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106-503: Before Croesus, his father Alyattes had already started to mint various types of non-standardized coins. They were made in a naturally occurring material called electrum , a variable mix of gold and silver (with about 54% gold and 44% silver), and were in use in Lydia, its capital city Sardis and surrounding areas for about 80 years before Croesus' reign as King of Lydia. The unpredictability of electrum coins' composition implied that they had

212-633: A mi-ra-ti-ja , Mycenaean Greek for "women from Miletus", written in Linear B syllabic script. During the collapse of Bronze Age civilization, Miletus was burnt again, presumably by the Sea Peoples . Mythographers told that Neleus, a son of Codrus the last King of Athens , had come to Miletus after the " Return of the Heraclids " (so, during the Greek Dark Ages ). The Ionians killed

318-464: A "sacred" cave which belonged to the cult of Asklepius . The ruins appear on satellite maps at 37°31.8'N 27°16.7'E, about 3 km north of Balat and 3 km east of Batıköy in Aydın Province , Turkey . In antiquity the city possessed a harbor at the southern entry of a large bay, on which two more of the traditional twelve Ionian cities stood: Priene and Myus . The harbor of Miletus

424-539: A 12-year war fought against the Lydian Empire . Thrasybulus was an ally of the famous Corinthian tyrant Periander . Miletus was an important center of philosophy and science, producing such men as Thales , Anaximander and Anaximenes . Referring to this period, religious studies professor F. E. Peters described pan-deism as "the legacy of the Milesians". By the 6th century BC, Miletus had earned

530-574: A Greek woman, and his other son Croesus , born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful. The tomb of Alyattes is located in Sardis at the site now called Bin Tepe , in a large tumulus measuring sixty metres in height and of a diameter of two hundred and fifty metres. The tomb consisted of an antechamber and a chamber with a door separating them, was built of well fitted and clamped large marble blocks, its walls were finely finished on

636-608: A Lydian ivory plaque at Kerkenes Daǧ suggests that Alyattes's control of Phrygia might have extended to the east of the Halys River to include the city of Pteria , with the possibility that he may have rebuilt this city and placed a Phrygian ruler there: Pteria's strategic location would have been useful in protecting the Lydian Empire from attacks from the east, and its proximity to the Royal Road would have made of

742-671: A founder named Neleus from the Peloponnesus . The Greek Dark Ages were a time of Ionian settlement and consolidation in an alliance called the Ionian League . The Archaic Period of Greece began with a sudden and brilliant flash of art and philosophy on the coast of Anatolia . In the 6th century BC, Miletus was the site of origin of the Greek philosophical (and scientific) tradition, when Thales , followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes (known collectively, to modern scholars, as

848-610: A joint expedition by the Hittite king and a Luwian vassal (probably Kupanta-Kurunta of Mira) against Miletus, and notes that the city (together with Atriya) was now under Hittite control. Homer mentions that during the time of the Trojan War , Miletus was an ally of Troy and was city of the Carians , under Nastes and Amphimachus . In the last stage of LHIIIB, the citadel of Bronze Age Pylos counted among its female slaves

954-449: A large area of land to cement their friendship, and it remained under Egyptian sway until the end of the century. Aristides of Miletus , founder of the bawdy Miletian school of literature , flourished in the 2nd century BC. After an alliance with Rome, in 133 BC the city became part of the province of Asia. Miletus benefited from Roman rule and most of the present monuments date to this period. The New Testament mentions Miletus as

1060-530: A lion's head, the symbol of the Mermnadae . Alyattes' tomb still exists on the plateau between Lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of the Lydian capital Sardis  — a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones. (38.5723401, 28.0451151) It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854, who found that it covered a large vault of finely cut marble blocks approached by a flat-roofed passage of

1166-521: A maritime empire with many colonies, but brushed up against powerful Lydia at home, and the tyrant Polycrates of its neighbor to the west, Samos . When Cyrus of Persia defeated Croesus of Lydia in the middle of the 6th century BC, Miletus fell under Persian rule. In 499 BC, Miletus's tyrant Aristagoras became the leader of the Ionian Revolt against the Persians, who, under Darius

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1272-1081: A metrological reform, probably under Darius I. Sardis remained the central mint for the Persian Darics and Sigloi of Achaemenid coinage , and there is no evidence of other mints for the new Achaemenid coins during the whole time of the Achaemenid Empire . Although the gold Daric became an international currency which was found throughout the Ancient world, the circulation of the silver Sigloi remained very much limited to Asia Minor: important hoards of Sigloi are only found in these areas, and finds of Sigloi beyond are always very limited and marginal compared to Greek coins, even in Achaemenid territories. Alyattes of Lydia Alyattes ( Lydian language : 𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤𐤯𐤤𐤮 Walweteś ; Ancient Greek : Ἀλυάττης Aluáttēs ; reigned c. 635 – c. 585 BC ), sometimes described as Alyattes I ,

