Stories of the East From Herodotus by Alfred J. Church

I guess I should be doing narrations of what I'm reading.

I had to re-read this one; I read the first three chapters, but I'd gotten so hopelessly lost somewhere in chapter two that I ended up abandoning my whole reading schedule last week. I re-read cchapters 2 and 3, and then read chapter 4, and did much better this time. So here's what happened in those first 4 chapters.

Croesus is the king of Lydia, and this is during the time when Cyrus the Persian is conquering the world. Croesus has everything he could desire - wealth, power, family, friends, comfort. So he tries to impress Solon. After showing all that he has, he asks him, "Who is the happiest man in the world?" But Solon says that some poor man who was content and died peacefully after a good, long life is the happiest man of all. Croesus is offended that Solon doesn't say that he, Croesus, is the happiest, so he asks him why. Solon says that you can't truly judge a man's happiness until his life is over because a man might be very fortunate for the first part of life, but then have such bad misfortunes later that when his life ends, everyone thinks of his life as unhappy.

In the second chapter, Croesus asks the Greek gods on Olympus whether he'll be successful if he goes to war with Persia. The prophecy says that 'if you war with persia, a great kingdom will fall.' Croesus takes that as a good sign, but he wants confirmation, so he asks how long his kingdom will last, and the prophecy says that his kingdom will last until a mule reigns in his stead. he takes this as a good omen, too - how could a mule rule instead of him? So he attacks Persia, but by chapter three, Lydia has lost to Persia and Croesus has been taken prisoner. Cyrus puts Croesus on a pile of logs and sets fire to it, and Croesus remembers Solon's words. he cries, "Solon, Solon!" and Cyrus wonders why. So he asks him, and Croesus tells him the story of his meeting with Solon and how you can't tell whether a man's life is happy until you've seen the end of it. He tells Cyrus that he was once a rich, powerful, happy king like Cyrus, but he's come to this end. Cyrus has pity on him and sees the truth of Solon's words, so he sets Croesus free and grants him a boon. Croesus says he wants someone to go to Olympus and ask why the gods deceived him with their prophecies.

So Cyrus sends someone to ask, and here's the response: The prophecy about a great kingdom falling meant that Lydia, not Persia, would fall - yet the gods had had mercy on Croesus because Lydia had been fated to fall, and only because of their mercy on Croesus had it lasted as long as it had. And what about the mule? Cyrus was the mule - a mule is a half-breed, half regal horse, half low-bred donkey. Cyrus's father was a prince, but his mother was a poor commoner of no royal blood.