By Theseustoo

[Editor’s note: Short of reading time but I have picked out some nice pictures with the aid of a few key words.]

Since the most ancient times the sovereignty of Lydia had belonged to the Heraclides; the dynasty which had been founded centuries ago by the god-like Heracles, whom the poets all say was the earthly son of the All-father; Almighty Zeus himself. However, the Lydian crown eventually passed out of their hands and through sheer chance it fell into the hands of the Mermnadae; the Lydian-born family of Croesus which had originally been founded by Gyges; Croesus’ own fifth ancestor.

This man had been the captain of the guard of the final king of the Heraclides dynasty, whose name was Candaules. This king had been so proud of his wife’s beauty that he had wished to confirm his belief that she was the most beautiful of all women. To this end he had persuaded Gyges to hide behind his wife’s chamber door before she retired, and spy on her as she undressed for bed. Unfortunately, however, he had been seen by the queen, who, in her desire for revenge, had eventually goaded him into murdering her husband, the king.

Thus Gyges usurped Candaules’ throne and stole his wife; putting an end to the Heraclides dynasty and removing the descendants of Heracles from power forever. The incident which had so outraged his queen, however, was in no way Gyges’ fault. In truth it was providence itself, rather than any base or ignoble ambition, which had prompted his action; and although at first there was a huge public outcry against the regicide, eventually the decision of the Delphic Oracle had vindicated him and the people of Lydia were persuaded finally to accept him as their monarch. Thus after several generations of Greek rule under the Heraclides, the throne of Lydia was finally returned to Lydian hands.

Croesus, son of Alyattes, was the fifth Mermnadae King of Lydia; succeeding to his father’s throne at the age of thirty-five. Now, ever since Gyges had freed the Lydians from the Greek yoke, the Mermnadae kings of Lydia had wondered how they might revenge themselves for the indignities they had suffered during Lydia’s prolonged period of subjection to Greek occupation and rule. However, it would not be until the reign of the legendary and fabulously wealthy, King Croesus, that Lydia at last had the opportunity to do something about it. As often happens, revenge and ambition went hand in hand for Croesus; and as he grew in wealth and experience, so too grew both his desire for revenge and his ability to accomplish it; as a result, he developed imperial ambitions.

Turning his armies first against the Greek cities in Ionia and Aeolia, Croesus attacked Ephesus. When he laid siege to the city, the Ephesians made an offering of the whole city to their goddess, Artemis by stretching a rope from the town wall to her temple, a good seven furlongs distant from the ancient city. Unwilling to incur the wrath of the Ephesians’ dreaded and bloodthirsty goddess, Artemis; Croesus was thus obliged to spare the lives of the city’s inhabitants.

After this he made war on every Ionian and Aeolian state one after the other, on any pretext he could find or invent, regardless of how flimsy the excuse. Thus he eventually made himself master of all the Greek cities in Asia west of the River Halys, forcing them to become his vassals and tributaries until his interest in war and conquest waned after the tragic death of his son and heir, Atys, whom he mourned for two full years.

Eventually however, the news which had spread through the region like wildfire, of Cyrus’ meteoric rise to power in Persia, would drag the monarch out of mourning and return his wandering attention once again to the land of the living as Persia very suddenly began to expand the boundaries of her own empire, to eventually become the only force in Asia with both the numbers and the leadership to represent a threat to the Lydians. Lydia’s recently conquered and newly subjugated empire was now at its zenith; her warriors had a well-earned a reputation for being the best and bravest in all Asia at that time; as the power of the Assyrians had been effectively nullified generations earlier by the Median revolt.

When Cyrus’ rose to power, he soon conquered all of the smaller states around Media and Persia, which had hitherto been tributaries of Babylon and her Assyrian rulers. Asia was thus now effectively divided into two regions: the western region, consisting of all the Ionian and Aeolian cities to the west of the River Halys, now ruled by the fabulously wealthy Croesus; and the eastern region, which was now ruled by the upstart Cyrus of Persia who had overthrown the Medes who had hitherto ruled Asia ever since it was first conquered by Astyages’ father and Cyrus’ own great-grand-father, the bellicose Cyaxares.

It was Cyaxares who had finally driven out the horde of Scythian invaders whose incursion into Media had caused a twenty-eight year interruption in their on-going revolutionary war with the Assyrians. Eventually the cunning of Cyaxares had prevailed; he had all of the Scythian leaders murdered at a treacherous feast; after which the rest of the invaders were chased right out of Asia. The Assyrians too, were then finally defeated and forced to flee from their capital city, Nineveh, until that too was taken by the Medes.

The remainder of the Assyrian nobility then fled to Babylon where they established a government in exile in what was now their final remaining stronghold, behind her high and famously impenetrable blue-glazed walls.

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