Lydians/History

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Lydia was an ancient kingdom in Asia Minor, situated in what is now western Turkey. Lydia had a long history stretching back into the remote mythological past prior to the Trojan War. Originally thought to have been centred around the Seha river valley in south-western Anatolia, the kingdom of Lydia would eventually encompass a vast part of Western Anatolia before being assimilated into the Achaemenid Persian empire.

Until fairly recently, most of what we knew of the Lydians was through the Greeks. The Greeks had many myths regarding the Lydians - One of its early kings was Tantalus, whose crimes were of such magnitide - they included serving his eldest son up in a feast to the gods and hacking the limbs off his temple prostitutes - that in the afterlife he was punished with eternal thirst and hunger, hence our modern word "tantalise". At this point Lydia was called Maeonia and its capital was at Sipylus. The Greek bard Homer listed the Maeonians as one of the allies of Troy fighting against the Achaeans in the Iliad. However, Sipylus was later destroyed in an earthquake and slipped into a lake.The wandering hero Hercules engendered a new dynasty which established its capital at Sardis and the country changed its name to Lydia. This dynasty lasted for five centuries by the end of which Lydia had emerged into the light of history.

In some statements of questionable reliability, Herodotus claimed that Lydian dynasties were first established at the time when Agamemnon at Mycenae became king (around 1216 BCE) and had ruled for twenty-two generations, until their last ruler – the unfortunate Croesus – ascended to the throne. Croesus reigned from about 555 to 541 BCE. According to Herodotus (1.3), Lydian dynasties lasted for 505 years. One of the most famous ancestors was Gyges, a king who usurped the throne most likely in 680 BCE. The sum of years from Gyges’s first year of government plus the number of years mentioned by Herodotus brings us to 1185 BCE. From this follows that, at the time of Herodotus, memories were apparently still in existence that reached all the way back to the beginning of the Dark Ages. Its last king, Candaules, was overthrown by his servant Gyges who founded the third and final Lydian dynasty in 716 BC. This Gyges is thought to be the king "Guggu" mentioned by Assyrian records regarding a nation named "Luddu", and his tomb may have been discovered by American archaeologists in 1964.


Early Beginnings[edit | edit source]

Regardless, a vast lacuna still remains in modern schoparshiop with regards to understanding the true history of the Lydian peoples, despite attempts to redress the situation, for only recently has any inquiry into the prehistoric archaeology of central western Anatolia been conducted. Nevertheless, the prehistoric archaeology of western Anatolia seems to be particularly rich, spanning Paleolithic through Late Bronze Age times. Stone Age tools found throughout this region reflect well-known Levantine and European technologies, confirming the role of central-western Anatolia as a prehistoric "land bridge" between Asia and Europe.

The early Bronze Age heralded many changes in southewestern Anatolia: population increases marked by the appearance of many new sites; changes in settlement size and structure, including the appearance of monumental buildings and fortifications; increases in the sophistication of craft-production technologies, especially with respect to metallurgy and ceramics; and increasing evidence of long-distance exchange, probably practiced most frequently between elite members of increasingly centralized communities. Intermitted excavation over the early 20th century has provided the best contextual evidence for the period, revealing broad similarities of material in both burial and habitation contexts. At the same time, surface surveys have revealed a widespread and more regular distribution of over 100 Early Bronze Age throughout the region, the majority of them apparently newly settled in this period. Military defence must have been a priority since most settlements were located on mounds that rise from valley floors or higher up on natural ridges and plateaus at valley edges. This Early Bronze Age culture was not limited to mainland Western Anatolia, however; the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos have also yielded settlement sites and artefacts that very much resemble those found back in Turkey.

Settlement sites have yet to be excavated fully enough to reveal details of local settlement structure, yet mortuary remains from the excavated sites mentioned above provide good information about the range of burial types and grave goods found in both intramural burials (usually associated with children) and extramural cemeteries. As elsewhere in western Anatolia, the most frequently attested type of burial is in an urn called a pithos, with the deceased accompanied by grave goods that almost always include ceramics, and, in particular examples, a rich assortment of other items: stoneware vessels; animal and anthropomorphic figurines, or “idols,” in stone or metal; polished stone axes; copper-alloy weapons; and silver, gold, or electrum personal adornments. Some of these burials have yielded hints of links to the Mediterranean and beyond, a pair of stone bowls of Cycladic manufacture were found in a pithos burial in the Akhisar Valley.

