyattes had formed from the supposed scarcity in the city. When the
herald whom Alyattes sent to Miletus was about to arrive, Thrasybulus
collected all the corn, and grain, and other provisions which he could
command, and had them heaped up in a public part of the city, where
the herald was to be received, so as to present indications of the
most ample abundance of food. He collected a large body of his
soldiers, too, and gave them leave to feast themselves without
restriction on what he had thus gathered. Accordingly, when the herald
came in to deliver his message, he found the whole city given up to
feasting and revelry, and he saw stores of provisions at hand, which
were in process of being distributed and consumed with the most
prodigal profusion. The herald reported this state of things to
Alyattes. Alyattes then gave up all hopes of reducing Miletus by
famine, and made a permanent peace, binding himself to its
stipulations by a very solemn treaty. To celebrate the event, too, he
built two temples to Minerva instead of one.
A story is related by Herodotus of a remarkable escape made by Arion
at sea, which occurred during the reign of Alyattes, the father of
Croesus. We will give the story as Herodotus relates it, leaving the
reader to judge for himself whether such tales were probably true, or
were only introduced by Herodotus into his narrative to make his
histories more entertaining to the Grecian assemblies to whom he read
them. Arion was a celebrated singer. He had been making a tour in
Sicily and in the southern part of Italy, where he had acquired
considerable wealth, and he was now returning to Corinth. He embarked
at Tarentum, which is a city in the southern part of Italy, in a
Corinthian vessel, and put to sea. When the sailors found that they
had him in their power, they determined to rob and murder him. They
accordingly seized his gold and silver, and then told him that he
might either kill himself or jump overboard into the sea. One or the
other he must do. If he would kill himself on board the vessel, they
would give him decent burial when they reached the shore.
Arion seemed at first at a loss how to decide in so hard an
alternative. At length he told the sailors that he would throw himself
into the sea, but he asked permission to sing them one of his songs
before he took the fatal plunge. They consented. He accordingly went
into the cabin, and spent some time in dressing himself magnificently
in the splendid and richly-ornamented robes in which he had been
accustomed to appear upon the stage. At length he reappeared, and took
his position on the side of the ship, with his harp in his hand. He
sang his song, accompanying himself upon the harp, and then, when he
had finished his performance, he leaped into the sea. The seamen
divided their plunder and pursued their voyage. Arion, however,
instead of being drowned, was taken up by a dolphin that had been
charmed by his song, and was borne by him to Taenarus, which is the
promontory formed by the southern extremity of the Peloponnesus. There
Arion landed in safety. From Taenarus he proceeded to Corinth, wearing
the same dress in which he had plunged into the sea. On his arrival,
he complained to the king of the crime which the sailors had
committed, and narrated his wonderful escape. The king did not believe
him, but put him in prison to wait until the ship should arrive. When
at last the vessel came, the king summoned the sailors into his
presence, and asked them if they knew any thing of Arion. Arion
himself had been previously placed in an adjoining room, ready to be
called in as soon as his presence was required. The mariners answered
to the question which the king put to them, that they had seen Arion
in Tarentum, and that they had left him there. Arion was then himself
called in. His sudden appearance, clothed as he was in the same dress
in which the mariners had seen him leap into the sea, so terrified the
conscience-stricken criminals, that they confessed their guilt, and
were all punished by the king. A marble statue, representing a man
seated upon a dolphin, was erected at Taenarus to commemorate this
event, where it remained for centuries afterward, a monument of the
wonder which Arion had achieved.
At length Alyattes died and Croesus succeeded him. Croesus
extended still further the power and fame of the Lydian empire, and
was for a time very successful in all his military schemes. By looking
upon the map, the reader will see that the AEgean Sea, along the coasts
of Asia Minor, is studded with islands. These islands were in those
days very fertile and beautiful, and were densely inhabited by a
commercial and maritime people, who possessed a multitude of ships,
and were very powerful in all the adjacent seas. Of course their land
forces were very few, whether of horse or of foot, as the habits and
manners of such a sea-going people were all foreign to modes of
warfare required in land campaigns. On the sea, however, these
islanders were supreme.
Croesus formed a scheme for attacking these islands and bringing
them under his sway, and he began to make preparations for building
and equipping a fleet for this purpose, though, of course, his
subjects were as unused to the sea as the nautical islanders were
to military operations on the land. While he was making these
preparations, a certain philosopher was visiting at his court: he
was one of the seven wise men of Greece, who had recently come from
the Peloponnesus. Croesus asked him if there was any news from that
country. "I heard," said the philosopher, "that the inhabitants of the
islands were preparing to invade your dominions with a squadron of ten
thousand horse." Croesus, who supposed that the philosopher was
serious, appeared greatly pleased and elated at the prospect of his
sea-faring enemies attempting to meet him as a body of cavalry. "No
doubt," said the philosopher, after a little pause, "you would be
pleased to have those sailors attempt to contend with you on
horseback; but do you not suppose that they will be equally pleased
at the prospect of encountering Lydian landsmen on the ocean?"
