Lydia

Candaules

According to Herodotus, one of Lydus's descendants was Iardanus, with whom Heracles was in service at one time. Heracles had an affair with one of Iardanus' slave-girls and their son Alcaeus was the first of the Heraclid Dynasty said to have ruled Lydia for 22 generations starting with Agron.^{[11][non-primary source needed]} In the 8th century BC, Meles became the 21st and penultimate Heraclid king and the last was his son Candaules (died c. 687 BC).^[12][13]

The Mermnad Empire (680-546 BC)

Alyattes

Main article: Alyattes of Lydia

Amidst extreme turmoil, Sadyattes was succeeded in 635 BC by his son Alyattes, who would transform Lydia into a powerful empire.^[25][22]

Soon after Alyattes's ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval^[26] and in alliance with the Lydians,^[27] the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia^[28] until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 590s BC.^[17] This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.^[29][30]

Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east, where extended Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia.^[31] Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in the east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes's successor Croesus ruled over - the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandyni, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thyni and Bithyni Thracians, Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians - it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes, and it is not impossible that the Lydians might have subjected Lycia, given that the Lycian coast would have been important for the Lydians because it was close to a trade route connecting the Aegean region, the Levant, and Cyprus.^[31][32]

Alyattes's eastern conquests brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BC with the Medes,^[33] and a war broke out between the Median and Lydian Empires in 590 BC which was waged in eastern Anatolia lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BC during a battle (hence called the Battle of the Eclipse) opposing the Lydian and Median armies, which both sides interpreted as an omen to end the war. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the king Syennesis of Cilicia acted as mediators in the ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of the Median king Cyaxares's son Astyages with Alyattes's daughter Aryenis, and the possible wedding of a daughter of Cyaxares with either Alyattes or with his son Croesus.^{[34][35][31][36]}

Croesus

Main article: Croesus

Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BC itself,^[22] following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son Croesus, born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful.^[37]

Croesus brought Caria under the direct control of the Lydian Empire,^[21] and he subjugated all of mainland Ionia, Aeolis, and Doris, but he abandoned his plans of annexing the Greek city-states on the islands of the Aegean Sea and he instead concluded treaties of friendship with them, which might have helped him participate in the lucrative trade the Aegean Greeks carried out with Egypt at Naucratis.^[21] According to Herodotus, Croesus ruled over all the peoples to the west of the Halys River, although the actual border of his kingdom was further to the east of the Halys, at an undetermined point in eastern Anatolia.^{[34][35][31][38][39]}

Croesus continued the friendly relations with the Medes concluded between his father Alyattes and the Median king Cyaxares, and he continued these good relations with the Medes after he succeeded Alyattes and Astyages succeeded Cyaxares.^[31] And, under Croesus's rule, Lydia continued its good relations started by Gyges with the Saite Egyptian kingdom, then ruled by the pharaoh Amasis II.^[31] Croesus also established trade and diplomatic relations with the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nabonidus,^[31] and he further increased his contacts with the Greeks on the European continent by establishing relations with the city-state of Sparta.^[21]

In 550 BC, Croesus's brother-in-law, the Median king Astyages, was overthrown by his own grandson, the Persian king Cyrus the Great,^[31] and Croesus responded by attacking Pteria, the capital of a Phrygian state vassal to the Lydians which might have attempted to declare its allegiance to the new Persian Empire of Cyrus. Cyrus retaliated by intervening in Cappadocia and defeated the Lydians at Pteria in a battle, and again at Thymbra before besieging and capturing the Lydian capital of Sardis, thus bringing an end to the rule of the Mermnad dynasty and to the Lydian Empire. Lydia would never regain its independence and would remain a part of various successive empires.^[31]

Although the dates for the battles of Pteria and Thymbra and of end of the Lydian empire have been traditionally fixed to 547 BC,^[40] more recent estimates suggest that Herodotus's account being unreliable chronologically concerning the fall of Lydia means that there are currently no ways of dating the end of the Lydian kingdom; theoretically, it may even have taken place after the fall of Babylon in 539 BC.^[40][41]