The Great Caravan Routes[edit | edit source]

Foreign trade and diplomatic interactions seemed to have experienced greater intensification as the Bronze Age wore on, for good hoards excavated throughout Western Anatolia have revealed more artefacts of varied appearance and provenance, suggesting a vast network of foreign contacts and exchanges, which are thought to be evidence of a hypothetical "Anatolian Trade Network". The long-term results of the so-called “Anatolian Trade Network” elsewhere in the Middle Bronze Age included the rise of city-state systems best known from sites like Kültepe, Alişar, Acemhöyük, Karahöyük-Konya, and Beycesultan, where large site sizes, palaces, massive fortifications, and evidence of long-distance commercial interactions are characteristic. Gradually developing and strongly centralized state systems appear in central western Anatolia, too, but perhaps not until slightly later, after several centuries sometimes thought of as transitional to the western Anatolian MBA.39 While the earlier part of the MBA is still not well understood locally, by the latter part, ca. 1700 BCE, large fortified citadels with lower towns had begun to develop in the middle Gediz River valley, along the lines of similarly pronounced and roughly contemporary developments in the Troad (e.g. Troy VI). The centralization of production and power associated with this period might be reflected also in settlement patterns, wherein a general reduction in the number of sites spread throughout inland central western Anatolia—from over 100 sites in the third millennium BCE to roughly 70 sites in the second millennium BCE—may suggest local abandonments in favor of nucleation at larger population centers.

Identifying changes within second-millennium BCE settlement patterns, however, is complicated by the durability of local pottery traditions throughout the millennium, so that it is often impossible to date sites more closely than to the millennium. This problem arises from an inability, in many cases, to separate the Middle Bronze Age from the Late Bronze Age (LBA, ca. 1600–1200 BCE) based on surface pottery alone. Despite the general contraction in settlement numbers throughout the second millennium BCE, the same general areas occupied in the third millennium BCE remained populated, with site preferences appearing to follow the pattern set millennia earlier. A reduced number of sites can be found in areas such as the valleys between Akhisar and Manisa; yet, significantly, an increase in the number of sites and a distinct change in settlement patterns occur in the middle Gediz River valley, the heartland of the later Iron Age capital at Sardis.

Here, in the foothills and along the lakeshore surrounding Marmara Gölü (Figs. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24), a recently discovered network of at least four fortified citadels—two small and two large—developed by ca. 1700 BCE, and each citadel was used until the end of the LBA, after which none was significantly reoccupied (Fig. 25).40 All show some evidence of burnt destructions on their surfaces, but it is impossible to determine from surface materials alone whether such destructions caused their abandonment or came somewhat earlier in their histories. The two smaller citadels, Kızbacı Tepesi and Gedevre Tepesi, enclose roughly 1 ha of fortified space each. The two others enclose areas that are substantially larger than any known contemporary citadel in all of western Anatolia, with Asartepe enclosing 3.8 ha and Kaymakçı a total of 8.6 ha. The citadels of Gavurtepe, Bademgediği Tepe, and Troy, for example, are much smaller, each enclosing between 1 ha and 2.2 ha. In addition, the two larger citadels of the network surrounding Marmara Gölü are each associated with large lower settlements. Because of its dominant position and size and its internal complexity, as determined from microtopographic and geophysical survey, Kaymakçı is best understood as the capital of the local network, and probably also as the capital of the entire region (Figs. 26, 27, 28).

Preserved in ruined condition at the highest elevation of the site is an inner circuit of fortifications that defines a central sector or inner citadel characterized by concentric terraces surrounding an acropolis-like platform. The general organization of this inner citadel at Kaymakçı bears some similarity to the citadel of Troy VI–VII, yet at Kaymakçı it composes only one part of the larger well-fortified space. An outer circuit of fortifications at Kaymakçı helps to define lower terraces in a broad southeastern sector that seems to be characterized by buildings arranged in a roughly grid-like organization, as well as a western sector characterized by large open spaces and monumental buildings, at least one of them apparently built in basic megaron form. Upper slopes within the outer circuit of fortifications at Kaymakçı were also built up, but the definition of their use remains obscure at this time. Outside the citadel, a large lower settlement at Kaymakçı adds tens of hectares to the total site area and indicates its potential to host a large community. This lower settlement is evidenced primarily by surface pottery that extends away from the highpoint of the site to limits that have yet to be identified.

