Lydian synonyms

He first went to take possession of the old Lydian capital Sardis, the headquarters of the Persian government on this side of the Taurus, and the strong city surrendered without a blow.

In the autumn of 546 Sardis was taken and the Lydian kingdom became a province of the Persians.

It is, however, more probable that Sardis was not the original capital of the Maeonians, but that it became so amid the changes which produced the powerful Lydian empire of the 8th century B.C. The city was captured by the Cimmerians in the 7th century, by the Persians and by the Athenians in the 6th, and by Antiochus the Great at the end of the 3rd century.

The necropolis of the old Lydian city, a vast series of mounds, some of enormous size, lies on the north side of the Hermus, 4 or 5 m.

The culture appears to find Carian and Lydian parallels, and has been ascribed provisionally to the 13th - Ioth centuries.