"Battle of Thymbra The Battle of Thymbra was the decisive battle in the war between Croesus of the Lydian Kingdom and Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus, having pursued Croesus into Lydia following the drawn Battle of Pteria, met the remains of Croesus' partly disbanded army in battle on the plain north of Sardis in December, 547 BC. Even though Croesus' army was reinforced with many new men, Cyrus utterly defeated it, despite being outnumbered more or less 2:1. This proved decisive, and after the 14-day Siege of Sardis, the city and possibly its king fell, and Lydia"
"Croesus' property being plundered by the Persian soldiery. The kingdom of Lydia came to an end with the fall of Sardis, and her subjection was confirmed in an unsuccessful revolt in the following year, promptly crushed by Cyrus' lieutenants. The Aeolian and Ionian cities on the coast of Asia-Minor, formerly tributaries of Lydia, were likewise conquered not long after, establishing the circumstances for Greco-Persian animosity, which would last till the outbreak of the Persian Wars in the succeeding century. Siege of Sardis (547 BC) In the Siege of Sardis (547/546 BC), the last decisive conflict after the Battle of Thymbra,"
"forcing the Lydians to retreat to their capital city of Sardis. Some months later the Persian and Lydian kings met at the Battle of Thymbra. Cyrus won and captured the capital city of Sardis by 546 BC. Lydia became a province (satrapy) of the Persian Empire. Lydia remained a satrapy after Persia's conquest by the Macedonian king Alexander III (the Great) of Macedon. When Alexander's empire ended after his death, Lydia was possessed by the major Asian diadoch dynasty, the Seleucids, and when it was unable to maintain its territory in Asia Minor, Lydia was acquired by the Attalid dynasty"
"one of the Babylonian Chronicles (although whether or not the text refers to Lydia's king or prince is unclear). Battle of Thymbra The Battle of Thymbra was the decisive battle in the war between Croesus of the Lydian Kingdom and Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus, having pursued Croesus into Lydia following the drawn Battle of Pteria, met the remains of Croesus' partly disbanded army in battle on the plain north of Sardis in December, 547 BC. Even though Croesus' army was reinforced with many new men, Cyrus utterly defeated it, despite being outnumbered more or less 2:1."
"the Lydians were forced to retreat to their capital city of Sardis. Some months later the Persian and Lydian kings met at the Battle of Thymbra. Cyrus won, capturing Sardis after a 14-day siege, Croesus giving himself up to Cyrus. According to the Greek author Herodotus, Cyrus treated Croesus well and with respect after the battle, but this is contradicted by the Nabonidus Chronicle, one of the Babylonian Chronicles (although whether or not the text refers to Lydia's king or prince is unclear). Lydia then became the Persian Satrapy of Sardis, also known as the Satrapy of Lydia and Ionia,"
"Greeks, and soon faced by a grave problem as the Cimmerians began to pillage outlying cities within the kingdom. It was this wave of attacks that led to the incorporation of the formerly independent Phrygia and its capital Gordium into the Lydian domain. It was until the successive rules of Sadyattes and Alyattes, ending in 560 BCE, that the attacks of the Cimmerians ended for good. Under the reign of the last Lydian king Croesus, Persia was invaded first at the Battle of Pteria ending without a victor. Progressing deeper into Persia, Croesus was thoroughly defeated in the Battle of"
"Pericles, Dynast of Lycia Perikles (Perikle in Lycian), was the last known dynast of Lycia. He ruled BCE over eastern Lycia from Limyra, at a time when Western Lycia was directly under Persian domination. He was a victor over his predecessor Arttum̃para (Aetembares). Perikles took an active part in the Revolt of the Satraps against Achaemenid power, but lost his territory when defeated. After Perikles, Persian rule was reestablished firmly in Lycia in 366 or 362 BCE. Control was taken by Mausolus, the satrap of nearby Caria, who moved the satrap's residence to Halicarnassus. A monumental tomb was erected to"
"likely small silver fractions, Hemiobol, Ancient Greek coinage minted by the Ionian Greeks in the late sixth century BC. Sardis was renowned as a beautiful city. Around 550 BC, near the beginning of his reign, Croesus paid for the construction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which became one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Croesus was defeated in battle by Cyrus II of Persia in 546 BC, with the Lydian kingdom losing its autonomy and becoming a Persian satrapy. According to Herodotus, Lydia was ruled by three dynasties from the second millennium BC to 546 BC."