Pottery from these second-millennium BCE sites in central western Anatolia bears closest affinities to assemblages from sites in coastal western Anatolia, from Panaztepe to Troy, as well as from the inland sites of Kusura, Beycesultan, and Aphrodisias (Fig. 29).41 Contacts with regions further afield, such as Hittite central Anatolia and the Mycenaean sphere of the Aegean, are apparent in imported wares and their local imitations, and perhaps also in burial customs.42 That central western Anatolia was part of the larger Hittite world has been assumed ever since the early discovery of rock-cut monuments in the area: one on a cliff at the northern terminus of Manisa Dağ at Akpınar; the other on a south-facing cliff in the Karabel Pass through the Boz Dağ range, at the southern edge of the Kemalpaşa Valley (see Fig. 11).43 Both monuments present relief sculptures accompanied by inscriptions in hieroglyphic Luwian, a language of the Anatolian sub-branch of the Indo-European language family (along with Nesite (Hittite), Palaic, etc.). Both are understood as monuments established by local rulers rendered in styles, traditionally considered Hittite,44 that had become common throughout much of central, south-central, and western Anatolia by the thirteenth century BCE. Associated with a nearby spring, the monument at Akpınar has been identified traditionally by Classical geographers and modern scholars alike as a seated image of Cybele or another "mother goddess" figure, yet an alternative reading sees it as a bearded mountain god (Figs. 30, 31).45 The Karabel relief is more overtly geopolitical in nature and provides evidence for the identity of the LBA kingdoms that occupied the area of early Lydia (Fig. 32).

The hieroglyphic Luwian inscription of the Karabel monument records that it was established by Tarkasnawa, a late-thirteenth-century king of Mira, a territory known from archives recovered from the Hittite capital at Hattusa (modern Boğazköy).46 Earlier in the second millennium BCE, Mira and its neighbors had been part of a regional complex known to the Hittites as the Arzawa Lands. Comprising all of central western Anatolia, and probably greater territories around it, Arzawa was a significant power in LBA Anatolia, whose kings corresponded diplomatically with Hattusa and Egypt alike.47 Frequent sympathizing with the Hittite adversary state known as Ahhiyawa (probably an east Aegean Mycenaean state or group of kingdoms known to Homer as the Achaeans), and Ahhiyawan territorial conquests during the mid- and late fourteenth century BCE, led to the conquest and dissolution of Arzawa into component vassal kingdoms by the Hittite king Mursili II.48 Mira, with its capital at Apasa (Classical Ephesus) and with territories extending at least over the Büyük Menderes (Classical Meander) and Küçük Menderes valleys, coincided with the southern areas of Classical Lydia.49 The Seha River Land, another member of Arzawa forced into vassalage by Mursili II, shared a border with Mira and is now identified as the Gediz River valley and areas farther north, coinciding with the heartland of Classical Lydia.50 Thus the largest of the citadels around Marmara Gölü, Kaymakçı, might be identified as the regional capital of the Seha River Land. We know from scarce mentions in the archives from Hattusa that the vassal Seha River Land remained a strategic intermediary between Hittite and Ahhiyawan lands and interests at least until the late thirteenth century. Thereafter, all historical traces of it were lost in the tumultuous decades of destructions and migrations associated with the end of the Late Bronze Age throughout the eastern Mediterranean.


Fig. 20

View of Marmara Gölü, the ancient Gygaean Lake, in central Lydia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 21

View of Marmara Gölü, the ancient Gygaean Lake, in central Lydia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 22

View of Marmara Gölü, the ancient Gygaean Lake, in central Lydia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 23

View of Marmara Gölü, the ancient Gygaean Lake, in central Lydia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 24

View of Marmara Gölü, the ancient Gygaean Lake, in central Lydia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 25

Map of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites around Marmara Gölü (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 26

Sheep grazing on the lower southeastern terrace of the citadel at Kaymakçı (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 27

Sheep grazing on the lower southeastern terrace of the citadel at Kaymakçı (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 28

Three-dimensional rendering of a QuickBird satellite image of the citadel of Kaymakçı (view to WNW) (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 29

Selection of Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery from sites around Marmara Gölü (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 11

Map of Early, Middle, Middle/Late, and Late Bronze Age sites in central western Anatolia (Courtesy of Christopher Roosevelt and the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey)


Fig. 30

View of the Akpınar Monument, just east of Manisa, probably representing a bearded mountain god (Photograph by Crawford H. Greenewalt, jr.)


Fig. 31

View of the Akpınar Monument, just east of Manisa, probably representing a bearded mountain god (Photograph by Crawford H. Greenewalt, jr.)


