Atys () was the son of

Croesus Croesus ( ; ; Latin: ; reigned: ) was the Monarch, king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his Siege of Sardis (547 BC), defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was ...

king of

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

. He had one son named Pythius.from Herodotus, 7.27. According to Hdt. 1.35-45 (1, 35 to 45 of the '' Histories'' by

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

), Atys's father king Croesus had a dream, in which he saw his son Atys killed by a spear. As a result, Croesus, seeking to prevent or stave off the foreseen fate, had his son married immediately and ceased sending him out to war. One day a giant boar began terrorizing Mysian Olympus, and the

Mysian Mysians (; , ''Mysoí'') were the inhabitants of Mysia, a region in northwestern Asia Minor. Origins according to ancient authors Their first mention is by Homer, in his list of Troy, Trojans allies in the Iliad, and according to whom the Mysia ...

s sent to Croesus seeking relief. Croesus initially was unwilling to allow Atys to participate, but Atys talked his father into letting him go with a team of chosen young men and hounds to drive it off, arguing that boars do not wield iron weapons. Croesus gave his consent, but he sent

Adrastus In Greek mythology, Adrastus or Adrestus (Ancient Greek: Ἄδραστος or Ἄδρηστος), (perhaps meaning "the inescapable"), was a king of Argos, and leader of the Seven against Thebes. He was the son of the Argive king Talaus, but w ...

with him as a body guard. During the hunt, Adrastus accidentally killed Atys when hurling a spear at the boar, thus Croesus's dream came to pass. Riddled with guilt, Adrastus slew himself over the tomb of Atys. Hipponax of Ephesus mentions a tomb of Atys, which might be that of this prince.

References

Lydians 6th-century BC Greek people 6th-century BC births 6th-century BC deaths {{AncientGreece-bio-stub