"Pythius Pythius is a Lydian mentioned in book VII of Herodotus' ""Histories"", chh. 27-29 and 38-39. He is the son of Atys, and the grandson of Croesus, the last native king of Lydia before the Persian conquest. The Persian king Xerxes I, son of Darius I, encounters Pythius on his way to invade Greece c. 480 BC. Pythius entertains him and offers to provide money for the expenses of war. This Xerxes politely declines, and instead rewards Pythius' generosity by giving him 7000 gold darics in order that his fortune might be an even 4,000,000 (ch. 29). Later Pythius, emboldened"
"BC, the satrap Pissuthnes attempted to retake Samos, which had rebelled against Athens, but failed. In 420 BC, Pissuthnes revolted against the Persian king Darius II. The Persian soldier and statesman Tissaphernes (Pers. Tiθrafarna, Gr. Τισσαφέρνης), a grandson of Hydarnes, was sent by Darius II to Lydia to arrest and execute Pissuthnes. Tissaphernes became satrap of Lydia in 415 BC and continued to fight Amorges, son of Pissuthnes. After Sparta had defeated Athens, the Greeks invaded Lydia. Tissaphernes overcame the invasion of Thibron in 399 BC but was defeated at Sardis by the Spartan King Agesilaus II. The satrap was"
"drew the Lydians to Smyrna. The army of Lydia's Mermnad dynasty conquered the city some time around 610–600 BC and is reported to have burned and destroyed parts of the city, although recent analyses on the remains in Bayraklı demonstrate that the temple has been in continuous use or was very quickly repaired under Lydian rule. Soon afterwards, an invasion from outside Anatolia by the Persian Empire effectively ended Old Smyrna's history as an urban center of note. The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great attacked the coastal cities of the Aegean after conquering the capital of Lydia. As a result,"
"Perikles in Limyra, decorated with frieze showing Pericles going to war. The tomb was in the form of a Greek Ionic temple. Several friezes from the tomb are now visible in the Antalya Archeological Museum. Pericles, Dynast of Lycia Perikles (Perikle in Lycian), was the last known dynast of Lycia. He ruled BCE over eastern Lycia from Limyra, at a time when Western Lycia was directly under Persian domination. He was a victor over his predecessor Arttum̃para (Aetembares). Perikles took an active part in the Revolt of the Satraps against Achaemenid power, but lost his territory when defeated. After Perikles,"
"west. These included Alalia in Corsica, Emporiae and Rhoda in Spain, and especially Massalia (Marseille) in France. Phocaea remained independent until the reign of the Lydian king Croesus (circa 560–545 BC), when they, along with the rest of mainland Ionia, first, fell under Lydian control and then, along with Lydia (who had allied itself with Sparta) were conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 546 BC, in one of the opening skirmishes of the great Greco-Persian conflict. Rather than submit to Persian rule, the Phocaeans abandoned their city. Some may have fled to Chios, others to their colonies on"
"prior to his invasion, Croesus asked the Oracle of Delphi for advice. The Oracle suggested vaguely that, ""if King Croesus crosses the Halys River, a great empire will be destroyed."" Croesus received these words with delight, instigating a war that would ironically and eventually end not the Persian Empire but his own. The dispersal of Croesus' army exposed Lydia to the unexpected invasion of Cyrus, who followed almost immediately on Croesus' steps, pursuing him to Sardis. The rival kings fought again at the Battle of Thymbra, before Sardis, which ended in a decisive victory for Cyrus the Great. Battle of"
"must have taken place between Cyrus's overthrow of the Median kingdom (550 BC) and his conquest of Babylon (539 BC). It was common in the past to give 547 BC as the year of the conquest due to some interpretations of the Nabonidus Chronicle, but this position is currently not much held. The Lydians first attacked the Achaemenid Empire's city of Pteria in Cappadocia. Croesus besieged and captured the city enslaving its inhabitants. Meanwhile, the Persians invited the citizens of Ionia who were part of the Lydian kingdom to revolt against their ruler. The offer was rebuffed, and thus Cyrus"
"(1st century BC). The Lydian capital was at ""Sfard"" or Sardis. Their recorded history of statehood, which covers three dynasties traceable to the Late Bronze Age, reached the height of its power and achievements during the 7th and 6th centuries BC, a time which coincided with the demise of the power of neighboring Phrygia, which lay to the north-east of Lydia. Lydian power came to an abrupt end with the fall of their capital in events subsequent to the Battle of Halys in 585 BC and defeat by Cyrus the Great in 546 BC. Material in the way of historical"
