“Son,” answered Crœsus, “your reasoning, concerning my dream, has induced me to alter my opinion, and I permit you to go to this chase.”
Crœsus Loses His Son
The king then sent for Adrastus the Phrygian, whom, on his appearing, he thus addressed: “I do not mean to remind you of your former calamities; but you must have in memory that I expiated you in your distress, took you into my family, and supplied all your necessities. I have now, therefore, to solicit that return of kindness which my conduct claims. In this proposed hunting excursion, you must be the guardian of my son: preserve him on the way from any secret treachery, which may threaten your common security. It is consistent that you should go where bravery may be distinguished, and reputation gained; valour has been the distinction of your family, and with personal vigour has descended to yourself.”
“At your request, O king,” replied Adrastus, “I shall comply with what I should otherwise have refused. It becomes not a man like myself, oppressed by so great a calamity, to appear among my more fortunate equals; I have never wished, and I have frequently avoided it. My gratitude, in the present instance, impels me to obey your commands. I will therefore engage to accompany and guard your son, and promise, as far as my care can avail, to restore him to you safe.”
Immediately a band of youths were selected, the dogs of chase prepared, and the train departed. Arriving in the vicinity of Olympus, they sought the beast; and having found his haunt, they surrounded it in a body, and attacked him with their spears. It so happened, that the stranger Adrastus, who had been purified for murder, directing a blow at the boar, missed his aim, and killed the son of Crœsus. Thus he was destroyed by the point of a spear, and the vision proved to be prophetic. A messenger immediately hastened to Sardis, informing Crœsus of the event which occasioned the death of his son.
Crœsus, much as he was afflicted with his domestic loss, bore it the less patiently, because it was inflicted by him whom he had himself purified and protected. He broke into violent complaints at his misfortune, and invoked Jupiter, the deity of expiation, in attestation of the injury he had received. He invoked him also as the guardian of hospitality and friendship; of hospitality, because, in receiving a stranger, he had received the murderer of his son; of friendship, because the man whose aid he might have expected had proved his greatest enemy.
Whilst his thoughts were thus occupied, the Lydians appeared with the body of his son; the homicide followed. He advanced towards Crœsus, and, with extended hands, implored that he might suffer death upon the body of him whom he had slain. He recited his former calamities, to which was now to be added that he was the destroyer of the man who had expiated him; he was consequently no longer fit to live. Crœsus listened to him with attention; and, although oppressed by his own paternal grief, he could not refuse his compassion to Adrastus, to whom he spake as follows: “My friend, I am sufficiently revenged by your voluntary condemnation of yourself. You are not guilty of this event, for you did it without design. The offended deity, who warned me of the evil, has accomplished it.” Crœsus, therefore, buried his son with the proper ceremonies; but the unfortunate descendant of Midas, who had killed his brother and his friend, retired at the dead of night to the place where Atys was buried, and, confessing himself to be the most miserable of mankind, slew himself on the tomb.
Crœsus Consults the Oracles
The two years which succeeded the death of his son were passed by Crœsus in extreme affliction. His grief was at length suspended by the increasing greatness of the Persian empire, as well as by that of Cyrus, son of Cambyses, who had deprived Astyages, son of Cyaxares, of his dominions. To restrain the power of Persia before it should become too great and too extensive, was the object of his solicitude. Listening to these suggestions, he determined to consult the different oracles of Greece, and also that of Libya; and for this purpose he sent messengers to Delphi, the Phocian Abæ, and to Dodona: he sent also to Amphiaraus, Trophonius, and the Milesian Branchidæ. The above-mentioned are the oracles which Crœsus consulted in Greece; he sent also to the Libyan Ammon. His motive in these consultations was to form an idea of the truth of the oracles respectively, meaning afterwards to obtain from them a decisive opinion concerning an expedition against the Persians.
He took this method of proving the truth of their different communications. He settled with his Lydian messengers, that each should consult the different oracles, on the hundredth day of their departure from Sardis, and respectively ask what Crœsus, the son of Alyattes, was doing: they were to write down and communicate to Crœsus the reply of each particular oracle. Of the oracular answers in general we have no account remaining; but the Lydians had no sooner entered the temple of Delphi, and proposed their questions, than the Pythian answered thus, in heroic verse: