Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/245

LYDIA. xiii. p. 621), and, according to Mcnecra'.es the Elaean, the whole coast of Ionia, beginning from Mycale, and of Aeolis." (Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 32.) They no doubt extended beyond the coast into the interior of the country. The existence of a I'elasgian population is probably also implied in the statement, that the most ancient royal dy- nasty of Lydia were Heracleidae, and that Lydus was a brother of Tyrrhenus. The Lydians, on the other hand, are expressly stated to have had nothing in common with the Pelasgians (Dionys. i. 30), and all we know of them points to more eastern countries as their original home. It is true that Herodotus connects the Heracleid dynasty with that of Assyria, but if any value can be attached to this statement at all, it refers only to the rulers ; but it may be as unfounded as his belief that most of the Greek institutions had been derived from Egypt. The Lydians are described as a kindred people of the Carians and Jlysians, and all three are said to have had one common ancestor as well as one common lan- guage and religion. (Herod, i. 171.) The Carians are the only one of these three nations that are men- tioned by Homer. It is impossible to ascertain what country was originally inhabited by the Ly- dians, though it is reasonable to assume that they occupied some district near the Maeonians; and it is possible that the Phrygians, who are said to have migrated into Asia from Thrace, may have pressed upon the Lydians, and thus forced them to make conquests in the country of the Maeonians. The time when these conquests tpok place, and when the Maeonians were overpowered or expelled, is con- jectured by Niebuhr (_Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. i. p. 87) to have been the time when the Heracleid dynasty was supplanted by that of the Mermnadae, who were real Lydians. This would place the con- quest of JIaeonia by the Lydians about the year 15. C. 720. The Maeonians, however, after this, still maintained themselves in the country of the Upper Hermus, which continued to be called Mae- onia; whence Ptolemy ( v. 2. § 21) speaks of Mae- onia as a part of Lydia. Pliny (v. 30) also speaks of the Maeonii as the inhabitants of a district between Philadelphia and Tralles, and Hierocles (p. 670) and other ecclesiastical writers mention there a small town called Maeonia, which Mr. Ha- milton {^Researches, vol. ii. p. 139, &c.) is inclined to identify with the ruins of Megne, about five miles west of Sandal. To what branch of the human family the Lydians belonged is a question which cannot be answered, any more than that about their original seats; all the Lydian words which have been transmitted to us are quite foreign to the Greek, and their kinsmen, the Carians, are described as a, people speaking a barbarous lan- guage. 3. Institutions and Customs. — Although the Ly- dians must be regarded as barbarians, and although they were different from the Greeks both in their lan- guage and in their religion, yet they were capable, like some other Asiatic nations, of adopting or de- veloping institutions resembhng those of the Greeks, though in a lesser degree than the Carians and Lycians, for the Lydians always lived under a mo- narchy, and never rose to free political institutions. They and the Carians were both gifted nations ; they cultivated the arts, and were in many respects little inferior to the Greeks. Previous to their con- quest by the Persians, they were an industrious, brave, and warlike people, and their cavalry was LYDIA. 223 regarded as the best at that time. (Herod, i. 79 ; Mimnerm. I. c.) Cyrus purposely crushed their war- like spirit, forbade them the use of arms, and caused them to practice dancing and singing, instead of cultivating the arts of war. (Herod, i. 1 54 ; Justin, i. 8.) Their subsequent partiality to music was probably the reason why the Greeks ascribed to them the invention of gymnastic games. (Herod. i. 94.) The mode of life thus forced upon them by their conquerors gradually led them to that degree of effeminacy for which they were afterwards so no- torious. Their commercial industry, however, con- tinued under the Persian rule, and was a source of great prosperity. (Herod, i. 14, 25, 51, &c.) In their manners the Lydians differed but little from the Greeks, though their civilisation was inferior, as is manifest from the fact of their daughters gene- rally gaining their dowries by public prostitution, without thereby injuring their reputation. (Herod, i. 93.) The moral character of the Lydian women necessarily suffered from such a custom, and it cannot be matter of surprise that ancient Greek au- thors speak of them with contempt. (Strab. xi. p. 533, xiii. p. 627.) As to the religion of the Lydians we know very little : their chief divinity appears to have been Cybele, but they also wor- shipped Artemis and Bacchus (Athen. xiv. p. 636 ; Dionys. Perieg. 842), and the phallus worship seems to have been universal, whence we still find enormous phalli on nearly all the Lydian tombs. (Hamilton's Researches, vol. 1. p. 145.) The Lydians are said to have been the first to establish inns for travellers, and to coin money. (Herod, i. 94.) The Lydian coins display Greek art in its highest perfection ; they have no inscriptions, but are only adorned with the figure of a lion, which was the talisman of Sardes. We do not know that the Lydians had any alphabet or literature of their own : the want of these things can scarcely have been felt, for the people must at an early period have become familiar with the language and literature of their Greek neighbours. 4. History. — The Greeks possessed several works on the history of Lydia, and one of them was the production of Xanthus, a native of Sardes, the capital of Lydia ; but all have perished with the exception of a few insignificant fragments. If we had the work of Xanthus, we should no doubt be well in- formed on various points on which we can now only form conjectures. As it is, we owe nearly all our knowledge of Lydian histoiy to Herodotus. Ac- cording to him (i. 7) Lydia was successively governed by three dynasties. The first began with Lydus, the son of Atys, but the number of its kings is not mentioned. The second dynasty was that of the Heracleidae, beginning with Agron, and ending with Candaules, whom the Greeks called Myrsilus. The commencement of the Heracleid dynasty may be dated about B. c. 1200 ; they are connected in the legend in Herodotus with the founder of Nineveh, which, according to Niebuhr, means either that they were actually descended from an Assyrian family, or that the Heracleid dynasty submitted to the supremacy of the king of Nineveh, and thus connected itself with the race of Ninus and Belus. The Heracleids maintained themselves on the throne of Lydia, in unbroken succession, for a period of 505 years. The third d nasty, or that of the Mernmadae, probably the first really Lydian rulers, commenced their reign, according to some, in B.C. 713 or 716, and according to Eusebius,tweniy-two years later. Gyges^ Q 3