ve that time by travelling.(1100) He went to Sardis, where he was
received in a manner suitable to the reputation of so great a man. The
king, attended with a numerous court, appeared in all his regal pomp and
splendour, dressed in the most magnificent apparel, which was all over
enriched with gold, and glittered with diamonds. Notwithstanding the
novelty of this spectacle to Solon, it did not appear that he was the
least moved at it, nor did he utter a word which discovered the least
surprise or admiration; on the contrary, people of sense might
sufficiently discern from his behaviour, that he looked upon all this
outward pomp, as an indication of a little mind, which knows not in what
true greatness and dignity consist. This coldness and indifference in
Solon's first approach, gave the king no favourable opinion of his new
guest.

He afterwards ordered that all his treasures, his magnificent apartments,
and costly furniture, should be showed him; as if he expected, by the
multitude of his fine vessels, jewels, statues, and paintings, to conquer
the philosopher's indifference. But these things were not the king; and it
was the king that Solon was come to visit, and not the walls and chambers
of his palace. He had no notion of making a judgment of the king, or an
estimate of his worth, by these outward appendages, but by himself and his
own personal qualities. Were we to judge at present by the same rule, we
should find many of our great men wretchedly naked and desolate.

When Solon had seen all, he was brought back to the king. Croesus then
asked him, which of mankind in all his travels he had found the most truly
happy? "One Tellus," replied Solon, "a citizen of Athens, a very honest
and good man, who, after having lived all his days without indigence,
having always seen his country in a flourishing condition, has left
children that are universally esteemed, has had the satisfaction of seeing
those children's children, and at last died gloriously in fighting for his
country."

Such an answer as this, in which gold and silver were accounted as
nothing, seemed to Croesus to denote a strange ignorance and stupidity.
However, as he flattered himself that he should be ranked at least in the
second degree of happiness, he asked him, "Who, of all those he had seen,
was the next in felicity to Tellus?" Solon answered, "Cleobis and Biton,
of Argos, two brothers,(1101) who had left behind them a perfect pattern
of fraternal