The Persians obtained possession of Sardis, and made Crœsus captive, after a siege of fourteen days, and a reign of fourteen years. Thus was a mighty empire destroyed in a few days. Crœsus being brought into the presence of Cyrus, that prince ordered him to be placed in chains upon the summit of a huge wooden pile, with fourteen Lydian youths standing round him. Before this, however, Cyrus gave the citizens to understand, that if they would bring to him and his army all their silver and gold, their city should be spared. On learning this, they brought to him all their wealth; but Crœsus was ordered to be burned alive. Before we give an account of this barbarous order, however, we must refer to a circumstance which had occurred several years before. Solon, one of the most celebrated of legislators, having established a new system of laws at Athens, thought to improve his knowledge by travel. He went, therefore, to Sardis. The king received him very sumptuously;—dressed in magnificent apparel, enriched with gold, and glittering with diamonds. Finding that the Grecian sage did not appear in any way moved by this display, Crœsus ordered, that all his treasures, royal apartments, and costly furniture, should be shown to him. When Solon had been shown all these, he was taken back to the king, who then inquired of him:—Which of all the persons he had seen during his travels, he esteemed the most happy? “A person named Tellus,” answered Solon, “a citizen of Athens; an honest and good man; one who had lived all his days without indigence, and always seen his country flourishing and happy; who had children that were universally esteemed; and whose children he had the satisfaction, also, of seeing, and who died at last gloriously fighting for his country.” When Crœsus heard this, thinking that if he were not esteemed the first in happiness, he would at least be thought the second, he inquired “Who, of all you have seen, was the next in happiness to Tellus?” “Cleobis and Biton of Argos,” answered Solon, “two brothers who left behind them a perfect pattern of fraternal affection, and of the respect due from children to their parents. Upon a solemn festival when their mother, a priestess of Juno, was to go to the temple, the oxen that were to draw her not being ready, the two sons put themselves to the yoke, and drew their mother’s chariot thither, which was above five miles distant. All the mothers, ravished with admiration, congratulated the priestess on the piety of her sons. She, in the transport of her joy and thankfulness, earnestly entreated the goddess to reward her children with the best thing that heaven can give to man. Her prayers were heard. When the sacrifice was over, her two sons fell asleep in the very temple to which they had brought her, and there died in a soft and peaceful slumber. In honour of their piety,” concluded Solon, “the people of Argos consecrated statues to them in the temple of Delphos.”