Fig. 32

View of the Karabel Monument, just southeast of Kemalpaşa, showing Tarkasnawa, king of Mira, as identified in the accompanying inscription (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

The Transition to the Iron Age and the Arrival of the Lydians Even though strictly historical evidence for Lydia is lacking for the period between the fall of the local Late Bronze Age kingdoms of Mira and the Seha River Land and the rise of the Lydian kingdom at Sardis, later Classical authors cited the existence of at least two dynasties of Lydian kings ruling before the Mermnad Dynasty initiated by Gyges, who is historically attested in Neo-Assyrian archives of the early to mid-seventh century BCE. Among many seemingly irreconcilable references to early Lydian dynasties are the stories of Herodotus, perhaps the simplest, from which we learn that the first Lydian dynasty was founded by Lydus, son of Atys, and that twenty-two generations of a second dynasty, known as the Heraclids, ruled for some 505 years until Gyges’ overthrow of the last Heraclid king, Candaules.51 Archaeological corroboration of a Heraclid conquest of Sardis in the early twelfth century BCE has been somewhat presumptuously cited in a level of destruction and imported Mycenaean pottery found at Sardis roughly dating to this time.52 The restricted exposure of these levels at Sardis makes it impossible to speak of site-wide events, however, and Sardis is only one of many sites in central western Anatolia at which have been found Mycenaean pottery of the fourteenth through twelfth centuries BCE. Further complicating the matter of these fabled early Lydian dynasties are the “Maeonians,” the name by which inhabitants of the middle Gediz River valley were known to Homer in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE.53 The Maeonians have been traditionally understood as early Lydians and Maeonia as a name for early Lydia. While largely credible, these understandings are based on little actual fact, bringing us to the question of what evidence there is for the arrival of Lydian-speaking populations in the area. Did the Maeonians speak Lydian, or did Lydian-speaking populations arrive with Gyges and the Mermnad Dynasty? Were Lydians already present in the MBA and LBA, or did they arrive in the aftermath of the LBA collapse?

The excavations at Sardis have provided only limited help in addressing these questions, yet they attest occupation by the LBA, if not earlier, some level of cultural continuity into the Early Iron Age, and high levels of cultural continuity between the Early Iron Age and the seventh- and sixth-century Mermnad period, when we can be assured of the presence of Lydian speakers.54 The continuity of early levels at Sardis, then, supports the general assumption that Lydian speakers arrived well before the Mermnads.

Archaeological evidence from central Lydia around Marmara Gölü, however, points to significant disruptions in local traditions during the transitional period following the LBA. The citadels associated with the previous ruling power(s) were all abandoned, yet a wider phenomenon of regional abandonment cannot be demonstrated with current evidence. When Iron Age sites appear in the early first millennium BCE, at any rate, they are associated with different settlement patterns, avoiding earlier mounds and citadels, and different production traditions, especially those associated with new pottery types and clay recipes matching later “Lydian” ceramic traditions, best known from Sardis, and also with different mudbrick manufacture. These changes might easily be explained by internal developments arising after the fall of the local LBA kingdom. Alternatively, they might support a view adhered to by most historical linguists, that Lydian speakers, having entered Anatolia at the latest by the early second millennium BCE (along with the speakers of other languages of the Anatolian sub-branch of Indo-European), migrated into Classical Lydia, perhaps from northwestern Anatolia in the Early Iron Age.55 Lydian speakers are presumed, in this view, to have replaced the previous Luwian-speaking populations associated with monuments like Akpınar and Karabel, and presumably also with the ruling kingdom of the Seha River Land.

Other linguistic evidence, however, highlights continuities between Bronze and Iron Age toponyms in the Seha River Land and Lydia,56 especially, and there remains the possibility that Lydian speakers were already present in central western Anatolia in the second millennium BCE. In such a scenario, the Luwian that appears in hieroglyphic form at Akpınar and Karabel may have been used exclusively for diplomatic correspondence and public monuments in at least a partially bilingual Luwian and Lydian environment. The territorial uniformity of the kingdoms of the Seha River Land and Lydia may also be sought in support of cultural, if not also political, continuity across the Bronze and Iron Ages.57