1378-412: A predator and prey lying down together in peace is reflected in other ancient literature, e.g. "...the calf and the lion and the yearling together..." c.700BC. In the historical context of Lydia's alliance with Agamemnon of Cyme , an arrangement sealed by the marriage of Greek Hermodike II , possibly Croesus’ mother, to his father, Alyettes (AKA a later Midas). However, any peace between Lydians and Greeks

1484-428: A treaty of friendship and a military alliance with Colophon to secure the city's non-interference in his military operations against the other Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, but Colophon first violated these agreements with Alyattes by supporting Clazomenae with its cavalry against Alyattes's attack, prompting the Lydian king to retaliate by massacring the mounted aristocracy of Colophon. The status of

1590-550: A variable value, which greatly hampered the development of standardised coinage. The royal symbol stamped on the coin, similar to a seal, was a declaration of the value of the contents in gold, silver or electrum. Herodotus mentioned the innovation of coinage, and standard coinage, made by the Lydians: So far as we have any knowledge, they [the Lydians] were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins, and

1696-481: Is a largely legendary account of these events which appears to not be factual. This legendary account likely arose as a result of Alyattes's offerings to the sanctuary of Delphi. Unlike with the other Greek cities of Anatolia, Alyattes always maintained very good relations with Ephesus , to whose ruling dynasty the Mermnads were connected by marriage: Alyattes's great-grandfather had married one of his daughters to

1802-609: Is however less clear, and it is uncertain whether they were also ruled by local Phrygian kings vassal to the Lydian king, or whether they were directly ruled by Lydian governors. With the defeat of the Cimmerians having created a power vacuum in Anatolia, Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in the east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes's successor Croesus ruled over -

1908-406: Is in Lydia the tomb of Alyattes the father of Croesus, the base whereof is made of great stones and the rest of it of mounded earth. It was built by the men of the market and the artificers and the prostitutes. There remained till my time five corner-stones set on the top of the tomb, and on these was graven the record of the work done by each kind: and measurement showed that the prostitutes' share of

2014-533: Is known to have early ties with Megara in Greece. According to some scholars, these two cities had built up a "colonisation alliance". In the 7th/6th century BC they acted in accordance with each other. Both cities acted under the leadership and sanction of an Apollo oracle. Megara cooperated with that of Delphi . Miletus had her own oracle of Apollo Didymeus Milesios in Didyma . Also, there are many parallels in

2120-526: Is no available data concerning relations between the other mentioned peoples and the Lydian kings. The only populations Herodotus claimed were independent of the Lydian Empire were the Lycians , who lived in a mountainous country which would not have been accessible to the Lydian armies, and the Cilicians , who had already been conquered by Neo-Babylonian Empire . Modern estimates nevertheless suggest that it

2226-834: Is not impossible that the Lydians might have subjected Lycia, given that the Lycian coast would have been important for the Lydians because it was close to a trade route connecting the Aegean region, the Levant , and Cyprus . At some point in the later years of his reign, Alyattes conducted a military campaign in Caria , although the reason for this intervention is yet unknown. Alyattes's son Croesus, as governor of Adramyttium, had to provide his father with Ionian Greek mercenaries for this war. In 600 BCE, Alyattes resumed his military activities in

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2332-625: Is not to be confused with Croesus’ attempted conquest of Miletus . Notwithstanding, the croeseid symbolism of peace between the Greeks of Asia Minor, Lydians and later Persians persisted long after Croesus’ death - until Darius the Great introduced new coins c.500BC. When the Achaemenid Empire ruler Cyrus the Great invaded Lydia, together with the rest of Asia Minor , he adopted the bimetallic system initially introduced by Croesus, and continued to strike gold and silver coins at Sardis according to

2438-772: The Biblical Gog . This expansionism brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BCE with the Medes , an Iranian people who had expelled the majority of the Scythians from Western Asia after participating in the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After the majority of the Scythians were expelled by the Medes during that decade out of Western Asia and into the Pontic Steppe , a war broke out between

2544-631: The Cimmerians and the Lycians , attacked Lydia. They defeated the Lydians again and for a second time sacked the Lydian capital of Sardis , except for its citadel. It is probable that Ardys was killed during this Cimmerian attack or was deposed in 637 BC for being unable to protect Lydia from the Cimmerian attacks, and Ardys's son and successor Sadyattes might have also been either killed during another Cimmerian attack in 653 BCE or deposed that year for his inability to successfully protect Lydia from