First coinage

According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to use gold and silver coins and the first to establish retail shops in permanent locations.^[43] It is not known, however, whether Herodotus meant that the Lydians were the first to use coins of pure gold and pure silver or the first precious metal coins in general.^[44] Despite this ambiguity, this statement of Herodotus is one of the pieces of evidence most often cited on behalf of the argument that Lydians invented coinage, at least in the West, although the first coins (under Alyattes I, reigned c.591–c.560 BC) were neither gold nor silver but an alloy of the two called electrum.^[45]

The dating of these first stamped coins is one of the most frequently debated topics of ancient numismatics,^[46] with dates ranging from 700 BC to 550 BC, but the most common opinion is that they were minted at or near the beginning of the reign of King Alyattes (sometimes referred to incorrectly as Alyattes II).^[47][48] The first coins were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver that occurs naturally but that was further debased by the Lydians with added silver and copper.^[49]

Croeseids

Gold Croeseid, minted by king Croesus circa 561–546 BC. (10.7 grams, Sardis mint).

Silver Croeseid, minted by king Croesus, circa 560–546 BC (10.7 grams, Sardis mint)

The gold and silver Croeseids formed the world's first bimetallic monetary system circa 550 BC.^[50]

The largest of these coins are commonly referred to as a 1/3 stater (trite) denomination, weighing around 4.7 grams, though no full staters of this type have ever been found, and the 1/3 stater probably should be referred to more correctly as a stater, after a type of a transversely held scale, the weights used in such a scale (from ancient Greek ίστημι=to stand), which also means "standard."^[51] These coins were stamped with a lion's head adorned with what is likely a sunburst, which was the king's symbol.^[52] The most prolific mint for early electrum coins was Sardis which produced large quantities of the lion head thirds, sixths and twelfths along with lion paw fractions.^[53] To complement the largest denomination, fractions were made, including a hekte (sixth), hemihekte (twelfth), and so forth down to a 96th, with the 1/96 stater weighing only about 0.15 grams. There is disagreement, however, over whether the fractions below the twelfth are actually Lydian.^[54]

Alyattes' son was Croesus (Reigned c.560–c.546 BC), who became associated with great wealth. Croesus is credited with issuing the Croeseid, the first true gold coins with a standardised purity for general circulation,^[50] and the world's first bimetallic monetary system circa 550 BC.^[50]

It took some time before ancient coins were used for commerce and trade. Even the smallest-denomination electrum coins, perhaps worth about a day's subsistence, would have been too valuable for buying a loaf of bread.^[55] The first coins to be used for retailing on a large-scale basis were likely small silver fractions, Hemiobol, Ancient Greek coinage minted in Cyme (Aeolis) under Hermodike II then by the Ionian Greeks in the late sixth century BC.^[56]

Sardis was renowned as a beautiful city. Around 550 BC, near the beginning of his reign, Croesus paid for the construction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which became one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Croesus was defeated in battle by Cyrus II of Persia in 546 BC, with the Lydian kingdom losing its autonomy and becoming a Persian satrapy.

In Greek mythology

For the Greeks, Tantalus was a primordial ruler of mythic Lydia, and Niobe his proud daughter; her husband Amphion associated Lydia with Thebes in Greece, and through Pelops the line of Tantalus was part of the founding myths of Mycenae's second dynasty. (In reference to the myth of Bellerophon, Karl Kerenyi remarked, in The Heroes of The Greeks 1959, p. 83. "As Lykia was thus connected with Crete, and as the person of Pelops, the hero of Olympia, connected Lydia with the Peloponnesos, so Bellerophontes connected another Asian country, or rather two, Lykia and Karia, with the kingdom of Argos".)