We are left with the unfortunate, but all too common, predicament that current evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways. The distinct changes in the archaeological record of central Lydia across the transition from the Late Bronze to Iron Age might be explained by the arrival of the Lydians from elsewhere in western Anatolia, just as they might be explained by local, social, economic, and political developments arising from the LBA collapse and the subsequent redevelopment of complex society. Exactly when Lydian-speaking populations arrived in Lydia, then, is an enigma that Lydian archaeology, or at least the archaeological record of Lydia as it is known today, seems unable to resolve. Again, despite the successes of surface surveys in illuminating the richness of Lydian prehistory, stratigraphic excavations are greatly needed to clarify further such cultural developments, both within and across prehistoric phases and periods, and especially across the transition from the LBA to the Iron Age. Whatever may have happened in the period between the abandonment of the LBA citadels and the appearance of Iron Age sites in central Lydia, and regardless of when Lydian speakers did actually arrive, one thing is clear: When state-level society did reappear, the central node of power had shifted from the area around Marmara Gölü, the probable core of the kingdom of the Seha River Land, to the south, across the Gediz River valley, and to Sardis, where culturally and linguistically distinct Lydian populations living under the historical Mermnad Dynasty thrived in their florescence of the middle of the first millennium BCE.

Maeonia[edit | edit source]

It is certain that Sardis, in the valley of the Gediz (the Hermus River in antiquity), was a place of central importance to western Asia Minor. Sardis was situated on a major east-west route, more specifically, the one that stretched from Ephesus on the Aegean coast to Susa at the Persian Gulf 2500 kilometers away. Goods, and with them most likely a great deal of knowledge, traveled along this road from Babylonia to western Asia Minor and further onward from there, to the coastal cities of the Aegean. Consequently, architectural monuments and rock facades in Lydia that have survived display an idiosyncratic blend of oriental and Aegean traditions.

Excavations by American archaeologists at Sardis prove that a settlement in this location has existed since at least the 3rd millennium BCE with the discovery of four (two large and two smaller) citadels, which probably had been built around 1700 BCE and were inhabited until 1200 BCE. Of these, the citadel at Kaymakçı, the largest and most complex of the four citadels, the fortress walls enclose an area of 8.6 hectares. This is almost five times the size of the Trojan citadel at Hissarlik. A far-reaching scatter of pottery outside the citadel is interpreted as evidence for a sprawling lower city.

Iron Age[edit | edit source]

Linguistically speaking, the names of Lydian kings (i. e. Sadyattes, Alyattes) belong to the same type as the names of Luwian dynasties (Maduwatta) from the time of the last Hittite king. This means that Early Iron Age societies in western Asia Minor took up traditions from the Bronze Age and that Late Bronze Age traditions continued during the so-called dark centuries of the Early Iron Age. In addition to the thriving east-west trade, Lydia’s unbelievable wealth was based primarily on rich mineral resources, but also on their high-quality artisan crafts, the production of fine fabrics and on the possession of abundant livestock.

Watchtower[edit | edit source]

The kings of Lydia ruled from their capital, Sardis, in the western part of what was then called Asia Minor but is now called Turkey. Lydia’s last king, Croesus, amassed fabulous wealth, but then about 546 B.C.E., he lost his empire to Cyrus the Great of Persia​—the very same Cyrus who conquered the Babylonian Empire a few years later.


Ancient Lydia was located in Western Anatolia, east of the Greek region of Ionia. During the Late Bronze Age, the region was probably known as the Seha River Land, based on references in Hittite archives. Whether or not we may consider the inhabitants already as Lydians is a matter of debate. Homer referred to Lydia and Maeonia.

During the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–700 BC) we have the pseudo-historical account of Herodotus, in which Atyad kings (Tantalids) made way for Tylonid kings (Heraclids). With the seventh century BC, we enter Lydian history proper. According to Herodotus (Hdt. 1.7–13), the last Tylonid king, Candaules, was assassinated by his bodyguard, Gyges, who subsequently married Candaules’ widow and founded the Mermnad Dynasty. The Greek word turannos (tyrant) derived from a Lydian word and seems to have been first used to denote Gyges (Archilochus fr. 19 West), who seized absolute power by murdering his predecessor. The last king of this dynasty, Croesus (r. 560–547/546 BC), would be defeated by Cyrus the Great. Lydia then became part of the Achaemenid Empire.

To Archaic Greeks, the capital of Sardis had the status of something like Paris: a wealthy city characterized by high culture, opulent with perhaps a little more than a hint of decadence. The city is located at the point where the River Hermus (modern Gediz Cayi) plain meets the foothills of the Tmolus mountains (Boz Dag). Most of the city occupied the area north of the natural acropolis of the city. The city is flanked by two streams that flow down from the mountains toward the River Hermus. The Gygaean Lake is located about two hours’ walk from the city.

