There’s a famous story in Herodotus that Solon of Athens, while visiting King Kroisos—Latin, Croesus—of Lydia, was shown the king’s great wealth and riches and then asked if he wasn’t the most blessed person Solon had ever seen. The episode occurs in Histories I.29-33. We are told, first, that Solon was abroad on the pretext of sight-seeing: in reality, because he had made laws for the Athenians, he left for ten years to ensure they could not be changed, since they were otherwise under oath to use what Solon had legislated (I.29.1-2). Solon first visits Amasis II of Egypt (r. 570-526 BCE), the last pre-Persian pharaoh of note (Psamtik III reigned only one year after), then Croesus. Croesus, after a few days of wining and dining Solon, asks him “if already you have seen someone who is happiest of all” (εἴ τινα ἤδη πάντων εἶδες ὀλβιώτατον; I.30.2). Croesus’s hope, we are told, is that the answer will be himself, but Solon, we’re told, speaks the truth (τῷ ἐόντι χρησάμενος) and answers Tellos the Athenian (I.30.3). Why Tellos? His children were lovely and good, and they all had children who lived, and then he died heroically in a war between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, in which he made a rout, and he was buried publicly where he fell and honored highly (I.30.4-5).

Alright, Croesus asks: but who’s second happiest? Easy: Kleobis and Biton, who carried their mother’s carriage 45 stades to the temple of Hera for a festival when the oxen were otherwise occupied; they sat down in the temple, ate and drank, and promptly died on the spot in their sleep (I.31.1-5).

Finally, Croesus is fed up. Does Solon think nothing of all Croesus’s wealth and power? Solon admits that Croesus is indeed wealthy, but that he would not say Croesus “before I find out that you ended your life well” (οὔκω σε ἐγὼ λέγω, πρὶν τελευτήσαντα καλῶς τὸν αἰῶνα πύθωμαι; I.32.5). Solon’s larger point is a simple one: life is inconsistent and unreliable for most people, even for very wealthy people, and the final analysis of anyone’s life can’t be constructed until one sees how that life ended. Diodorus Siculus expresses the episode with the following aphorism: “the one becoming presumptuous about happines and thinking they have Fortune for a coworker do not know if it will remain with them until the end” (τὸν γὰρ ἐπʼ εὐδαιμονίᾳ πεφρονηματισμένον καὶ δοκοῦντα τὴν τύχην ἔχειν συνεργὸν μὴ γινώσκειν εἰ διαμενεῖ μετʼ αὐτοῦ μέχρι τῆς ἐσχάτης; Library 9.2.2). Later Roman authors would express this concept with the image of the rota Fortunae, Fortune’s wheel, which turns for all of us.

It’s a good general rule of thumb. Things might seem good right now; later, they might go poorly. Conversely, things might be bad now; they might get better later. Blessedness should not be based on present good circumstances, just as wretchedness should not be accounted through present sufferings. But more specifically, Solon directs our attention to the way that true happiness is a result not of material possession but of character. Tellos, Kleobis, and Biton are more blessed than Croesus because they knew what really mattered, lived, and died for it. And of course, this is a lesson Croesus will, all too commonly among historical figures of his political and plutocratic outline, have to learn the hard way when Cyrus comes to call, and he calls Solon’s name from the pyre (Lib. 9.2.3).