The Twitter Herodotus

1.21 Alyattes sent to Miletus re. a truce. Thrasybulus, forewarned by Periander, threw a party in the city as a show for Alyattes' herald.

1.22 Thrasybulus' trick worked: Alyattes was told that food was plentiful in Miletus. He thus gave up the fight and allied with Thrasybulus.

1.23 Periander was tyrant of Corinth when the great lyre player Arion was carried on the back of a dolphin to Taenarum.

1.24 Arion set sail for Corinth from Italy but the sailors wanted to rob/kill him. Instead he sang & jumped overboard & a dolphin saved him.

1.25 After recovering from his illness, Alyattes dedicated a mixing bowl to the god at Delphi. He died after ruling Lydia for 57 years.

1.26 Alyattes was succeeded by his 35-year-old son Croesus. He attacked Ephesus 1st, then other Greek cities in Aeolia & Ionia (Asia Minor).

1.27 Having subdued the Greeks in Asia, Croesus wanted to attack the islanders next. Dissuaded by wise counsel, he allied with them instead.

1.28 Finally Croesus subdued almost all of those living west of the Halys River. Lydia's capital Sardis was now at the height of its power.

1.29 Greek men of learning flocked to Sardis, among them Solon of Athens, who was traveling abroad for 10 yrs after enacting laws in Athens.

1.30 Croesus asked Solon whom he considered the happiest man. Solon's reply: not Croesus, but the Athenian Tellus, who'd lived & died well.