Lydia

LYDIA, a district of Asia Minor, the boundaries of which are difficult to fix, partly because they varied at different epochs. The name is found (c. 66o B.c.) under the form of Luddi in the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Assur-banipal. In Homer we read only of Maeonians (Il. ii. 865, etc.), and the place of the Lydian capital Sardis is taken by Hyde (Il. xx. 385). According to Herodotus (i.7), the Meiones (called Maeones by other writers) were named Lydians after Lydus, the son of Attis, in the mythical epoch which preceded the rise of the Heractid dynasty. In historical times the Maeones were a tribe inhabiting the dis trict of the upper Hermus. The Lydians must have been an allied tribe which bordered upon them to the north-west, and occupied the plain of Sardis or Magnesia. They were cut off from the sea by the Greeks, who were in possession, not only of the Bay of Smyrna, but also of the country north of Sipylus. Northwards the Lydians extended at least as far as the Gygaean lake and the Sardene range. The plateau of the Bin Bir Tepe, on the southern shore of the Gygaean lake, was the chief burial-place of the in habitants of Sardis, and is thickly studded with tumuli, among which is the "tomb of Alyattes" (26oft. high). Next to. Sardis the chief city was Magnesia ad Sipylum (q.v.) in the neighbour hood of which is the famous seated figure of "Niobe" (Il. xxiv. 614-7), cut out of the rock, and probably intended to represent the goddess Cybele, to which the Greeks attached their legend of Niobe. Under the Heraclid dynasty the limits of Lydia must have been already extended, since the authority of Gyges reached as far as the Troad. The successes of Alyattes and of Croesus finally changed the Lydian kingdom into a Lydian empire, and all Asia Minor westward of the Halys, except Lycia, owned the supremacy of Sardis. Lydia never again shrank to its original dimensions. After the Persian conquest the Maeander was re garded as its southern boundary, and in the Roman period it com prised the country between Mysia and Caria on the one side and Phrygia and the Aegean on the other.

Lydia proper was exceedingly fertile. The hill-sides 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 healthy. The Pactolus, which flowed through the centre of Sardis, into the Hermus, was believed to be full of golden sand. Maeonia on the east contained the curious barren plateau known to the Greeks as the Katakekaumene ("Burnt country"), once a centre of volcanic disturbance. The Gygaean lake (where remains of pile dwellings have been found) still abounds with carp.

Race and Religion.

The Lydian race was probably a mixed one, consisting of aborigines and Aryan immigrants. It was char acterized by industry and a commercial spirit. The religion of the Lydians resembled that of the other civilized 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 Attis, as in Phrygia the chief object of the popular cult. He was at once the son and bridegroom of Cybele (q.v.), or Cybebe, the mother of the gods, whose image was adored on the cliffs of Sipylus (Pans. iii. 22). At Ephesus, where she was adored under the form of a meteoric stone, she was identified with the Greek Artemis (see also GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS). The priestesses by whom she was served are depicted 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 (q.v.) a nation of woman-warriors. The pre Hellenic cities of the coast—Smyrna, Samorna, (Ephesus), My rina, 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 prosti tution whereby the Lydian girls gained their dowries (Herod. i. 93) was a religious exercise, as among the Semites, which marked their devotion to the goddess Cybele.