Concept
Croesus
Overview
Croesus ( KREE-səs; Ancient Greek: Κροῖσος, romanized: Kroîsos, Crœ̂sos) was the last king of Lydia from 585 BC to 546 BC. He was renowned for his great wealth, as well as his ultimate defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great following the siege of Sardis.
A son of the Lydian king Alyattes, Croesus ascended to the throne following a succession struggle with his step-brother. He continued his father's expansionist policies and launched a series of military campaigns that eventually brought much of western Asia Minor under Lydian control. Stopping short of attacking the city-states of the Aegean islands, he concluded treaties with them instead and benefited significantly from trade. In addition, he fostered friendly relations with Media, Egypt, Babylonia and Sparta. He became famous for his extravagant riches; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi.
In 550 BC, the Median kingdom, led by Croesus' brother-in-law Astyages, was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great. Croesus responded by attacking Pteria, a Phrygian state and Persian vassal. Cyrus intervened and inflicted a series of defeats on Croesus before capturing the capital Sardis, bringing the Lydian kingdom to an end. Croesus' subsequent fate is unclear; ancient sources describe him variously as having been executed or coming into Cyrus' service.
The fall of Croesus had a profound effect on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least", J. A. S. Evans has remarked, "Croesus had become a figure of myth, who stood outside the conventional restraints of chronology."
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Croesus is discussed.
6. Croesus was Lydian by race, the son of Alyattes and ruler of the nations which dwell on this side of the river Halys; which river, flowing from the South between the Syrians 5 and the Paphlagonians, runs out towards the North Wind into that Sea which is called the Euxine. This Croesus, first of all the Barbarians of whom we have knowledge, subdued certain of the Hellenes and forced them to pay tribute, while…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
155, 156, 207, 208.) Having testified of the same Croesus nothing else that was commendable but his honoring the gods with many and great oblations, he shows that very act of his to have been the most impious of all. For he says, that he and his brother Pantoleon contended for the kingdom while their father was yet alive; and that Croesus, having obtained the crown, caused a companion and familiar friend of…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
names the idea; opens on it
And he, conjecturing from what then was, this that now is, bade me look to the end of my life, and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties." When this was told Cyrus, who was a wiser man than Croesus, and saw in the present example Solon's maxim confirmed, he not only freed Croesus from punishment, but honored him as long as he lived; and Solon had the glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct…
Plutarch, Plutarch
names the idea; opens on it
The most eloquent and prosperous among them was Frymann, the carpenter, a veritable Croesus with an imposing establishment. The most impecunious was Hediger, the tailor; but his opinion was only second in importance to Frymann's.
Theodor Fontane, German Fiction
opens on it; names the idea
It is thus quite possible that the profuse assurances, which beggars so constantly make, that those, who relieve them, will receive a thousandfold more for their gifts in the next world, may lead many a miser to generous alms-giving; for such a one complacently views the matter as a good investment of money, being perfectly convinced that he will rise again as a Croesus. For the mass of mankind, it will perhaps be…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
opens on it; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Croesus
Related ideas
- Medes
- Greek language
- Herodotus
- Louvre
- Latin
- Lydia
- Levant
- Leo Tolstoy
- The Guardian
- Babylon
- Troy
- Achaemenid Empire
- Ionians
- Xenophon
- Zeus
- Sparta
- Cambridge
- West Asia
- Sardis
- Ionia
- Padua
- Cyprus
- Solon
- Apollo
Place in the tradition
Part of Heraclitus.