The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius (Portable Library)

by M. I. Finley

  28. Croesus afterwards brought under his sway almost all the peoples to the west of the Halys. The Lycians and Cilicians alone continued free; all the others he reduced and held in subjection. They were the following: the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandynians, Chalybians, Paphlagonians, Thynian and Bithynian Thracians, Carians, lonians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians.

  29. When all these conquests had been added to the Lydian empire, and the prosperity of Sardis was now at its height, there came thither, one after another, all the sages of Greece living at the time, and among them Solon, the Athenian. He was on his travels, having left Athens to be absent ten years, under the pretence of wishing to study, but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which he had introduced. Without his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had bound themselves by great oaths to be governed for ten years by the laws which Solon should lay down for them.

  30. On this account, as well as to study, Solon set out upon his travels, in the course of which he went to Egypt to the court of Amasis, and also to Croesus at Sardis.9 Croesus received him as his guest, and lodged him in the royal palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants conduct Solon over his treasuries, and show him all their greatness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and, so far as time allowed, inspected them, Croesus addressed this question to him. “Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of your wisdom and of your travels through many lands, from love of knowledge and a wish to see the world. I am curious therefore to inquire of you, whom, of all the men that you have seen, you deem the most happy?” This he asked because he thought himself the happiest of mortals: but Solon answered him without flattery, according to his true sentiments, “Tellus of Athens, sire.” Full of astonishment at what he heard, Croesus demanded sharply, “And wherefore do you deem Tellus happiest?” To which the other replied, “First, because his country was flourishing in his days, and he himself had sons both beautiful and good. and he lived to see children born to each of them, and these children all grew up; and further because, after a life spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and their neighbours near Eleusis, he came to the assistance of his countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon the field most gallantly. The Athenians gave him a public funeral on the spot where he fell, and paid him the highest honours.”

  31. Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example of Tellus, enumerating the manifold particulars of his happiness. When he had ended, Croesus inquired a second time, who after Tellus seemed to him the happiest, expecting that at any rate, he would be given the second place. ”Cleobis and Biton,” Solon answered; ”they were of Argive race; their fortune was enough for their wants, and they were besides endowed with so much bodily strength that they had both gained prizes at the games. Also this tale is told of them: There was a great festival in honour of the goddess Hera at Argos, to which their mother must needs be taken in a car. Now the oxen did not come home from the field in time, so the youths, fearful of being too late, put the yoke on their own necks, and themselves drew the car in which their mother rode. Five and forty furlongs did they draw her, and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs was witnessed by the whole assembly of worshippers, and then their life closed in the best possible way. Herein, too, the god showed forth most evidently, how much better a thing for man death is than life. For the Argive men, who stood around the car, extolled the vast strength of the youths; and the Argive women extolled the mother who was blessed with such a pair of sons; and the mother herself, overjoyed.at the deed and at the praises it had won, standing straight before the image, besought the goddess to bestow on Cleobis and Biton, the sons who had so mightily honoured her, the highest blessing to which mortals can attain. Her prayer ended, they offered sacrifice and partook of the banquet, after which the two youths fell asleep in the temple. They never woke more, but so passed from the earth. The Argives, looking on them as among the best of men, caused statues of them to be made, which they dedicated at Delphi.”

  32. When Solon had thus assigned these youths the second place, Croesus broke in angrily, ”What, stranger of Athens, is our happiness, then, so utterly set at nought by you, that you do not even put us on a level with private men?”

  “O Croesus,” replied the other, “you asked a question concerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the god is full of jealousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A long life gives one to witness much, and experience much oneself, that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained, without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and there will be, in the seventy years, thirty-five such months, making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident. For yourself, O Croesus, I see that you are wonderfully rich, and are king over many men; but with respect to that whereon you questioned me, I have no answer to give, until I hear that you have closed your life happily. For assuredly he who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than he who has what suffices for his daily needs, unless it so hap that luck attend upon him, and so he continue in the enjoyment of all his good things to the end of life. For many of the wealthiest men have been unfavoured of fortune, and many whose means were moderate have had excellent luck. Men of the former class excel those of the latter but in two respects; these last excel the former in many. The wealthy man is better able to content his desires, and to bear up against a sudden buffet of calamity. The other has less ability to withstand these evils (from which, however, his good luck keeps him clear), but he enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and comely to look upon. If, in addi tion to all this, he end his life well, he is of a truth the man of whom you are in search, the man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate. Scarcely, indeed, can any man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which contains within it all that it needs, but each, while it possesses some things, lacks others, and the best country is that which contains the most; so no single human being is complete in every respect—something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest number of advantages, and, retaining them to the day of his death, then dies peaceably, that man alone, sire, is, in my judgment, entitled to bear the name of ‘happy.’ But in every matter it behoves us to mark well the end: for oftentimes the god gives men a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin.”

