Ah! thrice-blessed man! Zeus has granted him the honor of ruling most widely over the Greeks, and he knows not to hide his towered wealth under black-cloaked darkness. The temples teem with cattle-sacrificing festivities; the streets teem with hospitality. Gold flashes and glitters, the gold of tall ornate tripods standing before the temple, where the Delphians administer the great precinct of Phoebus beside the Castalian stream. A man should honor the god, for that is the greatest prosperity. For indeed, once the ruler of horse-taming Lydia , Croesus—when Zeus was bringing about the decreed fate, and Sardis was being sacked by the Persian army—Croesus was protected by the god of the golden lyre, Apollo. When he had come to that unexpected day, Croesus had no intention of waiting any longer for the tears of slavery. He had a pyre built before his bronze-walled courtyard, and he mounted the pyre with his dear wife and his daughters with beautiful hair; they were weeping inconsolably. He raised his arms to the steep sky and shouted, overweening deity, where is the gratitude of the gods? Where is lord Apollo? The palace of Alyattes falls into ruins countless city the Pactolus whirling with [gold runs red with blood], women are brutally led out of the well-built halls.