Archaeological investigations into Lydian culture have mostly focused on Sardis, a small part of which has been excavated. Field surveys have added considerably to our knowledge of Lydia as a whole, but much work still needs to be done. Interestingly, many details mentioned by Herodotus have been demonstrated to be more or less accurate: for example, Herodotus’ claim that the Lydians mostly used thatched roofs seems to have been confirmed at Sardis.

Cultural exchange One of the problems in discussing Lydian warfare is that it is very difficult to distinguish “Lydian” from “Greek” material culture. Especially during the Archaic period (ca. 700–500 BC), there were many contacts and exchanges between the Greeks and the various peoples of Anatolia, such as the Carians, Phrygians and Lydians. We may consider the Aegean and Western Anatolia to form part of a single cultural koine, where ideas were freely exchanged between different peoples.

According to Herodotus (Hdt. 1.171), parts of the typically “Greek” panoply were actually invented by Carians, a people that lived just south of the Lydians and in whose territory Herodotus’ home town of Halicarnassus had been founded. Specifically, the Carians are credited with having invented the method of fastening crests to helmets (see also Alcaeus fr. 388 West), the use of shield blazons, and the use of handgrips for carrying shields (in lieu of leather straps).

Some commentators have dismissed Herodotus’ claim that the Carians were responsible for these inventions, but there is no compelling reason to doubt the Greek historian. Ionian Greeks and Carians are known to have cooperated closely in the seventh century BC (for example, Archilochus fr. 216 West), and served as mercenaries in Babylon and Egypt. For example, King Psammetichus (r. 664–610 BC) used Ionian and Carian mercenaries to oust the Assyrians from Egypt (Hdt. 2.152–154). We also know that East Greek mercenaries from Ionia and Rhodes, and probably Carians too, were stated at Mesad Haschavjahu, a coastal fortress on the border of ancient Judea, constructed ca. 630–620 BC and located between Jaffa and Ashdod.

It is sometimes claimed that the Greeks were unusual for fighting beneath the scorching Mediterranean sun in bronze armour. However, bronze plate armour, too, is not a Greek invention, but was also used by certain Near-Eastern peoples, who fought in similar or even hotter conditions. In fact, the techniques for making bronze helmets seem to have been (re)introduced into Greece at the end of the eighth century from Assyria, and we know that the Assyrians used other pieces of metal armour and shields.

Similarly, it seems that the Greeks owed a debt of inspiration to Anatolia when it came to true cavalry. At Gordion, the capital of the Phrygians, ivory inlays of the ninth century BC – that is, more or less contemporary with the Assyrian use of true cavalry – were unearthed within the remains of a structure referred to as Megaron 3 that depict horsemen. These horsemen are very similar to later Greek depictions, complete with round shield and a helmet similar to the later “Phrygian cap” and equipped with cheek-pieces. Another ivory inlay shows a cavalry battle, where the men fight equipped with long lances. Phrygia would eventually be conquered by the Lydians.

Outside of the realm of war, we have the symposium and the use of coins, the latter of which certainly originated in Lydia, which was famous for its wealth. In the Greek world, we can trace the spread of the symposium – where especially drink while lying on couches – from east to west in the course of the seventh century BC, with the process complete around 600 BC. The earliest coins were made of electrum – a naturally-occurring alloy of silver and gold – and minted in Lydia, perhaps as early as the late seventh century BC.

Lydian arms and armour As far as equipment is concerned, the Lydians were generally equipped with the same types of arms and armour as the Greeks. For the most part, they were equipped with metal body-armour, greaves and helmets, as well as round, Argive shields (with the double-grip) and thrusting spears. However, a Lydian wall-painting from the Tartarli tumulus, near Dinar (province of Afyon) depicts a battle-scene between heavily-armed warriors equipped instead with curved or “sickle” swords.

A silver alabastron of Lydian make and dated to the sixth century BC features an engraved battle-scene, in which heavily-armoured men with Argive shields, greaves and Corinthian helmets fight each other. Interestingly, a few of the shields are equipped with “curtains” – probably intended to ward off arrows – that would later appear on Greek red-figure vase-paintings.

