First,
the King offered up three thousand of every kind of sacrificial beast,
and burned upon a huge pile couches coated with silver and gold, and
golden goblets, and robes and vests of purple. Next he issued a command
to all the people of the land to offer up a sacrifice according to
their means. And when this sacrifice was consumed, he melted down a
vast quantity of gold, and ran it into one hundred and seventeen
ingots, each six palms long, three palms broad, and one palm in
thickness. He also caused the statue of a lion to be made of refined
gold, in weight ten talents. When these great works were completed,
Croesus sent them away to Delphi, and with them two bowls of enormous
size, one of gold, the other of silver. These two bowls, Herodotus
affirms, were removed when the temple of Delphi was burned to the
ground; and now the golden one is in the Clazomenian treasury, and
weighs eight talents and forty-two _minae_; the silver one stands in a
corner of the ante-chapel and holds six hundred _amphorae_ (over five
thousand gallons);--this is known, because the Delphians fill it at the
time of the Theophania.
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