some
months. Thrasybulus, Tyrant of Miletus, having notice of his coming,
ordered all the corn, and other provisions, assembled by him and his
subjects for their support, to be brought into the public market; and
commanded the citizens, at the sight of a signal that should be given, to
be all in a general humour of feasting and jollity. The thing was executed
according to his orders. The Lydian ambassador at his arrival was in the
utmost surprise to see such plenty in the market, and such cheerfulness in
the city. His master, to whom he gave an account of what he had seen,
concluding that his project of reducing the place by famine would never
succeed, preferred peace to so apparently fruitless a war, and immediately
raised the siege.

(M196) CROESUS. His very name, which is become a proverb, conveys an idea
of immense riches. The wealth of this prince, to judge of it only by the
presents he made to the temple of Delphi, must have been excessively
great. Most of those presents were still to be seen in the time of
Herodotus, and were worth several millions. We may partly account for the
treasures of this prince, from certain mines that he had, situate,
according to Strabo, between Pergamus and Atarna;(1098) as also from the
little river Pactolus, the sand of which was gold. But in Strabo's time
this river had no longer the same advantage.

What is very extraordinary, this affluence did not enervate or soften the
courage of Croesus.(1099) He thought it unworthy of a prince to spend his
time in idleness and pleasure. For his part, he was perpetually in arms,
made several conquests, and enlarged his dominions by the addition of all
the contiguous provinces, as Phrygia, Mysia, Paphlagonia, Bithynia,
Pamphylia, and all the country of the Carians, Ionians, Dorians, and
AEolians. Herodotus observes, that he was the first conqueror of the
Greeks, who till then had never been subject to a foreign power. Doubtless
he must mean the Greeks settled in Asia Minor.

But what is still more extraordinary in this prince, though he was so
immensely rich, and so great a warrior, yet his chief delight was in
literature and the sciences. His court was the ordinary residence of those
famous learned men, so revered by antiquity, and distinguished by the name
of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

Solon, one of the most celebrated amongst them, after having established
new laws at Athens, thought he might absent himself for some years, and
impro