Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1917 — Croesus. [ARTICLE]

Croesus.

Croesus was an ancient king of Lydia, a country in Asia, who lived about 500 B. C. No estimate ever was made of his wealth, but as he had great opportunities to accumulate, it probably was large. He seems to have been a purse-proud man and a braggart, for history relates that when Solon, the great Athenian lawgiver, visited him, Croesus hiade an ostentatious display of his treasures and pressed Solon to acknowledge him as the happiest of mortals. But the story goes that the wise old Athenian answered : “Count no man happy before his death,” a saying which has passed into a modern proverb. Many years afterward, when Croesus was defeated in one of his long wars and was taken prisoner and was about to be burned alive, he recalled Solon’s prophetic remark and saved his own life by telling the story of Solon’s visit. His captors were so impressed by the story and the spectacle of his broken fortunes that they released Croesus, but he never had a chance to boast of his wealth again.