"dynasty of Lydia traced their descent to a son of Heracles and Omphale named Tylon, and were called Tylonidai. We know from coins that this Tylon was a native Anatolian god equated with the Greek Heracles. Herodotus asserts that the first of the Heraclids to reign in Sardis was Agron, the son of Ninus, son of Belus, son of Alcaeus, son of Heracles. Later writers know a Ninus who is the primordial king of Assyria, and they often call this Ninus son of Belus. Their Ninus is the legendary founder and eponym of the city of Ninus, referring to Ninevah,"
"neighbouring Lydia, a king had come to power: Croesus, who was somewhat too aggressive for the size of his army. He had conquered most of the states of coastal Anatolia, including the cities of the Ionians. The story is told in Herodotus. The Lydians were at war with the Medes, who were a remnant of the first wave of migration of ancient Iranian peoples, who had subsequently settled into the region, over the issue of refuge the Lydians had given to some Scythian soldiers of fortune inimical to the Medes. The war endured for five years, but in the sixth"
"of the Lycian king Iobates (or Amphianax). Lycia was frequently mentioned by Homer as an ally of Troy. In Homer's Iliad, the Lycian contingent was said to have been led by two esteemed warriors: Sarpedon (son of Zeus and Laodamia) and Glaucus (son of Hippolochus). Herodotus writes more credibly of contemporaneous events, especially where they concerned his native land. Asia Minor had been partly conquered by the Iranians, starting with the Scythians, then the Medes. The latter were defeated by the Persians, who incorporated them and their lands into the new Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid"
"he should attack them. The Oracle supposedly replied the famously ambiguous answer that ""if Croesus was to cross the Halys he would destroy a great empire"". Blind to the ambiguity of this prophecy, Croesus attacked the Persians, but was eventually defeated and Lydia fell to Cyrus. By crossing the Halys, Croesus had indeed destroyed a great empire – his own. While fighting the Lydians, Cyrus had sent messages to the Ionians asking them to revolt against Lydian rule, which the Ionians had refused to do. After Cyrus finished the conquest of Lydia, the Ionian cities now offered to be his"
"to a bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes, Persians, Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon, the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar. Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire, with the Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory. From the late 8th century BC, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians. The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the"
"612 BC. After the victory in Assyria, the Medes conquered Northern Mesopotamia, Armenia and the parts of Asia Minor east of the Halys River, which was the border established with Lydia after a decisive battle between Lydia and Media, the Battle of Halys ended with an eclipse on May 28, 585 BC. The conflict between Lydia and the Medes was reported by Herodotus as follows: Cyaxares died shortly after the battle and was succeeded by his son, Astyages, who was the maternal grandfather of Cyrus the Great through his daughter Mandane of Media. ""Qyzqapan"" is a tomb located in the"
"Agron, the great-grandson of Alcaeus. He was succeeded by 19 Heraclid kings, names unknown, all succeeding father to son. In the 8th century BC, Meles became the 21st and penultimate Heraclid king and the last was his son Candaules (died c. 687 BC), who was assassinated and succeeded by his former friend Gyges, who began the Mermnad dynasty. In 547 BC, the Lydian king Croesus besieged and captured the Persian city of Pteria in Cappadocia and enslaved its inhabitants. The Persian king Cyrus The Great marched with his army against the Lydians. The Battle of Pteria resulted in a stalemate,"
"invasion of Egypt by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II; henceforth, the Babylonians experienced sufficient difficulties controlling their empire that they were forced to abandon future attacks against Amasis. However, Amasis was later faced with a more formidable enemy with the rise of Persia under Cyrus who ascended to the throne in 559 BCE; his final years were preoccupied by the threat of the impending Persian onslaught against Egypt. With great strategic skill, Cyrus had destroyed Lydia in 546 BCE and finally defeated the Babylonians in 538 BCE which left Amasis with no major Near Eastern allies to counter Persia's increasing"
"BC. The ""Cyropaedia"" relates instead that Astyages died and was succeeded by his son Cyaxares II, the maternal uncle of Cyrus (1.5.2). In the initial campaign against the Lydians, Babylonians and their allies, the Medians were led by Cyaxares and the Persians by Cyrus, who was crown prince of the Persians, since his father was still alive (4.5.17). Xenophon relates that at this time the Medes were the strongest of the kingdoms that opposed the Babylonians (1.5.2). There is an echo of this statement, verifying Xenophon and contradicting Herodotus, in the Harran Stele, a document from the court of Nabonidus."
