Herodotus, Histories 1.54.1 · 1.54.1
Croesus rewards Delphi
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Ἐπείτε δὲ ἀνενειχθέντα τὰ θεοπρόπια ἐπύθετο ὁ Κροῖσος, ὑπερήσθη τε τοῖσι χρηστηρίοισι, πάγχυ τε ἐλπίσας καταλύσειν τὴν Κύρου βασιληίην, πέμψας αὖτις ἐς Πυθὼ Δελφοὺς δωρέεται, πυθόμενος αὐτῶν τὸ πλῆθος, κατʼ ἄνδρα δύο στατῆρσι ἕκαστον χρυσοῦ.
When Croesus learned that the oracular responses had been brought back, he was overjoyed at the oracles, and fully expecting that he would destroy the kingdom of Cyrus, he sent to Delphi again and, having found out their number, gave the Delphians two gold staters for each man.
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The setting
Overjoyed, and certain the oracle means Cyrus's empire, Croesus sends more gold to Delphi.
A note on this passage
Herodotus's verb for Croesus's reaction is hypērēsthē, built on the ordinary word for pleasure with a prefix meaning "beyond, over": he was overjoyed past the normal measure of joy. The text never says Croesus asked which empire the oracle meant. He supplies the answer himself, Cyrus's, because it is the one he wants, and Herodotus records the leap without comment, letting the reader notice what Croesus does not.
The gift that follows is oddly precise for a moment of pure elation. Croesus finds out exactly how many people live at Delphi and sends two gold staters for each of them, a per-head bounty rather than a single grand offering. It is the same careful, countable instinct that ran his hundred-day test of the oracles: even thanking a god, Croesus keeps an account book open.
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