13. Initially thought to have been entirely apocryphal, Croesus of Lydia is now considered to have been a real monarch as well as one of the wealthiest persons of his time
A legendary monarch of immense wealth, Croesus’s fortune was sufficiently vast to attach the figure to the phrase: “rich as Croesus” throughout the ages. Referenced by countless authors across the centuries since, including Isaac Watts and Leo Tolstoy, in spite of the enormous mythos constructed around himself, Croesus is widely believed today to have actually been a real individual. Mentioned in Herodotus’s Histories, one of the earliest works of academic history, Croesus is suspected of being a descendant of Gyges: a member of the Myrmnadae Clan who seized power over Lydia – an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor – by murdering Candaules.
Vying for the throne upon the death of his father, Croesus emerged victorious from the struggle and immediately executed all members of the opposing faction. Continuing his family’s longstanding wars throughout Asia Minor, Croesus subjugated a vast territory from which to exact tribute. Credited with being the first to issue gold coins with standardized purity, gifts sent by the legendary ruler to the Oracle at Delphi were held in such regard as to be preserved. Despite being considered for a long time as mythical, Croesus now serves as a chronological bookmark to denote an entire period of Greek history.