"Priscian of Lydia Priscian of Lydia (or Priscianus; ""Priskianós Lydós""; ; fl. 6th century), was one of the last of the Neoplatonists. Two works of his have survived. A contemporary of Simplicius of Cilicia, Priscian was born in Lydia, probably in the late 5th century. He was one of the last Neoplatonists to study at the Academy when Damascius was at its head. When Justinian I closed the school in 529, Priscian, together with Damascius, Simplicius, and four other colleagues were forced to seek asylum in the court of the Persian king Chosroes. By 533 they were allowed back into"
"Battle of the Lycus The Battle of the Lycus was fought in 66 BC between a Roman Republican army under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) and the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus. The Romans easily won the battle with few losses. Mithridates fled to the Crimea and committed suicide in 63 BC, finally ending the Third Mithridatic War. In 67 BC, after the battle of Zela, king Mithridates VI of Pontus had regained control of the kingdom of Pontus. Whilst the Romans politicked Mithridates had been building up his forces and"
"coinage of the time attests) they allowed local dynasts the freedom to rule. The last known dynast of Lycia was Perikles. He ruled 380-360 BCE over eastern Lycia from Limyra, at a time when Western Lycia was directly under Persian domination. Pericles took an active part in the Revolt of the Satraps against Achaemenid power, but lost his territory when defeated. After Perikles, Persian rule was reestablished firmly in Lycia in 366 or 362 BCE. Control was taken by Mausolus, the satrap of nearby Caria, who moved the satrap's residence to Halicarnassus. Lycia was also ruled by men such as"
"Leonidas I Leonidas I (; Doric , '; Ionic and Attic Greek: , ' ; ""son of the lion""; died 11 August 480 BC) was a warrior king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line; a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles. He was the husband of Gorgo, the daughter of Cleomenes I of Sparta. Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Persian War, where he led the allied Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) while attempting to defend the pass from the"
"co-exist with whatever power was dominant in eastern Anatolia at the time. The invasion of Anatolia in the late 8th century BC to early 7th century BC by the Cimmerians was to prove fatal to independent Phrygia. Cimmerian pressure and attacks culminated in the suicide of its last king, Midas, according to legend. Gordium fell to the Cimmerians in 696 BC and was sacked and burnt, as reported much later by Herodotus. A series of digs have opened Gordium as one of Turkey's most revealing archeological sites. Excavations confirm a violent destruction of Gordion around 675 BC. A tomb of"
"driving Mithridates to exile into King Tigranes' Armenia. While Lucullus was preoccupied fighting the Armenians, Mithridates surged back to retake his kingdom of Pontus by crushing four Roman legions under Valerius Triarius and killing 7,000 Roman soldiers at the Battle of Zela in 67 BC. He was routed by Pompey's legions at the Battle of the Lycus in 66 BC. After this defeat, Mithridates VI fled with a small army to Colchis (modern Georgia) and then over the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea and made plans to raise yet another army to take on the Romans. His eldest living son, Machares,"
"Battle of Pteria At the Battle of Pteria () in 547 BC, the Persian forces of Cyrus the Great fought a drawn battle with the invading Lydian forces of Croesus, forcing Croesus to withdraw back west into his own kingdom. Formerly, the Lydians and Medes had arranged that the natural boundary between the two empires would be the Halys River. Croesus learned of the sudden Persian uprising and defeat of his longtime rivals, the Medes. He attempted to opportunistically use these set of events to expand his borders upon the eastern frontier of Lydia. He made an alliance with Chaldea,"
"the Medes. As a successor of Astyages, Cyrus demanded to be paid the same tribute. Strabo corroborates this in his ""Geography"" (xi.13.5). In 521 BC, with the disturbances that occurred after the death of Cambyses and the proclamation of Smerdis as King, the Armenians revolted. Darius I of Persia sent an Armenian named Dâdarši to suffocate the revolt, later substituting him for the Persian Vaumisa who defeated the Armenians on May 20, 521 BC. Around the same time, another Armenian by the name of Arakha, son of Haldita, claimed to be the son of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus,"