Croesus

Croesus (/ˈkriːsəs/ KREE-səs; Ancient Greek: Κροῖσος, Kroisos; 595 BC – c. 546 BC) was the king of Lydia who, according to Herodotus, reigned for 14 years: from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 546 BC (sometimes given as 547 BC).

Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi. The fall of Croesus made a profound impact 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."

Aside from a poetical account of Croesus on the pyre in Bacchylides (composed for Hiero of Syracuse, who won the chariot race at Olympia in 468), there are three classical accounts of Croesus: Herodotus presents the Lydian accounts of the conversation with Solon (Histories 1.29-.33), the tragedy of Croesus' son Atys (Histories 1.34-.45) and the fall of Croesus (Histories 1.85-.89); Xenophon instances Croesus in his panegyric fictionalized biography of Cyrus: Cyropaedia, 7.1; and Ctesias, whose account is also an encomium of Cyrus. Croesus is a descendant of Gyges, of the Myrmnadae Clan, who seized power when Gyges killed Candaules after Candaules's wife found out about a conspriracy to watch her disrobe, according to Herodotus.

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