  33. Such was the speech which Solon addressed to Croesus, a speech which brought him neither largess nor honour. The king saw him depart with much indifference, since he thought that a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of present good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.

  34. After Solon had gone away a dreadful vengeance, sent of the god, came upon Croesus, to punish him, it is likely, for deeming himself the happiest of men. First he had a dream in the night, which foreshowed him truly the evils that were about to befall him in the person of his son. For Croesus had two sons, one blasted by a natural defect, being deaf and dumb; the other, distinguished far above all his co-mates in every pursuit. The name of the last was Atys. It was this son concerning whom he dreamt a dream, that he would die by the blow of an iron weapon. When he woke, he considered earnestly with himself, and greatly alarmed at the dream, instantly made his son take a wife, and whereas in former years the youth had been wont to command the Lydian forces in the field, he now would not suffer him to accompany them. All the spears and javelins, and weapons used in the wars, he removed out of the male apartments, and laid them in heaps in the storerooms, fearing lest perhaps one of the weapons tha
t hung against the wall might fall and strike his son.

  35. Now it chanced that while he was making arrangements for the wedding, there came to Sardis a man under a misfortune, who had upon him the stain of blood. He was by race a Phrygian, and belonged to the family of the king. Presenting himself at the palace of Croesus, he prayed to be admitted to purification according to the customs of the country. Now the Lydian method of purifying is very nearly the same as the Greek. Croesus granted the request, and went through all the customary rites, after which he asked the suppliant of his birth and country, addressing him as follows: “Who are you, stranger, and from what part of Phrygia did you flee to take refuge at my hearth? And whom, moreover, what man or what woman, did you slay?” “O King,” replied the Phrygian, “I am the son of Gordias, son of Midas. I am named Adrastus. The man I unintentionally slew was my own brother. For this my father drove me from the land, and I lost all.” “You are the offspring,” Croesus rejoined, “of a house friendly to mine, and you have come to friends. You shall want for nothing so long as you remain with me. Bear your misfortune as easily as you can, so will it go best with you.” Thenceforth Adrastus lived with the king.

  36. It chanced that at this very same time there was in the Mysian Olympus a huge monster of a boar, which went forth often from this mountain country, and wasted the corn-fields of the Mysians. Many a time had the Mysians collected to hunt the beast, but instead of doing him any hurt they came off always with some loss to themselves. At length they sent ambassadors to Croesus, who delivered their message to him in these words: “O King, a mighty monster of a boar has appeared in our parts, and destroys the labor of our hands. We do our best to take him, but in vain. Now therefore we beseech you to let your son accompany us back, with some chosen youths and hounds, that we may rid our country of the animal.” Such was the tenor of their prayer.

  But Croesus bethought him of his dream, and answered, “Say no more of my son going with you; that may not be in any wise. He is but just joined in wedlock, and is busy enough with that. I will grant you a picked band of Lydians, and all my huntsmen and hounds; and I will charge those whom I send to use all zeal in aiding you to rid your country of the brute.”

  37. With this reply the Mysians were content; but the king’s son, hearing what the prayer of the Mysians was, came suddenly in, and, on the refusal of Croesus to let him go with them, thus addressed his father: “Formerly, my father, it was deemed the noblest and most suitable thing for me to frequent the wars and hunting parties, and win myself glory in them; but now you keep me away from both, although you have never beheld in me either cowardice or lack of spirit. What face meanwhile must I wear as I walk to the Agora or return from it? What must the citizens, what must my young bride think of me? What sort of man will she suppose her husband to be? Either, therefore, let me go to the chase of this boar, or give me a reason why it is best for me to do according to your wishes.”

  38. Then Croesus answered, “My son, it is not because I have seen either cowardice in you or aught else which has displeased me that I keep you back; but because a vision which came before me in a dream as I slept, warned me that you were doomed to die young, pierced by an iron weapon. It was this which first led me to hasten on your wedding, and now it hinders me from sending you upon this enterprise. Fain would I keep watch over you, if by any means I may cheat fate of you during my own lifetime. For you are the one and only son that I possess; the other, whose hearing is destroyed, I regard as if he were not.”

  39. “Ah, Father,” returned the youth, “I do not blame you for keeping watch over me after such a dream; but if you are wrong, if you do not apprehend the dream aright, it is no blame for me to show you wherein you err. Now the dream, you yourself said, foretold that I should die stricken by an iron weapon. But what hands has a boar? What iron weapon does he wield? Had the dream said that I should die by a tooth, or by something similar, then you would have done well to keep me away; but it said a weapon. Now here we do not combat men; therefore, let me go with them.”

