Under the Heraclid dynasty the limits of Lydia must have been already extended, since, according to Strabo, the authority of Gyges reached as far as the Troad, and we learn from the Assyrian inscriptions that the same king sent tribute to Asshurbanapal, whose dominions were bounded on the west by the Halys.
But under the Mermnadæ Lydia became a maritime as well as an inland power. The Greek cities were conquered, and the coast of Ionia included within the Lydian kingdom. The successes of Crœsus finally changed the Lydian kingdom into a Lydian empire, and all Asia Minor westward of the Halys, with the exception of Lycia, owned the supremacy of Sardis. Lydia never again shrank back into its original dimensions. After the Persian conquest the Mæander was regarded as its southern boundary, and in the Roman period it comprised the country between Mysia and Caria on the one side, and Phrygia and the Ægean on the other.
Lydia proper was exceedingly fertile. The hillsides were clothed with vine and fir, and the rich broad plain of Hermus produced large quantities of corn and saffron. The climate of the plain was soft but healthful, though the country was subject to frequent earthquakes. The Pactolus, which flowed from the fountain of Tarne in the Tmolus mountains, through the centre of Sardis into the Hermus, was believed to be full of golden sand; and gold-mines were worked in Tmolus itself, though by the time of Strabo the proceeds had become so small as hardly to pay for the expense of working them. Mæonia on the east contained the curious barren plateau known to the Greeks as the Catacecaumene or Burnt Country, once a centre of volcanic disturbance. The Gygæan Lake, where remains of pile dwellings have been found, still abounds with carp, which frequently grow to a very large size.[d]
Strabo observes that this lake, which was afterwards called Colœ, was forty stadia from Sardis. It was said to have been excavated by the hand of man, as a bason for receiving the waters which overflowed the neighbouring plains. Near the lake, towards Sardis, was the tomb or tumulus of Alyattes, mentioned by Herodotus as one of the wonders of Lydia; he says the foundation of this monument was of huge stone, but the superstructure was a mound of earth. It was raised by the artisans and courtesans of Sardis. The historian adds that in his time there were extant on the top of the mound five pillars, on which were inscribed the different portions of the work completed by the several trades; whence it appeared that the courtesans had the greater share in it. The circumference of this huge mound was six stadia and two plethra, and the width thirteen plethra. Some writers affirmed it was called “the tomb of the courtesan,” and that it had been constructed by a mistress of King Gyges. Strabo reports that there were other tombs of the Lydian kings besides that of Alyattes, which has been confirmed by modern travellers.[f]
THE PEOPLE
Herodotus states that Lydus was a brother of Mysus and Car, which is borne out by the few Lydian, Mysian, and Carian words that have been preserved, as well as by the character of the civilisation of the three nations. The language, so far as can be judged from its scanty remains, was Indo-European, and more closely related to the western than to the eastern branch of the family. The race was probably a mixed one, consisting of aborigines and Aryan immigrants. It was characterised by industry and a commercial spirit, and, before the Persian conquest, by bravery as well.
The religion of the Lydians resembled that of the other civilised nations of Asia Minor. It was a nature-worship, which at times became wild and sensuous. By the side of the supreme god Medeus stood the sun-god Attys, as in Phrygia, the chief object of the popular cult. He was at once the son and bridegroom of Cybele or Cybebe, the mother of the gods, whose image carved by Broteas, son of Tantalus, was adored on the cliffs of Sipylus. Like the Semitic Tammuz or Adonis, he was the beautiful youth who had mutilated himself in a moment of frenzy or despair, and whose temples were served by eunuch priests. Or again he was the dying sun-god, slain by the winter, and mourned by Cybele, as Adonis was by Aphrodite in the old myth which the Greeks had borrowed from Phœnicia. This worship of Attys was in great measure due to foreign influence. Doubtless there had been an ancient native god of the name, but the associated myths and rites came almost wholly from abroad. The Hittites in their stronghold of Carchemish on the Euphrates had adopted the Babylonian cult of Ishtar (Ashtoreth) and Tammuz-Adonis, and had handed it on to the tribes of Asia Minor.
The close resemblance between the story of Attys and that of Adonis was the result of a common origin. The old legends of the Semitic East had come to the West through two channels. The Phœnicians brought them by sea and the Hittites by land. But though the worship of Makar or Melkarth on Lesbos shows that the Phœnician faith had found a home on this part of the coast of Asia Minor, it could have had no influence upon Lydia, which, as we have seen, was cut off from the sea before the rise of the Mermnadæ. It was rather to the Hittites that Lydia, like Phrygia and Cappadocia, owed its faith in Attys and Cybele. The latter became “the mother of Asia,” and at Ephesus, where she was adored under the form of a meteoric stone, was identified with the Greek Artemis. Her mural crown is first seen in the Hittite sculptures of Boghaz Keui on the Halys, and the bee was sacred to her. A gem found near Aleppo represents her Hittite counterpart standing on this insect. The priestesses by whom she was served are depicted in early art as armed with the double-headed axe, and the dances they performed in her honour with shield and bow gave rise to the myths which saw in them the Amazons, a nation of woman-warriors. The pre-Hellenic cities of the coast—Smyrna, Samorna (Ephesus), Myrina, Cyme, Priene, and Pitane—were all of Amazonian origin, and the first three of them have the same name as the Amazon Myrina, whose tomb was pointed out in the Troad. The prostitution whereby the Lydian girls gained their dowries was a religious exercise, as among the Semites, which marked their devotion to the goddess Cybele. In the legend of Hercules, Omphale takes the place of Cybele, and was perhaps her Lydian title. Hercules is here the sun-god Attys in a new form; his Lydian name is unknown, since E. Meyer has shown that Sandon belongs not to Lydia but to Cilicia. By the side of Attys stood the moon-god Manes or Men.[d]
SARDIS AND THE NAME OF ASIA
The commercial and strategical superiority of the site of Sardis gives us reason to think that it was always the seat of royal residence. But it does not seem that the place always had the same name. It was at a rather late period that the great city of the Tmolus took the name it has ever since borne. When Strabo mentions it as subsequent to the Troy war, he signifies, not that the place was deserted in the Homeric epoch, but that it then had a different name. As far as one can judge, the town had three successive titles, Asia, Hyde, Sardis, which correspond to the three great periods of its history.