In Greek myth, Lydia had also adopted the double-axe symbol, that also appears in the Mycenaean civilization, the labrys.^[57] Omphale, daughter of Iardanos, was a princess of Lydia, whom Heracles was required to serve for a time. His adventures in Lydia are the adventures of a Greek hero in a peripheral and foreign land: during his stay, Heracles enslaved the Itones; killed Syleus, who forced passers-by to hoe his vineyard; slew the serpent of the river Sangarios (which appears in the heavens as the constellation Ophiucus)^[58] and captured the simian tricksters, the Cercopes. Accounts tell of at least one son of Heracles who was born to either Omphale or a slave-girl: Herodotus (Histories i. 7) says this was Alcaeus who began the line of Lydian Heracleidae which ended with the death of Candaules c. 687 BC. Diodorus Siculus (4.31.8) and Ovid (Heroides 9.54) mentions a son called Lamos, while pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheke 2.7.8) gives the name Agelaus and Pausanias (2.21.3) names Tyrsenus as the son of Heracles by "the Lydian woman". All three heroic ancestors indicate a Lydian dynasty claiming Heracles as their ancestor. Herodotus (1.7) refers to a Heraclid dynasty of kings who ruled Lydia, yet were perhaps not descended from Omphale. He also mentions (1.94) the legend that the Etruscan civilization was founded by colonists from Lydia led by Tyrrhenus, brother of Lydus. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was skeptical of this story, indicating that the Etruscan language and customs were known to be totally dissimilar to those of the Lydians. In addition, the story of the "Lydian" origins of the Etruscans was not known to Xanthus of Lydia, an authority on the history of the Lydians.^[59]

Later chronologists ignored Herodotus' statement that Agron was the first Heraclid to be a king, and included his immediate forefathers Alcaeus, Belus, and Ninus in their list of kings of Lydia. Strabo (5.2.2) has Atys, father of Lydus and Tyrrhenus, as a descendant of Heracles and Omphale but that contradicts virtually all other accounts which name Atys, Lydus, and Tyrrhenus among the pre-Heraclid kings and princes of Lydia. The gold deposits in the river Pactolus that were the source of the proverbial wealth of Croesus (Lydia's last king) were said to have been left there when the legendary king Midas of Phrygia washed away the "Midas touch" in its waters. In Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae, Dionysus, while maintaining his human disguise, declares his country to be Lydia.^[60]

Lydians, the Tyrrhenians and the Etruscans

The relationship between the Etruscans of northern and central Italy and the Lydians has long been a subject of conjecture. The Greek historian Herodotus believed they came from Lydia, but Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a 1st-century BC historian, argued that the Etruscans were indigenous to Italy and unrelated to the Lydians.^[61] Dionysius pointed out that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never linked the Etruscans to Lydia or mentioned Tyrrhenus as a Lydian ruler.^[61]

In contemporary scholarship, Etruscologists overwhelmingly support an indigenous origin for the Etruscans,^[62][63] dismissing Herodotus' account as based on erroneous etymologies.^[64] Michael Grant argue that the Etruscans may have propagated this narrative to facilitate their trading in Asia Minor, when many cities in Asia Minor, and the Etruscans themselves, were at war with the Greeks.^[65] The French scholar Dominique Briquel contends that "the story of an exodus from Lydia to Italy was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th century BC."^[66][67] Ultimately, these Greek-authored accounts of the Etruscan origins are only the expression of the image that Etruscans' allies or adversaries wanted to divulge and should not be considered historical.^[68]

Archaeological evidence does not support the idea of Lydian migration to Etruria.^[62][63] The Etruscan civilization's earliest phase, the Villanovan culture, emerged around 900 BC,^{[69][70][71][72][73]} which itself developed from the previous Proto-Villanovan culture of Italy in the late Bronze Age.^[74] This culture has no ties to Asia Minor or the Near East.^[75] Linguists have identified an Etruscan-like language in a set of inscriptions on Lemnos island, in the Aegean Sea. Since the Etruscan language was a Pre-Indo-European language and neither Indo-European or Semitic,^[76] Etruscan was not related to Lydian, which was a part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages.^[76] Instead, Etruscan language is considered part of the pre-Indo-European Tyrrhenian language family, along with the Lemnian and Rhaetian language.^[77]

