Book 1.26-28: Rich as Croesus

In 1931, Mexican archeologist Alfonso Caso excavated one of the richest Mesoamerican burial caches ever discovered from Tomb Seven at Monte Alban, center of the ancient Zapotec civilization in Oaxaca, Mexico. I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of these treasures at the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca in 2019. Notable artifacts include a human skull encrusted in brilliant blue lapis lazuli and an intricately carved golden pectoral depicting a figure wearing a buccal mask and an elaborate headdress. Some scholars interpret such burial customs as an ancient obsession with death, while others infer that for people to want to continue their lavish lifestyles in the next world, they must have been pretty keen on the lives they were living! Others see expensive funerals as the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption. Croesus, our next subject from The Histories, who ruled the Lydia around the same time as the early formation of Monte Alban on the other side of the earth in the sixth century BCE, has become a byword for wealth over the centuries. The fifth in a dynasty of conquest minded kings, Croesus was in a position to enjoy the affluence accrued by his predecessors.

Of course, Croesus did not sit idly by living a life of luxury. His first recorded action in The Histories is to attack the Greek people at Ephesus. I have been to Ephesus too and will find an appropriate post to discuss the archeological sites there at some point. I also find it important to remember when reading Herodotus that the differentiation between Greeks and so called barbarians is not exactly geographic, but more linguistic. Lydia and Ephesus are both in modern day Turkey. I presume Croesus spoke Lydian and the Ephesians spoke Greek. Over the course of his reign, Croesus conquered all the neighboring territories, including Phrygia, the site of Troy. After the twenty-two generations of Heraclid kings and then five additional generations from Gyges to Croesus, the Lydian Empire stands at the height of its power. But as Herodotus reminded us earlier, the House of Croesus was always doomed to fall. 

Last night, I watched Ridley Scott's newly released 2021 film House of Gucci in a nearly empty movie theater. I knew next to nothing about the real life Gucci family, so I was in for quite a surprise with the twists and turns of this fictional account of their triumphs and tragedies. Like Croesus, Maurizio Gucci, portrayed by Adam Driver, is the last scion of a powerful dynasty born from humble beginnings. In the film, Maurizio tells his wife Patrizia, Lady Gaga with one of the more outrageous affected accents in recent cinema history, his grandfather was a bellhop before he founded a fashion house. As you may remember from previous posts, Croesus's ancestor Gyges was a bodyguard before he murdered his king and married the queen. In another parallel, just as Gyges consulted the Oracle of Delphi and Croesus will do the same later on, Patrizia becomes enthralled by television psychic Giuseppina, Salma Hayek under a fright wig. The conclusion of the film sees Maurizio, by then estranged from his wife and living with his mistress, gunned down by a hired assassin in broad daylight and both Giuseppina and Patrizia on trial for conspiring the murder together. Just as the fall of the House of Gucci is inextricably linked to the advice of a dubious psychic, so the House of Croesus will meet an end through the interpretations and misinterpretations of prophecies. Croesus is already prophesied to pay the price for his ancestor's crimes, but his own choices based on further omens will cause him to lose both a beloved son and an empire.

Next, Book 1.29-33: The Art of Happiness