Croesus perceived the absurdity of his plan, and abandoned the
attempt to execute it.
Croesus acquired the enormous wealth for which he was so celebrated
from the golden sands of the River Pactolus, which flowed through his
kingdom. The river brought the particles of gold, in grains, and
globules, and flakes, from the mountains above, and the servants and
slaves of Croesus washed the sands, and thus separated the heavier
deposit of the metal. In respect to the origin of the gold, however,
the people who lived upon the banks of the river had a different
explanation from the simple one that the waters brought down the
treasure from the mountain ravines. They had a story that, ages
before, a certain king, named Midas, rendered some service to a god,
who, in his turn, offered to grant him any favor that he might ask.
Midas asked that the power might be granted him to turn whatever he
touched into gold. The power was bestowed, and Midas, after changing
various objects around him into gold until he was satisfied, began to
find his new acquisition a source of great inconvenience and danger.
His clothes, his food, and even his drink, were changed to gold when
he touched them. He found that he was about to starve in the midst of
a world of treasure, and he implored the god to take back the fatal
gift. The god directed him to go and bathe in the Pactolus, and he
should be restored to his former condition. Midas did so, and was
saved, but not without transforming a great portion of the sands of
the stream into gold during the process of his restoration.
Croesus thus attained quite speedily to a very high degree of
wealth, prosperity, and renown. His dominions were widely extended;
his palaces were full of treasures; his court was a scene of
unexampled magnificence and splendor. While in the enjoyment of all
this grandeur, he was visited by Solon, the celebrated Grecian
law-giver, who was traveling in that part of the world to observe the
institutions and customs of different states. Croesus received Solon
with great distinction, and showed him all his treasures. At last he
one day said to him, "You have traveled, Solon, over many countries,
and have studied, with a great deal of attention and care, all that
you have seen. I have heard great commendations of your wisdom, and I
should like very much to know who, of all the persons you have ever
known, has seemed to you most fortunate and happy."
The king had no doubt that the answer would be that he himself was the
one.
"I think," replied Solon, after a pause, "that Tellus, an Athenian
citizen, was the most fortunate and happy man I have ever known."
"Tellus, an Athenian!" repeated Croesus, surprised. "What was there
in his case which you consider so remarkable?"
"He was a peaceful and quiet citizen of Athens," said Solon. "He lived
happily with his family, under a most excellent government, enjoying
for many years all the pleasures of domestic life. He had several
amiable and virtuous children, who all grew up to maturity, and loved
and honored their parents as long as they lived. At length, when his
life was drawing toward its natural termination, a war broke out with
a neighboring nation, and Tellus went with the army to defend his
country. He aided very essentially in the defeat of the enemy, but
fell, at last, on the field of battle. His countrymen greatly lamented
his death. They buried him publicly where he fell, with every
circumstance of honor."
Solon was proceeding to recount the domestic and social virtues of
Tellus, and the peaceful happiness which he enjoyed as the result of
them, when Croesus interrupted him to ask who, next to Tellus, he
considered the most fortunate and happy man.
Solon, after a little farther reflection, mentioned two brothers,
Cleobis and Bito, private persons among the Greeks, who were
celebrated for their great personal strength, and also for their
devoted attachment to their mother. He related to Croesus a story of
a feat they performed on one occasion, when their mother, at the
celebration of some public festival, was going some miles to a temple,
in a car to be drawn by oxen. There happened to be some delay in
bringing the oxen, while the mother was waiting in the car. As the
oxen did not come, the young men took hold of the pole of the car
themselves, and walked off at their ease with the load, amid the
acclamations of the spectators, while their mother's heart was filled
with exultation and pride.
Croesus here interrupted the philosopher again, and expressed his
surprise that he should place private men, like those whom he had
named, who possessed no wealth, or prominence, or power, before a
monarch like him, occupying a station of such high authority and
renown, and possessing such boundless treasures.
"Croesus," replied Solon, "I see you now, indeed, at the height of
human power and grandeur. You reign supreme over many nations, and
you are in the enjoyment of unbounded affluence, and every species
of luxury and splendor. I can not, however, decide whether I am to
consider you a fortunate and happy man, until I know how all this is
to end. If we consider seventy years as the allotted period of life,
you have a large portion of your existence yet to come, and we can not
with certainty pronounce any man happy till his life is ended."
This conversation with Solon made a deep impression upon Croesus's
mind, as was afterward proved in a remarkable manner; but the
impression was not a pleasant or a salutary one. The king, however,
suppressed for the time the resentment which the presentation of
these unwelcome truths awakened within him, though he treated Solon
afterward with indifference and neglect, so that the philosopher soon
found it best to withdraw.
Croesus had two sons. One was deaf and dumb. The other was a young
man of uncommon promise, and, of course, as he only could succeed his
father in the government of the kingdom, he was naturally an object of
the king's particular attention and care. His name was Atys. He was
unmarried. He was, however, old enough to have the command of a
considerable body of troops, and he had often distinguished himself
in the Lydian campaigns. One night the king had a dream about Atys
which greatly alarmed him. He dreamed that his son was destined to die
of a wound received from the point of an iron spear. The king was made
very uneasy by this ominous dream. He determined at once to take every
precaution in his power to avert the threatened danger. He immediately
detached Atys from his command in the army, and made provision for his
marriage. He then very carefully collected all the darts, javelins,
and every other iron-pointed weapon that he could find about the
palace, and caused them to be deposited carefully in a secure place,
where there could be no danger even of an accidental injury from them.
