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Lydia was an ancient kingdom of Asia Minor, known to Homer as Mæonia. Its principal city was Sardis.
The boundaries of Lydia varied across the centuries. It was first bounded by Mysia Major, Caria, Phrygia and Ionia. Later on, the military power of Alyattes and Croesus expanded Lydia into an empire, with its capital at Sardis, which controlled all Asia Minor west of the River Halys, except Lycia. Lydia never again shrank back into its original dimensions. After the Persian conquest the Maeander was regarded as its southern boundary, and under Rome, Lydia comprised the country between Mysia and Caria on the one side and Phrygia and the Aegean on the other.
The name of Croesus of Lydia became synonymous with wealth. Lydia was one of the first countries to mint coins, and Sardis was renowned as a beautiful city. Croesus was beaten by Cyrus in 548 BC, and the kingdom became a province of the Persian empire.
Homer speaks only of Maeonians (Iliad ii. 865, V. 43, 11. 431), and their city Hyde the place of the Lydian capital Sardis is taken by Hyde (Ii. xx. 385), unless this was the name of the district in which Sardis stood (see Straho xiii. p. 626).
When Herodotus (i. 7), tells that 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 Heracleid dynasty, we may be able to identify a kernel of social history in the purely conventional guise of such an eponym descended from a god. Straightforward deconstruction reveals a social upheaval, perhaps in the early 1st millennium BC2nd millennium BC 1st millennium BC 1st millennium AD other millennia) Events The Iron Age began in Western Europe Egypt declined as a major power The Tanakh was written Buddhism was founded Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Empire (perhaps even after the age of Homer) in which the cult of AttisAttis a life-death-rebirth deity, was both the son and the lover of Cybele, her eunuch attendant and driver of her lion-driven chariot; he was driven mad by her and castrated himself. Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the, the consort of CybeleOriginally a Phrygian goddess, Cybele (sometimes given the etymology "she of the hair" if her name is Greek, not Phrygian) ( Roman equivalent: Magna Mater or 'Great Mother') was the Earth Mother goddess who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times.,the Great Goddess of Anatolia, was introduced among the Maeones by a new (outsider?) dynasty.
Some Maeones still existed in historical times inhabiting the upland interior along the River Hermus, where a town called Maeonia existed, accordinmg to PlinyThere are two famous persons named Pliny: Pliny the Elder, a Roman nobleman, scientist and historian who died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD The great-nephew of the former, Pliny the Younger, a statesman, orator, and writer who lived between 6 (Natural History book v:30) and HieroclesHierocles proconsul of Bithynia and Alexandria, lived during the reign of Diocletian (AD 284- 305). He is said to have been the instigator of the fierce persecution of the Christians under Galerius in 303. He was the author of a work (not extant) in two b.
Selected Monarchs of Lydia with date of accession.
See also Ludim.
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