The Last King of Lydia Read Online Free

sensing weakness. Then a weary expression passed over his face. ‘I am tired,’ he said.
    Croesus led him out from the treasuries and, after several turns up a tight and narrow staircase, they emerged onto a balcony at the highest point of the palace. The king gestured outwards, his
palm down and fingers spread, as if hoping to hold the city that he ruled in a single hand.
    Solon looked down on Sardis. From this position, one seemed to look on some strange twin city. The closest buildings appeared to be two or three times the size of those just a little further
away, as if Sardis were a city where giants lived alongside ordinary men, or where men lived beside dwarfs.
    It was merely a trick of perspective. Half of Sardis, including the palace, was built imposingly on a steep-sided hill, a set of high walls contouring and elaborating on its natural defences.
Here, the wealthiest citizens of Sardis lived, packed tight in tiny homes, sacrificing space and comfort for the prestige of living near to the king. The rest of the city, an uneven mass of
mud-brick and reed houses, sprawled over the plains below. From here the common people, rich in space and poor in everything else, looked upon the dense peak of wealth that allowed no place for
them.
    Solon’s eyes turned towards the sound of running water, found the Pactolus river. All knew the story of this river, of how Midas had washed away his curse in its waters, how it ran with
gold that any shepherd could pan from its waters. Sardis – the impregnable city, built alongside a source of inexhaustible riches.
    ‘My greatest treasure,’ said Croesus. ‘A king could not wish for a better place to call his home.’
    They sat and took food and wine, and then Croesus dismissed both his slaves and his guards.
    For the first time that day, the two men were alone together, and free to speak their minds.

2
    They sat in silence for a time. Both men, practised politicians, trying to remember what it was to speak openly in private to a man you did not know. They looked out across the
city, not at each other. Solon sat with his fingers interlaced, thumbs tapping against each other in an irregular rhythm. Croesus repeatedly took a date from a bowl, lifted it a few inches, then
dropped it back on the pile again.
    Finally, the older man broke the silence. ‘So. What do you want to ask me, Croesus?’
    Croesus turned to look at him. ‘What makes you think I want to ask you anything?’
    ‘Everyone wants to ask me something.’
    ‘Perhaps I do. Perhaps I haven’t yet decided if you are worth asking anything of.’
    Solon laughed. ‘I am a disappointment to you?’
    ‘So far, yes, though you may yet redeem yourself.’ Croesus shrugged. ‘I sense I disappoint you as well.’
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘My palace means nothing to you. Nor do my treasures. You seem to have a rather dim view of me as well. I am not a fool, you know. I don’t care to be mocked in my own throne
room.’
    ‘My apologies. I am not a very good guest. I am an old man, and I really have no patience for the theatre of throne rooms. But you are a new king, and depend on such theatrics. Perhaps you
even enjoy them. I once did.’
    ‘And the treasuries? I have never seen a man so indifferent, confronted with so much of the wealth of the world.’
    Solon thought for a moment. ‘I am glad to have seen them,’ he said. ‘But they do not move me. I was curious to see if I could be impressed by such riches. But I find that I
cannot. I must seem ungrateful.’ He clapped his hands together, leaned forward. ‘Come, let me be of some use to you. What is it you wish to know?’
    ‘Let me turn your question back to you, first. Do you want to ask me anything?’
    Solon smiled apologetically. ‘Not particularly.’
    ‘Why did you travel here, if it was not to speak to me?’
    ‘I have been travelling since I retired from politics. This was simply another place I had yet to visit. The final city on my travels,