Herodotus, Histories 1.55.1 · 1.55.1

Herodotus marks the shift with one verb: enephoreeto, "he kept indulging himself," built on the root of φέρω, "carry, bear." The test in chapters 46 through 48 was careful science, a hundred days counted out, answers written down and weighed against each other. By this third visit Croesus has stopped testing and started trusting completely; a king who once treated the gods like instruments under examination now treats Delphi the way a man treats a habit. The imperfect tense of the verb makes it a standing condition, not one act: this is something he keeps doing, question after question.

The question itself, mounarchiē, "monarchy," is the first time the word appears for Croesus's own rule, and it could hardly be more exposed. He wants to know whether his sole power will be polychronios, "long-lasting," and he asks it the way a man asks a doctor for good news. The reader already has Solon's warning two chapters back, that no mortal condition holds steady for long. What Croesus is about to receive is an answer built exactly to that lesson, in a shape he will not recognize until it is far too late.

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