Near Sardis the Lydian and Persian armies engaged in a battle. When the Lydian army lost, Babylonian documents report that Croesus was killed after being held captive, and a picture on a vase depicts Croesus as being burnt on top of wood. Regardless of whether Cyrus killed the Lydian king right away or befriended him, as Herodotus (who lived sixty years after Croesus) reports, these philosophically beautiful words were written by the Greek: “When asked by Cyrus, “Croesus, who advised you to attack my territories and meet me as an enemy not a friend?” Croesus said, “King, this is because of your good and my bad luck. The god of the Greeks is to blame, who gave me the arrogance to attack you. No one is crazy enough to choose war rather than peace. During peace, sons lay the fathers into the grave; whereas during war, the fathers lay the sons in the grave…” These answers appealed to Cyrus and he sat beside him and loosened his ties. The correct answer is B.