Croesus and Solon


Herodotus' account (in Book 1 of his Histories) of the Solon-Croesus story is available in various translations on the web. Two sections are given in the handout (pp. 33-36); they are also available on the web. The first is from George Rawlinson's translation (section beginning "When all these conquests" and running to "for deeming himself the happiest of men"). Following this narrative, Herodotus goes on to describe Croesus' misunderstanding of the Delphic oracle, summarized by H&P, p. 240. This includes Croesus' capture by Cyrus, described as follows in Shlomo Felberbaum's translation (section beginning "The Persians got hold of Sardis" and running to "marvelled much at seeing him").

It is hard to say how historically accurate Herodotus' account of Croesus is. (H&P, p. 240, refer to the details which they cite from Herodotus as "probably spurious" - by which they seem to mean that it is not historically accurate, rather than that it is not by Herodotus.) Croesus' invasion of the Persian Empire and his subsequent defeat can be dated around 550 BCE - only about 100 years before Herodotus' own time. Even in the fifth century BCE, though, Croesus had already acquired a kind of "mythical" aura. For another treatment of Croesus, see Bacchylides, Ode 3 (Miller, pp. 201-205), where the story of Croesus constitutes the myth in an epinician ode.