Croesus

Croesus took the Lydian throne around 585 or 561 BC after a succession fight with his step-brother, then pressed his father's wars of expansion across western Asia Minor. He struck treaties with the Aegean city-states instead of invading them, grew fat on trade, and showered Delphi with gifts so lavish Herodotus still marvelled centuries later. In 550 BC, when Cyrus the Great toppled Croesus' brother-in-law Astyages in Media, Croesus attacked the Persian vassal state of Pteria. Cyrus crushed him in a string of battles, besieged Sardis, and ended the kingdom in 547 BC. Whether Croesus was executed or became a Persian advisor remains disputed, but his fall gave the Greeks a chronological anchor and, by the fifth century, a myth: the king who stood for boundless riches and the speed with which they vanish.