Croesus

Croesus was the king of Lydia, ruling the Anaxyrid dynasty from roughly 595 to 547 BCE. As the last king of a powerful Early Iron Age realm centered on the capital at Sardis, he expanded and consolidated Lydia’s territory and administration. He oversaw a period of considerable wealth and cultural contact with Greek city-states along the Ionian coast, and his reign is often treated as the apex of Lydian power before the rise of the Persian Empire.

Croesus is best known for his immense wealth and for contributing to the development of coinage in the ancient world. Under him, Lydia minted electrum and later gold coins, including the famous Croeseid, one of the earliest coinages to be widely circulated. The wealth of Lydia under Croesus became proverbial, giving rise to the expression “rich as Croesus.” The coinage system facilitated trade and helped spread monetary practices throughout the region.

In foreign affairs, Croesus sought to extend Lydian influence and maintained alliances with some Greek cities while confronting the rising powers of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The decisive clash with Cyrus the Great culminated in the fall of Sardis around 547–546 BCE. Croesus was captured, and Lydia’s political independence ended as Lydia became part of the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, Croesus was spared by Cyrus and later served as an adviser in the Persian court; various traditions about his fate exist in later sources.

Croesus’s legacy endured in both antiquity and later literature. His name became a byword for wealth, and his story served as a cautionary tale about interpreting prophecies and the fragility of worldly power. Modern scholarship relies on Herodotus and other ancient authors, alongside archaeological finds of Lydian coinage and inscriptions.