Croesus is master of his own destiny and it is only his thoughtless behavior that will bring about his downfall. It is a beautiful comparison between someone who believes he is all powerful coming up against a true giant of a man who will make his mark on history. The first chapter gives a strong sense of what's to follow: The guards had long since learned the way to make a royal prisoner docile. Every now and then I will get a book that is so good that I’m almost too scared to review it in case readers think I have been paid by the author or publisher.

Croesus notes bitterly that the coinage bearing his family crest will last far longer than their kingdom. I would also question whether there is such a close relationship between a king and a slave (Croesus and Isocrates, Cyrus and Croesus), it is just too good to be true. Herodotus and other Greek authors recounted a lot of myths that built up around him and threw some of their own in for good measure. It is a strange friendship that he strikes up with Isocrates as a fellow slave; an odd respect that he learns for his conqueror, the Persian King Cyrus.I will only discuss general aspects of the book rather than specific plot points and therefore consider it a spoiler-free review. But then all his riches could not remove the spear from his dying elder son's chest, could not bring his mute younger son to speak, could not make him as wise as his own chief slave, could not bring his wife's love back, could not prevent his army from being torn apart and his kingdom lost. We gradually see what sort of a man can vanquish so many, choose so many destructive wars, and also leave behind a written legacy of religious tolerance that still stands out in a narrow-minded world. Like any good philosopher, Leach doesn’t answer the big questions he asks, but his exploration and hints are the more interesting as a result.

Leach successfully summons up scenes of army camps, vast cities, treasuries and pyres with relatively few words, leaving space for understanding the actions, reactions and motivations of the utterly believable characters. We hear tell of his famously interrupted execution by being burned alive (possibly true, if exaggerated).It is, instead, a book that examines deep, sometimes philosophical issues such as the lust for power, wealth, happiness, immortality and freedom.

Almost all the characters and their stories can be found in Herodotus: Solon, Cyrus, Harpagus, Adrastus and the rest. If you absolutely hate anything remotely like spoilers, you might want to stop reading now, although I don’t think these will qualify as plot revealers. He remembers the time he asked the old Athenian philosopher, Solon, who was the happiest man in the world.

As a book for young children I’d judge this book better, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to an audience older than that. I did like the exploration of Croesus having his wealth taken away and reduced to being a slave, how he was forced to see the harsh realities of life from the side of those he had previously taken for granted. As the novel progresses, Croseus comes to understand true happiness lies in the smaller things in life. This book is both a look at the history of the final days of and empire, and a small story about one man.

What did anyone’s life matter, king or soldier or slave, if they could be replaced in moments and the world go on without them?

As king, Croesus has only to speak to make men obey -- a dream about his son's death by iron leads to a ban on all iron weapons. Barely had you stopped breathing before you became an irrelevance, as though you had never lived at all. The prose is quite simple but there are some really beautiful and poetic descriptions of life that lift it above the ordinary.