Croesus (/ˈkriːsəs/KREE-səs; Lydian: 𐤨𐤭𐤬𐤥𐤦𐤮𐤠𐤮Krowisas;[1]Phrygian: Akriaewais;[2]Ancient Greek: Κροῖσος, romanized: Kroisos; Latin: Croesus; reigned: c. 585 – c. 546 BC[3])
was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC.[4][3] According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was renowned for his wealth; Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi.[5]
The fall of Croesus had a profound effect 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."[6]
^Kearns, J.M. (1997). "A Lydian Etymology for the Name of Croesus". In Disterheft, Dorothy; Huld, Martin E.; Greppin, John A.C.; Polomé, Edgar C. (eds.). Studies in Honor of Jaan Puhvel-Part One: Ancient Languages and Philology. Washington D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. pp. 23–28. ISBN978-0-941-69454-4.
^Cite error: The named reference Leloux-2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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Among them a lion of gold, which had tumbled from its perch upon a stack of ingots when the temple at Delphi burned but was preserved and displayed in the Treasury of the Corinthians, where Pausanias saw it (Pausanias 10.5.13). The temple burned in the archonship of Erxicleides, 548–47 BC.