Herodotus, Histories 1.90.4 · 1.90.4
The fetters at the threshold
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ὡς δὲ ταῦτα ἤκουσε ὁ Κροῖσος, πέμπων τῶν Λυδῶν ἐς Δελφοὺς ἐνετέλλετο τιθέντας τὰς πέδας ἐπὶ τοῦ νηοῦ τὸν οὐδὸν εἰρωτᾶν εἰ οὔ τι ἐπαισχύνεται τοῖσι μαντηίοισι ἐπαείρας Κροῖσον στρατεύεσθαι ἐπὶ Πέρσας ὡς καταπαύσοντα τὴν Κύρου δύναμιν, ἀπʼ ἧς οἱ ἀκροθίνια τοιαῦτα γενέσθαι, δεικνύντας τὰς πέδας· ταῦτα τε ἐπειρωτᾶν, καὶ εἰ ἀχαρίστοισι νόμος εἶναι τοῖσι Ἑλληνικοῖσι θεοῖσι.
When Croesus heard this, sending some of the Lydians to Delphi, he instructed them, placing the fetters on the temple's threshold, to ask whether he is not at all ashamed by his oracles, having urged Croesus on to campaign against the Persians as one who would put an end to Cyrus' power, from which such first-fruits as these came to him, showing the fetters; to ask this too, and whether ingratitude is the custom of the Greek gods.
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The setting
Cyrus has just granted Croesus leave to reproach the god, and anything else he might need.
A note on this passage
The chains come home. Croesus has the Lydians lay the very pedas, "fetters," that bound him for the pyre on the oudon, "threshold," of Apollo's own temple, the most public and most insulting place he could choose, a visitor could not enter without stepping past the evidence. The word for what the god supposedly urged, epaeiras, "having lifted up, incited," is the same verb used two sections earlier for Croesus being "elated" by the oracle; the puffing-up the god gave him has come back as a very physical, very heavy pair of irons.
Akrothinia, "first-fruits of the spoils," is the word Greeks used for the best portion of war-booty set aside for a god, and Croesus turns it savage: these fetters, he says, are the god's own first-fruits from a war the god talked him into losing. The final question, whether ingratitude, acharistoisi, is the custom of the Greek gods, repeats the exact charge Croesus first put to Cyrus as a private worry in 1.90.2, now sent in writing, nailed to Apollo's own doorstep for the god and every priest at Delphi to read.
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