A 2013 genetic study suggested that the maternal lineages of western Anatolians and modern Tuscans had been largely separate for 5,000 to 10,000 years, with Etruscan mtDNA closely resembling modern Tuscans and Neolithic Central European populations. This suggests Etruscans descended from the Villanovan culture,^[78][79] indicating their indigenous roots, and a link between Etruria, modern Tuscany, and Lydia dating back to the Neolithic period during the migration of Early European Farmers from Anatolia to Europe.^[78][79] A 2019 genetic study revealed that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus shared genetic similarities, with both groups having a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry and one-third Steppe-related ancestry. This study also suggested indigenous origins for the Etruscans, despite their pre-Indo-European language.^[80]

A 2021 study confirmed these findings, showing that Etruscans and Latins in the Iron Age had similar genetic profiles and were part of the European cluster. The Etruscan DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Etruscans exhibited a blend of WHG, EEF, and Steppe ancestry, with 75% of males belonging to haplogroup R1b and the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup being H.^[81]

Early Lydian religion

The Lydians in early Antiquity adhered to a religion which remains marginally attested due to the known sources covering it being largely of Greek origin, while Lydian inscriptions regarding religion are small in number^[82] and no Lydian corpus of ritual texts like the Hittite ritual tablets have been recovered.^[83]

Despite the small size of the recorded Lydian corpus, the various inscriptions relating to religion date from c. 650 to c. 330-325 BC, thus covering the period beginning with the establishment of the Mermnad dynasty under Gyges and ending with the aftermath of the Macedonian conquest under Alexander III and the beginning of the Hellenistic period.^[84] Based on limited evidence, Lydian religious practices were centred around the fertility of nature, as was common among ancient societies which depended on the successful cultivation of land.^[83]

The early Lydian religion exhibited strong connections to Anatolian as well as Greek traditions,^[82] and its pantheon was composed of native Lydian deities who were reflexes of earlier Aegean-Balkan ones, as well as Anatolian deities, the latter of whom held lesser roles.^[85]

Although Lydia had been conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in c. 547 BC, native Lydian traditions were not destroyed by Persian rule, and most Lydian inscriptions were written during this period.^[86]

The Lydian religion was polytheistic in nature and was composed of a number of deities:^[82]

• unlike traditionally Anatolian pantheons but similarly to the Phrygian one, the Lydian pantheon was headed by the goddess Artimus (𐤠𐤭𐤯𐤦𐤪𐤰𐤮), who was a deity of wild nature as well as the Lydian variant of an earlier Aegean-Balkan goddess whose other reflexes included the Greek Artemis (Αρτεμις)^[87] and the Phrygian Artimis:^[88] Artimus is the most well-attested Lydian deities both in the Lydian corpus and archaeologically;^[89][90]
• the identity of the figure of Qaλdãns or Qaλiyãns (𐤲𐤷𐤣𐤵𐤫𐤮) is still uncertain, and has been variously interpreted as the Lydian king of the gods,^[87] or a Moon-god who was the main masculine deity of the Lydian pantheon and the consort of Artimus,^[91] or the Lydian equivalent of the Greek god Apollo (Απολλων),^[92] or a high status or royal title.^[92] While Qldans was once thought to be a theonymic, and referring to Apollo, it has recently become known that a Lydian coin also mentions the name Qλdãns in its legend. Thus, the earlier interpretations as a deity should be revised.^[93]