Corinthian helmets were probably invented in Greece and perhaps really even in Corinth itself toward the end of the eighth century BC. (The names of most other types of helmets tend to be conventional, such as the “Chalcidian” helmet.) Around the middle of the seventh century BC at the latest, a new type of helmet appeared in East Greece: the Ionian helmet. This type of helmet left more of the face exposed and often featured hinged cheek-pieces &ndhash; perhaps adopted from Assyrian helmets? – and sometimes had a reinforced section running across and above forehead. They may have been very similar to Lydian types of helmets, a late example of which – dated to the mid-sixth century and made of iron with bronze decorations and moveable cheek-pieces – has been unearthed at Sardis

Linen corslets, such as may have been used by Greeks from at least the later sixth century BC onwards (if they were not actually made of leather), may have been a Lydian invention of the seventh century BC. Interestingly, when describing a large store of armours and weapons, the poet Alcaeus ( floruit early sixth century BC) mentions linen corslets rather than bronze cuirasses. Alcaeus was a native of Mytilene, a major settlement on the island of Lesbos; the close proximity to Anatolia may explain the perceived discrepancy.

The Lydians, following the example of other Near-Eastern kingdoms, probably fought in formation (see also the comments on their cavalry, below). This need not have been taken from the Greeks. In fact, it stands to reason that Greek phalanx fighting, if it dates back to the seventh or sixth centuries BC, probably was inspired by similar modes of fighting in the ancient Near East.

Lydian cavalry Already in Homer, the peoples of Anatolia were famed horsemen. The Greek poet Mimnermus of Smyrna (floruit in the latter half of the seventh century BC), composed exhortation poetry, in which he encouraged his countrymen to defend their city from Lydian attacks. In one fragment, he describes how a single Greek defended himself against the onslaught of Lydian cavalry (in M.L. West’s translation):

His strength and bravery were not like yours, as I have heard from older men who saw him on the plain of Hermos with his spear routing the Lydian cavalry’s thick ranks. Pallas Athena ne’er had cause to fault his acid fury, when in the front line he hurtled through the battle’s bloody moil against the stinging missiles of the foe. No warrior of the enemy remained his better in the strenuous work of war, so long as he moved in the swift sun’s light. (fr. 14 West)

The Lydian troopers are referred to as hippomachoi, “horse-fighters” (that is, true cavalry in all likelihood). The reference to thick ranks (punikas phalaggas) suggests that they may even have operated in formation. Herodotus remarks that, later, at the time of Croesus, “no nation in Asia was more valiant and warlike than the Lydians. Their mode of fighting was from on horseback; they were armed with long lances, and managed their horses with admirable address” (Hdt. 1.79).

Despite the bravery of the inhabitants of Smyrna, the city nevertheless eventually succumbed to the imperial ambitions of Lydia’s kings. Around 600 BC, King Alyattes II besieged the city and eventually managed to conquer and sack it after building a large siege ramp to scale the walls. (Smyrna’s fortifications were impressive, and I have earlier mentioned that Greek settlements in Asia Minor may have built their fortifications in order to compete with fortified Lydian towns located further inland, and that the city walls of Sardis were very similar to those of Smyrna.)

After the death of Alyattes, his successor Croesus started a large-scale campaign aimed at subjugating the Ionian and Aeolian Greeks in Asia Minor. Once he had forced them all to pay tribute, he decided to build a large fleet in order to conquer the Greek islands. According to Herodotus (Hdt. 1.27), either Bias of Priene or Pittacus of Mytilene came to Croesus and said that the men of the islands were hiring thousands of mercenary cavalry. Croesus scoffed, since no cavalry could possible hope to match the quality of Lydian horsemen. He then received the reply that the islanders likewise were hoping to catch the Lydian fleet at sea, since their own seamanship was unmatched. Croesus then decided to let the island-dwelling Greeks remain as they were.

Closing remarks The Greek cities in Asia Minor frequently came into conflict with the Lydians, who grew ever more imperialistic in the course of the Archaic period. But there were also plenty of friendly contacts between Greeks and Lydians. Aside from trade and cultural exchanges, there may even have been official alliances – summachia in Greek – between, for example, the Lydians and the Milesians in the seventh century BC (Hdr. 1.22).

Lydian warfare was very similar to Greek warfare, even if many details – such as battle tactics used – remain largely unknown and the Lydians fielded superior cavalry. It is clear that the peoples of the Aegean and Western Anatolia formed part of a cultural matrix with a free flow of ideas. The Lydians, like other peoples of Western Antolia, shared many similarities with the Greeks, including equipment and probably also modes of fighting: we can easily speak of a common cultural koine.


Conservapedia:

"Lydia was an ancient kingdom in Asia Minor, situated in what is now western Turkey. Lydia had a long history stretching back into the remote mythological past prior to the Trojan War. One of its early kings was Tantalus circa 1300 BC, whose crimes were of such magnitide—they included serving his eldest son up in a feast to the gods and hacking the limbs off his temple prostitutes—that in the afterlife he was punished with eternal thirst and hunger, hence our modern word "tantalise". At this point Lydia was called Maeonia, and its capital was at Sipylus, but this was destroyed in an earthquake and slipped into a lake.