About that time there appeared at the court of Croesus a stranger
from Phrygia, a neighboring state, who presented himself at the palace
and asked for protection. He was a prince of the royal family of
Phrygia, and his name was Adrastus. He had had the misfortune, by some
unhappy accident, to kill his brother; his father, in consequence of
it, had banished him from his native land, and he was now homeless,
friendless, and destitute.
Croesus received him kindly. "Your family have always been my
friends," said he, "and I am glad of the opportunity to make some
return by extending my protection to any member of it suffering
misfortune. You shall reside in my palace, and all your wants shall be
supplied. Come in, and forget the calamity which has befallen you,
instead of distressing yourself with it as if it had been a crime."
Thus Croesus received the unfortunate Adrastus into his household.
After the prince had been domiciliated in his new home for some time,
messengers came from Mysia, a neighboring state, saying that a wild
boar of enormous size and unusual ferocity had come down from the
mountains, and was lurking in the cultivated country, in thickets and
glens, from which, at night, he made great havoc among the flocks and
herds, and asking that Croesus would send his son, with a band of
hunters and a pack of dogs, to help them destroy the common enemy.
Croesus consented immediately to send the dogs and the men, but he
said that he could not send his son. "My son," he added, "has been
lately married, and his time and attention are employed about other
things."
When, however, Atys himself heard of this reply, he remonstrated very
earnestly against it, and begged his father to allow him to go. "What
will the world think of me," said he "if I shut myself up to these
effeminate pursuits and enjoyments, and shun those dangers and toils
which other men consider it their highest honor to share? What will my
fellow-citizens think of me, and how shall I appear in the eyes of my
wife? She will despise me."
Croesus then explained to his son the reason why he had been so
careful to avoid exposing him to danger. He related to him the dream
which had alarmed him. "It is on that account," said he, "that I am so
anxious about you. You are, in fact, my only son, for your speechless
brother can never be my heir."
Atys said, in reply, that he was not surprised, under those
circumstances, at his father's anxiety; but he maintained that this
was a case to which his caution could not properly apply.
"You dreamed," he said, "that I should be killed by a weapon pointed
with iron; but a boar has no such weapon. If the dream had portended
that I was to perish by a tusk or a tooth, you might reasonably have
restrained me from going to hunt a wild beast; but iron-pointed
instruments are the weapons of men, and we are not going, in this
expedition, to contend with men."
The king, partly convinced, perhaps, by the arguments which Atys
offered, and partly overborne by the urgency of his request, finally
consented to his request and allowed him to go. He consigned him,
however, to the special care of Adrastus, who was likewise to
accompany the expedition, charging Adrastus to keep constantly by his
side, and to watch over him with the utmost vigilance and fidelity.
The band of huntsmen was organized, the dogs prepared, and the train
departed. Very soon afterward, a messenger came back from the hunting
ground, breathless, and with a countenance of extreme concern and
terror, bringing the dreadful tidings that Atys was dead. Adrastus
himself had killed him. In the ardor of the chase, while the huntsmen
had surrounded the boar, and were each intent on his own personal
danger while in close combat with such a monster, and all were hurling
darts and javelins at their ferocious foe, the spear of Adrastus
missed its aim, and entered the body of the unhappy prince. He bled to
death on the spot.
Soon after the messenger had made known these terrible tidings, the
hunting train, transformed now into a funeral procession, appeared,
bearing the dead body of the king's son, and followed by the wretched
Adrastus himself, who was wringing his hands, and crying out
incessantly in accents and exclamations of despair. He begged the king
to kill him at once, over the body of his son, and thus put an end to
the unutterable agony that he endured. This second calamity was more,
he said, than he could bear. He had killed before his own brother, and
now he had murdered the son of his greatest benefactor and friend.
Croesus, though overwhelmed with anguish, was disarmed of all
resentment at witnessing Adrastus's suffering. He endeavored to soothe
and quiet the agitation which the unhappy man endured, but it was in
vain. Adrastus could not be calmed. Croesus then ordered the body of
his son to be buried with proper honors. The funeral services were
performed with great and solemn ceremonies, and when the body was
interred, the household of Croesus returned to the palace, which was
now, in spite of all its splendor, shrouded in gloom. That night--at
midnight--Adrastus, finding his mental anguish insupportable retired
from his apartment to the place where Atys had been buried, and
killed himself over the grave.
* * * * *
Solon was wise in saying that he could not tell whether wealth and
grandeur were to be accounted as happiness till he saw how they would
end. Croesus was plunged into inconsolable grief, and into extreme
dejection and misery for a period of two years, in consequence of this
calamity, and yet this calamity was only the beginning of the end.