Herodotus, Histories 1.50.3 · 1.50.3
The golden lion
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ἐποιέετο δὲ καὶ λέοντος εἰκόνα χρυσοῦ ἀπέφθου ἕλκουσαν σταθμὸν τάλαντα δέκα. οὗτος ὁ λέων, ἐπείτε κατεκαίετο ὁ ἐν Δελφοῖσι νηός, κατέπεσε ἀπὸ τῶν ἡμιπλινθίων ( ἐπὶ γὰρ τούτοισι ἵδρυτο), καὶ νῦν κεῖται ἐν τῷ Κορινθίων θησαυρῷ, ἕλκων σταθμὸν ἕβδομον ἡμιτάλαντον· ἀπετάκη γὰρ αὐτοῦ τέταρτον ἡμιτάλαντον.
He also had a lion made, of refined gold, weighing ten talents. This lion, when the temple at Delphi burned down, fell from the half-bricks it had been set on, for it stood on these, and it now lies in the treasury of the Corinthians, weighing six and a half talents, for three and a half talents of it melted away.
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The setting
Among Croesus's gifts was a lion of pure gold, whose later fire-damaged weight Herodotus records exactly.
A note on this passage
Herodotus's numbers check out, which is itself worth noticing: ten talents of gold are cast into a lion, a fire eats tetarton hēmitalanton, "a fourth half-talent," three and a half talents, and what survives is hebdomon hēmitalanton, "a seventh half-talent," six and a half. Three and a half plus six and a half is ten exactly. Herodotus did not make up the destruction of the temple at Delphi, and he is precise enough about the surviving weight that a reader can check his subtraction against his addition.
The animal he chose is not incidental. Lydian kings used the lion as their badge, and it sits on Lydian coinage from this very period. A golden lion sent to Delphi is Croesus advertising himself, his house, and his money all at once, and it is fitting that the fire, which could melt away so much of it, left enough of the royal beast to still be pointed out, in the treasury of Corinth, long after Croesus himself was gone.
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