LYDIA AND THE GREEKS.
So Gyges got no help from Nineveh, and was obliged to content himself with having successfully warded off the invasion of his own territories. For some years at any rate the great route eastward must have been difficult, if not actually impassable. This interruption of commercial relations by land with the East may well have led to that development of Lydian intercourse with Egypt of which the Assyrian records afford evidence.
The history of the Lydian kingdom, except in so far as it affects the fortunes of the Greeks in Asia and Europe, forms no part of the design of the present volume.
In the reign of Gyges, however, the relations between Lydian and Greek entered upon a new stage. The Lydian rulers had hitherto lived on friendly terms with most of the Hellenic towns on the adjacent coasts. Gyges went still further, and by assiduous cultivation of the Delphic oracle attracted the attention and regard of the Greeks of Europe, who thus for the first time became intimate with one of the great monarchies of the East.
For the new relations with Egypt, the Greek trader formed the connecting link. It was almost inevitable that an energetic ruler like Gyges should seek to get direct control of the main, if not the only, means of communication with an ally whose alliance flattered his vanity, and with a country whose wealth could not fail to benefit Lydian trade. It is evident, however, that he did not feel himself strong enough to attempt an overt attack on the Greek cities. That could only have resulted in a formidable resistance on the part of those centres of liberty and wealth. He devised a better plan, slow working but terribly effective, and destined in later days to lead to the undoing of the liberties of Greece.
Gyges has the distinction of being the first barbarian in history who saw his way to profit by the fierce political dissensions common to all Greek communities. By allying himself with factions in the various cities he acquired in many of them a preponderating influence, while he reduced others to subjection. Kolophon shared this latter fate; so did the smaller Magnesia near Sardes. With others he entered into close relations of friendship favourable to himself, since the continuance of the pressure from the side of the Cimmerians made persistence in the policy of absorption impossible. The pressure increased instead of diminishing; and it was from this quarter that the final catastrophe came. A combination between the Cimmerians and other tribes of Asia Minor proved too strong for Gyges. He perished in a great battle. Lydia was overrun and devastated; and during the stormy days of the commencement of the reign of his successor, Ardys, the Asian Greeks found it necessary to join the Lydians in their death struggle. The Greek towns, though none save Magnesia appear to have been actually captured, suffered severe losses, which were but partially compensated for by successes won by Greek hoplites. Ardys, like his father, appealed to Assyria; and this time the Lydian appeal did not remain without effect, for the Cimmerians had turned east and were threatening the Assyrian border. Assailed by the Assyrians in the passes of Taurus, they were so terribly defeated that they ceased thereafter to be the formidable power they had been in West Asia during the previous half century. In the years which followed Lydia gradually acquired all that northern part of the peninsula which had been in Cimmerian hands.
Lydia was now a considerable power, extending to the Halys on the east; and as such it presented itself to the European Greek of the later years of the seventh century. To Lydia accordingly turned the thoughts of Aristomenes, the hero of the Messenian wars of independence against Sparta, when as a refugee he sought safety across the Ægean. Paus. iv. 24. 2, 3. Death overtook him before he had time to carry out his intention of appealing to Ardys for help.
Having attained a frontier on the east beyond which further attempts at expansion were dangerous, Ardys’ attention was naturally directed westward, where the thickly dotted line of Greek colonies practically cut Lydia off from communication with the Ægean littoral. They held the natural exits of that overland trade to which the prosperity of Ardys’ kingdom must have been largely due, and must have absorbed a large proportion of those trade profits which the Lydian might not unreasonably regard as his own. STRATEGIC POSITIONS OF ASIATIC GREEKS. Moreover, the relations of Lydia with the great trading towns of Smyrna, Kolophon, Klazomenæ, Miletus, and Priene, were no longer of the friendly character of former days. The policy of Ardys consequently aimed specially at the reduction or absorption of these towns.
The inevitable was about to happen. The very nature of the peninsula made it all but certain that whenever a great State acquired command of the upper part of the great valleys of the Hermus, Mæander, and other streams, the towns which stood on their western exits must succumb to that State.
A glance at the map of Western Asia will show this.