GYGES
After lasting five hundred and five years, the dynasty came to an end in the person of Sadyattes, as he is called by Nicolaus of Damascus, whose account is doubtless derived from Xanthus. The name Candaules, given him by Herodotus, meant “dog-strangler,” and was a title of the Lydian Hermes. Gyges, termed Gugu in the Assyrian inscriptions, Gog in the Old Testament, put him to death, and established the dynasty of the Mermnads, 690 B.C. Gyges initiated a new policy, that of making Lydia a maritime power; but his attempt to capture old Smyrna was unsuccessful. Towards the middle of his reign the kingdom was overrun by the Cimmerians, called Gimirræ in the Assyrian texts, Gomer in the Old Testament, who had been driven from their old seats on the Sea of Azov by an invasion of Scythians, and thrown upon Asia Minor by the defeat they had suffered at the hands of Esarhaddon. The lower town of Sardis was taken by them, and Gyges turned to Assyria for aid, consenting to become the tributary of Asshurbanapal or Sardanapalus, and sending him, among other presents, two Cimmerian chieftains he had himself captured in battle (about 660 B.C.). At first no one could be found in Nineveh who understood the language of the ambassadors.
A few years later, Gyges joined in the revolt against Assyria, which was headed by the viceroy of Babylonia, Asshurbanapal’s own brother. The Ionic and Carian mercenaries he despatched to Egypt enabled Psamthek to make himself independent. Assyria, however, was soon avenged. The Cimmerian hordes returned, Gyges was slain in battle after a reign of thirty-eight years, and Ardys his son and successor returned to his allegiance to Nineveh.
The second capture of Sardis on this occasion was alluded to by Callisthenes. Alyattes, the grandson of Ardys, finally succeeded in extirpating the Cimmerians, as well as in taking Smyrna, and thus providing his kingdom with a port. The trade and wealth of Lydia rapidly increased, and the Greek towns fell one after the other before the attacks of the Lydian kings. Alyattes’ long reign of fifty-seven years saw the foundation of the Lydian empire. All Asia Minor west of the Halys owned his sway, and the six years’ contest he carried on with the Medes was closed by the marriage of his daughter Aryenis to Astyages, and an intimate alliance between the two empires. The Greek cities were allowed to retain their own institutions and government on condition of paying taxes and dues to the Lydian monarch, and the proceeds of their commerce thus flowed into the imperial exchequer. The result was that the king of Lydia became the richest prince of his age. Alyattes was succeeded by Crœsus, who had probably already for some years shared the royal power with his father, or perhaps grandfather, as Floigl thinks (Geschichte des Semitischen Alterthums). He reigned alone only fifteen years.[d]
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSIA
Crœsus succeeded in establishing what his predecessors had sought—a powerful monarchy having close fiscal relations with the Hellenic world and ruling through the might of gold. By his efforts Sardis was raised to the height of opulence and became a general rendezvous and a kind of favourite capital of the Greeks. He accomplished this without violence; all his acts show a generous nature, a character inclined to benevolence and forgiveness. In spite of all this he was treated as a barbarian; but he was a refined and charming barbarian, Lydian in his genius for affairs, Greek in his æsthetic tastes—such a Philhellenic barbarian as some of the kings of Macedonia. He had but one fault, an irrational optimism and an excessive faith in the schemes of diplomacy, the virtue of alliances, and the power of gold. This over-confidence, by leading him to defy Cyrus, was his ruin.
Not that the idea of opposing Persia was in itself wrong; Crœsus was obeying a feeling of great foresight when he began preparations for war in 549 B.C. At this date Astyages was dethroned, the Median empire was destroyed, and the equilibrium of the Orient disturbed. The dominions of Cyrus had been extended as far as the Halys, and Persia thus brought into contact with the Lydian kingdom.
Apart from the annoyance of having such a neighbour, Crœsus could not forget that Astyages was his brother-in-law and that both sentiment and interest made it his duty to avenge the Median king.
Moreover, there were economic reasons that influenced him. The Persians were poor mountaineers who knew nothing of business, esteemed nothing but the trade of arms, and professed a profound disdain of all commerce, comfort, and culture. These prejudices of a military people caused particular alarm among the merchant states of the valleys of the Hermus and the Euphrates. From the day when the savage bands from Iran replaced the Median garrisons in Cappadocia it was easy to foresee the annihilation of the rich trade over the ancient route of Pteria.