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. What was hated is loved. To die is sweetest. So he spoke, and he bid the slave with the delicate step to kindle the wooden structure. His daughters cried out, and threw their arms out towards their mother; for death is most hateful to mortals when it is right before their eyes. But when the flashing force of terrible fire began to shoot through the wood, Zeus set a dark rain-cloud over it, and began to quench the golden flame. Nothing is unbelievable which is brought about by the gods' ambition. Then Apollo, born on Delos , brought the old man to live among the Hyperboreans, along with his slender-ankled daughters,