Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

  1. “When the Medes have a mule as king,
  2. Just then, tender-footed Lydian, by the stone-strewn Hermus
  3. Flee and do not stay, and do not be ashamed to be a coward.”

When he heard these verses, Croesus was pleased with them above all, for he thought that a mule would never be king of the Medes instead of a man, and therefore that he and his posterity would never lose his empire. Then he sought very carefully to discover who the mightiest of the Greeks were, whom he should make his friends.