Herodotus, Histories 1.46.1 · 1.46.1
Croesus looks east
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Κροῖσος δὲ ἐπὶ δύο ἔτεα ἐν πένθεϊ μεγάλῳ κατῆστο τοῦ παιδὸς ἐστερημένος. μετὰ δὲ ἡ Ἀστυάγεος τοῦ Κυαξάρεω ἡγεμονίη καταιρεθεῖσα ὑπὸ Κύρου τοῦ Καμβύσεω καὶ τὰ τῶν Περσέων πρήγματα αὐξανόμενα πένθεος μὲν Κροῖσον ἀπέπαυσε, ἐνέβησε δὲ ἐς φροντίδα, εἴ κως δύναιτο, πρὶν μεγάλους γενέσθαι τοὺς Πέρσας, καταλαβεῖν αὐτῶν αὐξανομένην τὴν δύναμιν.
Croesus sat in great mourning for two years, bereft of his son. But afterwards the overthrow of the empire of Astyages son of Cyaxares by Cyrus son of Cambyses, and the growing power of the Persians, roused Croesus from grief and set him thinking whether he could somehow check their growing power before the Persians became great.
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The setting
Croesus has lost his son Atys, killed by accident in a boar hunt (1.34–45, the story that follows straight on from Solon's warning). He has mourned for two years. Now news from Persia pulls him out of his grief.
A note on this passage
Two years of grief are told in one clause. What ends them is news from the east: Cyrus of Persia has overthrown Astyages, king of the Medes, and Persian power is <em>auxanomena</em>, "growing." Herodotus uses the same participle twice in the sentence, first for Persian affairs and then for Persian power, so that the reader feels the thing Croesus feels: something getting bigger on the horizon.
Croesus's idea is a pre-emptive strike, to catch the Persians before they grow great. It is a reasonable plan for a king. But a reader who has just heard Solon knows that "great" is a dangerous word in this book, and that the gods do not like men who try to arrange the future. The next thing Croesus does is ask the gods.
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