  40. “There you have me, my son,” said Croesus. “Your interpretation is better than mine. I yield to it, and change my mind, and consent to let you go.”

  41. Then the king sent for Adrastus, the Phrygian, and said to him, “Adrastus, when you were smitten with the rod of affliction—no reproach, my friend—I purified you, and have taken you to live with me, and have been at every charge. Now, therefore, it behooves you to requite the good offices which you have received at my hands by consenting to go with my son on this hunting party, and to watch over him, if perchance you should be attacked upon the road by some band of daring robbers. Even apart from this, it were right for you to go where you may make yourself famous by noble deeds. They are the heritage of your family, and you too are stalwart and strong.”

  42. Adrastus answered, “Except for your request, O King, I would rather have kept away from this hunt; for methinks it ill beseems a man under a misfortune such as mine to consort with his happier compeers; and besides, I have no heart to it. On many grounds I had stayed behind; but, as you urge it, and I am bound to pleasure you (for truly it does behoove me to requite your good offices), I am content to do as you wish. For your son, whom you give into my charge, be sure you shall receive him back safe and sound, so far as depends upon a guardian’s carefulness.”

  43. Thus assured, Croesus let them depart, accompanied by a band of picked youths, and with dogs of chase. When then reached Olympus, they scattered in quest of the animal; he was soon found, and the hunters, drawing round him in a circle, hurled their weapons at him. Then the stranger, the man who had been purified of blood, whose name was Adrastus,10 he also hurled his spear at the boar, but missed his aim and struck Atys. Thus was the son of Croesus slain by the point of an iron weapon, and the warning of the vision was fulfilled. Then one ran to Sardis to bear the tidings to the king, and he came and informed him of the combat and of the fate that had befallen his son.

  44. If it was a heavy blow to the father to learn that his child was dead, it yet more strongly affected him to think that the very man whom he himself once purified of a murder had done the deed. In the violence of his grief he called aloud on Zeus Catharsius to be a witness of what he had suffered at the stranger’s hands. Afterwards he invoked the same god as Zeus Ephistius and Hetaereus—using the one term because he had unwittingly harboured in his house the man who had now slain his son, and the other because the stranger, who had been sent as his child’s guardian, had turned out his most cruel enemy.

  45. Presently the Lydians arrived, bearing the body, and behind them followed the homicide. He took his stand in front of the corpse, and, stretching forth his hands to Croesus, delivered himself into his power with earnest entreaties that he would sacrifice him upon the body of his son —that his former misfortune was burden enough; now that he had added to it a second, and had brought ruin on the man who purified him, he could not bear to live. Then Croesus, when he heard these words, was moved with pity towards Adrastus, notwithstanding the bitterness of his own calamity; and so he answered, “Enough, my friend; I have all the satisfaction that I require, since you give sentence of death against yourself. But it is not you who have injured me, except so far as you were unwittingly the instrument. Some god is the author of my misfortune, he who forewarned me of it a long time ago.” Croesus after this buried the body of his son, with the customary rites. As for Adrastus, son of Gordias, son of Midas, the destroyer of his brother in time past, the destroyer now of his purifier, regarding himself as the most unfortunate wretch whom he had ever known, so soon as all was quiet about the place, he slew himself upon the tomb.

  46. Croesus, bereft of his son, gave himself up to mourning for two full years. At the end of this time, he ceased from his mourning upon learning that Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, had destroyed the [Median] empire of Astyages, the son of Cyaxares; and that the Persians were becoming daily more powerful. This led him to consider with himself whether it were possible to chec
k the growing power of that people before it came to a head. With this design he resolved to make instant trial of the several oracles in Greece, and of the one in Libya. So he sent his messengers in different directions, some to Delphi, some to Abae in Phocis, and some to Dodona; others to the oracle of Amphiaraus; others to that of Trophonius; others, again, to the sanctuary of the Branchidae in Milesia. These were the Greek oracles which he consulted. To Libya he sent another embassy, to consult the oracle of Ammon. These messengers were sent to test the knowledge of the oracles, that, if they were found really to return true answers, he might send a second time, and inquire if he ought to attack the Persians.

  47. The messengers who were despatched to make trial of the oracles were given the following instructions: they were to keep count of the days from the time of their leaving Sardis, and, reckoning from that date, on the hundredth day they were to consult the oracles, and to inquire of them what Croesus the son of Alyattes, king of Lydia, was doing at that moment. The answers given them were to be taken down in writing, and brought back to him. None of the replies remain on record except that of the oracle at Delphi. There, the moment that the Lydians entered the inner sanctuary, and before they put their questions, the Pythoness thus answered them in hexameter verse: