ifice he
offered three thousand of each kind, and he heaped up couches overlaid
with gold and overlaid with silver, and cups of gold, and robes of
purple, and tunics, making of them a great pyre, and this he burnt up,
hoping by these means the more to win over the god to the side of the
Lydians: and he proclaimed to all the Lydians that every one of them
should make sacrifice with that which each man had. And when he had
finished the sacrifice, he melted down a vast quantity of gold, and of
it he wrought half-plinths 45 making them six palms 46 in length and
three in breadth, and in height one palm; and their number was one
hundred and seventeen. Of these four were of pure gold 47 weighing two
talents and a half 48 each, and others of gold alloyed with silver 49
weighing two talents. And he caused to be made also an image of a lion
of pure gold weighing ten talents; which lion, when the temple of Delphi
was being burnt down, fell from off the half-plinths, for upon these
it was set, 50 and is placed now in the treasury of the Corinthians,
weighing six talents and a half, for three talents and a half were
melted away from it.

51. So Croesus having finished all these things sent them to Delphi, and
with them these besides:--two mixing bowls of great size, one of gold and
the other of silver, of which the golden bowl was placed on the right
hand as one enters the temple, and the silver on the left, but the
places of these also were changed after the temple was burnt down,
and the golden bowl is now placed in the treasury of the people of
Clazomenai, weighing eight and a half talents and twelve pounds over,
51 while the silver one is placed in the corner of the vestibule 52 and
holds six hundred amphors 53 (being filled with wine by the Delphians on
the feast of the Theophania): this the people of Delphi say is the work
of Theodoros the Samian, 54 and, as I think, rightly, for it is evident
to me that the workmanship is of no common kind: moreover Croesus sent
four silver wine-jars, which stand in the treasury of the Corinthians,
and two vessels for lustral water, 55 one of gold and the other of
silver, of which the gold one is inscribed "from the Lacedemonians,"
who say that it is their offering: therein however they do not speak
rightly; for this also is from Croesus, but one of the Delphians wrote
the inscription upon it, desiring to gratify the Lacedemonians; and his
name I know but will not make mention of it. The boy