Herodotus, Histories 1.87.2 · 1.87.2
The storm that saved him
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τὸν μὲν δακρύοντα ἐπικαλέεσθαι τὸν θεόν, ἐκ δὲ αἰθρίης τε καὶ νηνεμίης συνδραμεῖν ἐξαπίνης νέφεα καὶ χειμῶνά τε καταρραγῆναι καὶ ὗσαι ὕδατι λαβροτάτῳ, κατασβεσθῆναί τε τὴν πυρήν. οὕτω δὴ μαθόντα τὸν Κῦρον ὡς εἴη ὁ Κροῖσος καὶ θεοφιλὴς καὶ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός, καταβιβάσαντα αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς πυρῆς εἰρέσθαι τάδε.
He, weeping, called upon the god; and out of a clear and windless sky, clouds suddenly rushed together, and a storm broke, and it rained with the most violent rain, and the pyre was quenched. Thus indeed Cyrus, learning that Croesus was both dear to the gods and a good man, brought him down from the pyre and asked him this:
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Croesus weeps and calls on the god; the sky itself answers.
A note on this passage
The sky does the answering, and Herodotus describes it with two calm, cloudless words before overturning both: aithriēs, "a clear sky," and nēnemiēs, "a windless calm." Out of exactly that stillness, clouds syndramein, "ran together," the same verb used elsewhere for people or animals rushing toward one point; the weather itself races to the pyre the way a crowd would. The storm that follows, cheimōna katarragēnai, "broke forth," uses a verb elsewhere applied to things tearing apart, and it ends as fast as it started, with the fire katasbesthēnai, "quenched completely," a stronger compound than the plain "put out" asked for a chapter earlier.
Cyrus reaches his verdict in a pair of words, theophilēs, "dear to the gods," and anēr agathos, "a good man," and the sky itself supplies the proof rather than any speech from Croesus. It is close to the exact judgment Solon tried to teach him back in chapter thirty-two, when the whole conversation turned on Croesus's gold; here, finally, Croesus earns a verdict about his character. Cyrus brings him down from the pyre himself, katabibasanta, the very verb he had just ordered his men to carry out, now performed in person by the king who almost let the fire finish its work.
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