24 Facts About Croesus

Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi.

The fall of Croesus had a profound effect on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar.

The name of Croesus was not attested in contemporary inscriptions in the Lydian language.

Croesus was born in 620 BC to the king Alyattes of Lydia and one of his queens, a Carian noblewoman whose name is still unknown.

Croesus had at least one full sister, Aryenis, as well as a step-brother named Pantaleon, born from a Ionian Greek wife of Alyattes.

Under his father's reign, Croesus had been a governor of Adramyttium, which Alyattes had rebuilt as a centre of operations for military actions against the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from the Pontic steppe who had invaded Western Asia, and attacked Lydia over the course of several invasions during which they killed Alyattes's great-grandfather Gyges, and possibly his grandfather Ardys and his father Sadyattes.

Once Ephesus was under Lydian rule, Croesus provided patronage for the reconstruction of the Temple of Artemis, to which he offered a large number of marble columns as dedication to the goddess.

Croesus continued his attacks against the other Greek cities of the western coast of Asia Minor until he had subjugated all of mainland Ionia, Aeolis, and Doris, but he abandoned his plans of annexing the Greek city-states on the islands and he instead concluded treaties of friendship with them, which might have helped him participate in the lucrative trade the Aegean Greeks carried out with Egypt at Naucratis.

At Midas City, Atys held the position of priest of the sacred fire of the mother goddess Aryastin, and through him Croesus provided patronage to the building of the religious monument in the city now known as the Midas Monument.

Croesus brought Caria, whose various city-states had since Gyges been allied to the Mermnad dynasty, and from where Croesus's own mother originated, under the direct control of the Lydian Empire.

However information only about the relations between the Lydians and the Phrygians is attested in both literary and archaeological sources, and there is no available data concerning relations between the other mentioned peoples and the Lydian kings; moreover, given this was the situation detailed by Herodotus under the reign of Croesus, it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes.

Croesus continued the friendly relations with the Medes concluded by his father Alyattes and the Median king Cyaxares after five years of war in 585 BC, shortly before both their respective deaths that same year.

Croesus continued these good relations with the Medes after he succeeded Alyattes and Astyages succeeded Cyaxares.

Croesus established trade and diplomatic relations with the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nabonidus, which ensured the transition of Lydian products towards Babylonian markets.

Croesus continued the good relations between Lydia and the sanctuary of the god Apollo in Delphi on continental Greece first established by his great-great-grandfather Gyges and maintained by his father Alyattes, and just like his ancestors, Croesus offered the sanctuary rich presents in dedication, including a lion made of gold and weighing ten talents.

Croesus further increased his contacts with the Greeks on the European continent by establishing relations with the city-state of Sparta, to whom he provided the gold they needed to gild a statue of the god Apollo after the oracle of Delphi told them they would obtain this gold from Croesus.

Croesus is credited with issuing the first true gold coins with a standardised purity for general circulation, the Croeseid.

In Greek and Persian cultures the name of Croesus became a synonym for a wealthy man.

Croesus inherited great wealth from his father Alyattes, who had become associated with the Midas myth because Lydian precious metals came from the river Pactolus, in which King Midas supposedly washed away his ability to turn all he touched into gold.

Solon goes on to explain that Croesus cannot be the happiest man because the fickleness of fortune means that the happiness of a man's life cannot be judged until after his death.

Croesus first attacked Pteria, the capital of a Phrygian state vassal to the Lydians which might have attempted to rebel against Lydian suzerainty and instead declare its allegiance to the new Persian Empire of Cyrus.

However, Cyrus followed Croesus and defeated the Lydian army again at Thymbra before besieging and capturing the Lydian capital of Sardis, thus bringing an end to the rule of the Mermnad dynasty and to the Lydian Empire.

The historian Kevin Leloux instead maintained the reading of the Nabonidus Chronicle as referring to a campaign of Cyrus against Lydia to argue that Croesus was indeed executed by Cyrus.

In 2003, Stephanie West argued that the historical Croesus did in fact die on the pyre, and that the stories of him as a wise advisor to the courts of Cyrus and Cambyses are purely legendary, showing similarities to the sayings of Ahiqar.