• The Lydian equivalent of the Greek god Zeus (Ζευς) and the Phrygian god Tiws was Lews (𐤩𐤤𐤥𐤮) or Lefs (𐤩𐤤𐤱𐤮):^[87][91] Unlike the Anatolian storm-god Tarḫuntas, Lews held a less prominent role in the Lydian religion,^[91] although his role as the bringer of rain followed the tradition surrounding the Anatolian Tarḫuntas;^[94]
• the goddess Lamẽtrus (𐤩𐤠𐤪𐤶𐤯𐤭𐤰𐤮) was the Lydian reflex of an earlier Aegean-Balkan goddess whose Greek iteration was Dēmētēr (Δημητηρ);^[87][91]
• the frenzy god Pakiš (𐤡𐤠𐤨𐤦𐤳) to whom was performed an orgiastic cult was also a Lydian variant of an older Aegean-Balkan god whose Greek reflex was Bakkhos (Βακχος);^[87][91]
• the goddess Kufaws (𐤨𐤰𐤱𐤠𐤥𐤮) or Kuwaws (𐤨𐤰𐤥𐤠𐤥𐤮), referred by the Greeks as Kubēbē (Κυβηβη),^[95][96] was a young^[97] goddess of divine frenzy,^[98] as well as a prominent Lydian deity possessing an important temple in Sardis;^[99][100]
• the existence of the goddess Korē (Κορη) is attested only during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, when the festival of Khrysanthina (Χρυσανθινα) was celebrated at Sardis in her honour,^[83] and she appears to have had some vegetative aspects;^[83]
• the god Sãntas (𐤮𐤵𐤫𐤯𐤠𐤮), whose name corresponds to that of the Luwian Šandas (𔖶𔖖𔗎𔗏𔑶𔑯𔗔𔖶‎),^[101] might have been the consort of Kufaws;^[88]
  • accompanying Sãntas were several lesser demon-like figures called the Mariwdas (𐤪𐤠𐤭𐤦𐤥𐤣𐤠𐤮),^[87][91] who were the Lydian equivalent of the deities attested in Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions as the Marwainzi (𔖖𔗎𔗏𔘅𔖱𔗬𔓯𔖩𔓯𔖶‎);^[102]
• the goddess Maλiš (𐤪𐤠𐤷𐤦𐤳), who corresponded to the Anatolian goddess Maliya, attested in Hittite as ᴰMāliya (𒀭𒈠𒀀𒇷𒅀) and Lycian as Maliya (𐊎𐊀𐊍𐊆𐊊𐊀),^[103][104] possessed a vegetative aspect,^[83] being a goddess of vegetation, especially of wine and corn.^[104]

Because of a lack of evidence, little is known on the organisation of Lydian cults.^[105]

Due to the meagre evidence for Lydian religious spaces, little is known about their shapes, sizes, administration, and location:^[105] Lydian cultic spaces ranged from small places of worship to prestigious temples of the state cult which also had a political role,^[105] although the evidence for them dates from after the end of Lydian independence,^[82] while those from the Lydian empire are primarily known from Greek literature rather than from archaeological evidence.^[86]

The early Lydian religion possessed at least three cultic officiants, consisting of:^[106]

• kawes (𐤨𐤠𐤥𐤤𐤮), who were priests and priestesses;
• [šiwraλmi-] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 6) (help) (𐤳𐤦𐤥𐤭𐤠𐤷𐤪𐤦-), who were involved in the cult of Artimus;
• [armτas] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 4) (help) (𐤠𐤭𐤪𐤴𐤠𐤮), who might have been prophets.

In addition to these clerical offices, the religious role of the kings among other Anatolian peoples suggests that Lydian kings were also religious high functionaries who participated in the cult as a representative of divine power on earth and claimed their legitimacy to rule from the gods. Anatolian and Hellenistic Greek parallels also suggest that Lydian kings might have been deified after their deaths.^[92]

Christianity

Lydia later had numerous Christian communities and, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, Lydia became one of the provinces of the diocese of Asia in the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The ecclesiastical province of Lydia had a metropolitan diocese at Sardis and suffragan dioceses for Philadelphia, Thyatira, Tripolis, Settae, Gordus, Tralles, Silandus, Maeonia, Apollonos Hierum, Mostene, Apollonias, Attalia, Hyrcania, Bage, Balandus, Hermocapella, Hierocaesarea, Acrassus, Dalda, Stratonicia, Cerasa, Gabala, Satala, Aureliopolis and Hellenopolis. Bishops from the various dioceses of Lydia were well represented at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and at the later ecumenical councils.^[107]