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[[File:Hoecke_Croesus_showing_his_treasures.jpg|400px|thumbnail|left|Early Seventeenth Century Painting by Frans Francken the Younger of the Lydian King Croesus Showing His Wealth]]__NOTOC__
According the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, who has often been called the “father of history,” the Lydian King Croesus (ruled ca. 560-540s BC) was the world’s wealthiest king who ruled the world’s wealthiest kingdom. When Salon, the legendary Athenian law giver, came to Lydia see the king’s wealth personally, Croesus immediately had his servants “take him on a tour of the royal treasuries” in order to “point out the richness and magnificence of everything.”<ref> Herodotus. <i> [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140449086/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140449086&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=ca3dc766f97efca52048ffebd53edfdb The Histories].</i> Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 13-14</ref> Because of Herodotus’ writings, Croesus became known as one of the wealthiest men of his time, which an examination of the historiographical and archaeological sources certainly confirms.
Croesus was the fortunate recipient of a wealthy kingdom that his ancestors had established years before he came to the throne. The kingdom of Lydia boasted of a river that was filled with the precious mineral electrum and on its banks was one of the world’s first gold refineries. The Lydians were also known for being some of the best merchants in the ancient world and are credited with being the inventors of money as it is known today. When Croesus came to power, though, he did not rest on his laurels and instead took that wealth to make his kingdom even richer through conquest and by inviting some of the greatest thinkers of the Hellenic world to teach his people, which ultimately made the king the richest man in the ancient world in more ways than one.
