Solon treated with neglect.
This conversation with Solon made a deep impression upon Crœsus's mind, as was afterward proved in a remarkable manner; but the impression was not a pleasant or a salutary one. The king, however, suppressed for the time the resentment which the presentation of these unwelcome truths awakened within him, though he treated Solon afterward with indifference and neglect, so that the philosopher soon found it best to withdraw.
The two sons of Crœsus.
The king's dream.
Crœsus had two sons. One was deaf and dumb. The other was a young man of uncommon promise, and, of course, as he only could succeed his father in the government of the kingdom, he was naturally an object of the king's particular attention and care. His name was Atys. He was unmarried. He was, however, old enough to have the command of a considerable body of troops, and he had often distinguished himself in the Lydian campaigns. One night the king had a dream about Atys which greatly alarmed him. He dreamed that his son was destined to die of a wound received from the point of an iron spear. The king was made very uneasy by this ominous dream. He determined at once to take every precaution in his power to avert the threatened danger. He immediately detached Atys from his command in the army, and made provision for his marriage. He then very carefully collected all the darts, javelins, and every other iron-pointed weapon that he could find about the palace, and caused them to be deposited carefully in a secure place, where there could be no danger even of an accidental injury from them.
Arrival of Adrastus.
About that time there appeared at the court of Crœsus a stranger from Phrygia, a neighboring state, who presented himself at the palace and asked for protection. He was a prince of the royal family of Phrygia, and his name was Adrastus. He had had the misfortune, by some unhappy accident, to kill his brother; his father, in consequence of it, had banished him from his native land, and he was now homeless, friendless, and destitute.
Crœsus received him kindly. "Your family have always been my friends," said he, "and I am glad of the opportunity to make some return by extending my protection to any member of it suffering misfortune. You shall reside in my palace, and all your wants shall be supplied. Come in, and forget the calamity which has befallen you, instead of distressing yourself with it as if it had been a crime."
The wild boar.
Precautions of Crœsus.
Thus Crœsus received the unfortunate Adrastus into his household. After the prince had been domiciliated in his new home for some time, messengers came from Mysia, a neighboring state, saying that a wild boar of enormous size and unusual ferocity had come down from the mountains, and was lurking in the cultivated country, in thickets and glens, from which, at night, he made great havoc among the flocks and herds, and asking that Crœsus would send his son, with a band of hunters and a pack of dogs, to help them destroy the common enemy. Crœsus consented immediately to send the dogs and the men, but he said that he could not send his son. "My son," he added, "has been lately married, and his time and attention are employed about other things."