Croesus
Article
Croesus is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between November 02, 2023 and January 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “the power of Croesus”; “Croesus decided to offer financial advice”. It most often appears alongside Wikipedia, Alexander the Great, America.
Metadata
- Category: People
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: November 02, 2023
- Last seen: January 10, 2024
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Wikipedia (2 shared issues)
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- Alexander the Great (1 shared issues)
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- America (1 shared issues)
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- American conservatives (1 shared issues)
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- Amorites (1 shared issues)
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- Anshan (1 shared issues)
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- Apple (1 shared issues)
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- Armenians (1 shared issues)
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- asabiyyah (1 shared issues)
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- Assur (1 shared issues)
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- Assyria (1 shared issues)
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- Babylon (1 shared issues)
External Links
None.
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
A sublimely gifted politician with empathy for the poor, the power of Croesus, the result, fiasco. While he thundered about bringing equilibrium to the universe and polarised his country, foaming passions into hate, neighbours built more sustainable economies and tackled long-term poverty. Allies like Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador saluted the comandante but did not emulate his economic model, for that way lay ruin. Brazil seized regional leadership. Venezuela atrophied. Nothing worked, but there was money and spectacle. An empty revolution, then. No paradise, no hell, just limbo, a bleak misty in-between where ambition and delusion played out its ancient story. The farces and follies did not add up to despotic horror but they bore the melancholy echo of opportunity squandered, of what might have been, and there was the tragedy.
8.2.15: Cyrus defeated Croesus (of “as rich as Croesus” fame), and, in keeping with his usual benevolence, offered to keep him on as an advisor. Given his talents (no pun intended), Croesus decided to offer financial advice. He looked over Cyrus’ budget.
“On this line,” said Croesus, “where it says GAVE EVERYTHING AWAY TO MY FRIENDS, that’s your problem. If you want to run an empire, you need to save money against some disaster.”
Croesus calculated it out, named some vast sum, and said that was a good start in case the empire ran into an emergency.