The wandering hero Hercules engendered a new dynasty which established its capital at Sardis, and the country changed its name to Lydia. This dynasty lasted for five centuries, by the end of which Lydia had emerged into the light of history. Its last king, Candaules, was overthrown by his servant Gyges, who founded the third and final Lydian dynasty in 716 BC. This dynasty brought Lydia to new heights of prosperity, and it became the first nation in the world to issue coins. Finally its last king, Croesus, was so rich that his name has become a byword for wealth. In 546 BC Croesus sent a request to the Delphic Oracle in Greece, asking what would happen if he attacked the Persian Empire. The oracle replied that he would destroy a great nation. So Croesus attacked, and the great nation he destroyed was... his own. Lydia became a Persian province thereafter."

https://www.allaboutturkey.com/lydia.html

"Lydia was situated in the Western part of Asia Minor, on the river Galis, with its main city Sardis. It was first mentioned by Homer already in the 8th century BC under the name Maeonia. It was celebrated for fertile soil, rich deposits of gold and silver. Lydia became most powerful under the dynasty of the Mermnadae, beginning about 685 BC. In the 6th century BC Lydian conquests transformed the kingdom into an empire. Under the rule of King Croesus, Lydia attained its greatest splendor. The empire came to an end, however, when the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great captured Sardis about 546 BC and incorporated Lydia into the Persian Empire. After the defeat of Persia by Alexander III, king of Macedonia, Lydia was brought under Greek - Macedonian control. Soon after that, Lydians were assimilated by Greeks, Greek language and Greek culture, and though Strabo in the 1st century AD talks about Lydians as an ethnos, they did not have much of their original language at that moment.

Lydians were the first ones to mint coins in the history of mankind. They made Gold, Silver and Electrum (a mixture of gold and silver) coins at Sardis.

Language Lydian language belongs to New Anatolian languages, derived from Old Anatolian - Hittite, Luwian and Palaic. When the Hittite Empire fell, Anatolian city-states started a new epoch of Indo-European settlers of Asia Minor. These cities were inhabited both by Indo-European Hittites and non-Indo - European tribes like Hatti, Assyrians, Aramaeans. In the 7th century BC all East and Central Anatolian Indo-Europeans were practically assimilated by Semitic and other tribes, and Indo-European Hittites and Luwians had to move farther to the West, to the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Lydian was inherited directly from Hittite, but has a lot of its own new features. Lydian phonetics is more complicated: nasal vowels [a], [e] appeared; consonant system has several palatals for [s], [t], [d], [l], [n] very widely used. Palatals came from the combination of i + a consonant.

Lydian morphology also differs somehow from Hittite. Nouns are declined in pronominal declension, Hittite noun declension was almost completely lost. Accusative case is being replaced by dative in the meaning of direct object of the verb. Some verbal forms have endings derived not from Hittite same forms but from participles (for example, 3rd person plural has -l ending) or other verbal nouns. Lydian has a wide choice of prefixes and particles with practically every word. Sometimes a personal pronoun has 3 particles before it, all of them meaning just emphasis.

Linguistic science has not yet learned much about Lydian, but the language is obviously Indo-European, and a lot of words represent their Indo-European origin."

Golden Twilight[edit | edit source]

This dynasty brought Lydia to new heights of prosperity and it became the first nation in the world to issue coins. Finally its last king, Croesus, was so rich that his name has become a byword for wealth. In 546 BC Croesus sent a request to the Delphic Oracle in Greece, asking what would happen if he attacked the Persian Empire. The oracle replied that he would destroy a great nation. So Croesus attacked and the great nation he destroyed was... his own.

Lydia’s innovative businessmen are said to have been the first to use coins. Gold and silver had long been used as money, but because of the irregular size of gold bars and rings, people had to weigh the money each time they made a transaction. In contrast, the people of Lydia ​began to use coins with standardised weight which was guaranteed by an official stamp on each coin. Lydia’s first coins were made of a natural mixture of gold and silver called electrum. When Croesus became king, he replaced them with silver coins and gold coins that were almost pure. Lydians invented a bimetallic coinage system in which 12 coins of a low denomination equaled one of a more valuable metal. But the system was threatened by counterfeit coins of gold mixed with inferior metals. Merchants needed an easy way to test the purity of gold.

References[edit | edit source]