2650-597: The Latmus region inland of Miletus suggests that a lightly grazed climax forest prevailed in the Maeander valley, otherwise untenanted. Sparse Neolithic settlements were made at springs , numerous and sometimes geothermal in this karst, rift valley topography. The islands offshore were settled perhaps for their strategic significance at the mouth of the Maeander, a route inland protected by escarpments . The graziers in

2756-547: The Lydians , Phrygians , Mysians , Mariandyni , Chalybes , Paphlagonians , Thyni and Bithyni Thracians , Carians , Ionians , Dorians , Aeolians , and Pamphylians - it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes, especially since information is attested only about the relations between the Lydians and the Phrygians in both literary and archaeological sources, and there

2862-486: The Milesian school ), began to speculate about the material constitution of the world, and to propose speculative naturalistic (as opposed to traditional, supernatural) explanations for various natural phenomena. The earliest available archaeological evidence indicates that the islands on which Miletus was originally placed were inhabited by a Neolithic population in 3500–3000 BC. Pollen in core samples from Lake Bafa in

2968-478: The oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi . According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Alyattes's offerings consisted of a large silver crater and an iron crater-stand which had been made by welding by Glaucus of Chios , thus combining Lydian and Ionian artistic traditions. Alyattes's offering to Delphi might have been sent to please the sanctuary of Apollo and the Delphains, especially the priests, to impress

3074-591: The Carians and the Mysians because they believed these three peoples descended from three brothers. These alliances between the Lydian kings and the various Carian dynasts required the Lydian and Carian rulers had to support each other, and to solidify these alliances, Alyattes married a woman from the Carian aristocracy with whom he had a son, Croesus, who would eventually succeed him. These connections established between

3180-542: The Cimmerian incursions. Alyattes thus succeeded his father Sadyattes amidst extreme turmoil in 635 BCE. Alyattes started his reign by continuing the hostilities with the Ionian city of Miletus started by Sadyattes. Alyattes's war with Miletus consisted largely of a series of raids to capture the Milesians' harvest of grain, which were severely lacking in the Lydian core regions. These hostilities lasted until Alyattes's sixth year (c. 630 BCE), when he finally made peace with

3286-536: The Cimmerians, led by their king Lygdamis , attacked Lydia for the third time. The Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Gyges was killed, following which he was succeeded by his son Ardys . In 637 BCE, during the seventh regnal year of Ardys, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia , under their king Kobos, and in alliance with

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3392-459: The Colophonian cavalry to Sardis, where he had them massacred in violation of hospitality laws and redistributed their horses to Lydian cavalrymen, following which he placed Colophon itself under direct Lydian rule. The reason for Alyattes's breaking of the friendly relations with Colophon are unknown, although the archaeologist John Manuel Cook has suggested that Alyattes might have concluded

3498-661: The Cretan Miletus and named the city after that Miletus, the place formerly being in possession of the Leleges . The legends recounted as history by the ancient historians and geographers are perhaps the strongest; the late mythographers have nothing historically significant to relate. Recorded history at Miletus begins with the records of the Hittite Empire and the Mycenaean records of Pylos and Knossos , in

3604-663: The Ephesian tyrant Melas the Elder: Alyattes's grandfather Ardys had married his daughter Lyde to a grandson of Melas the Elder named Miletus (Lyde would later marry her own brother Sadyattes, and Alyattes would be born from this marriage); and Alyattes himself married one of his own daughters to the then tyrant of Miletus, a descendant of Miletus named Melas the Younger, and from this union would be born Pindar of Ephesus. One of

3710-574: The German archaeologists Julius Hülsen and Theodor Wiegand between 1899 and 1931. Excavations, however, were interrupted several times by wars and various other events. Carl Weickart excavated for a short season in 1938 and again between 1955 and 1957. He was followed by Gerhard Kleiner and then by Wolfgang Muller-Wiener. Today, excavations are organized by the Ruhr University of Bochum , Germany . One remarkable artifact recovered from

3816-635: The Great ). Bury and Meiggs concluded that Ardys and Sadyattes reigned through an unspecified period in the second half of the 7th century BC, but they did not propose dates for Alyattes except their assertion that his son Croesus succeeded him in 560 BC. The timespan 560–546 BC for the reign of Croesus is almost certainly accurate. However, based on an analysis of sources contemporary with Gyges, such as Neo-Assyrian records, Anthony Spalinger has convincingly deduced dated Gyges's death to 644 BCE, and Alexander Dale has consequently dated Alyattes's reign as starting in c. 635 BCE and ending in 585 BCE. Alyattes

3922-453: The Great , quashed this rebellion and punished Miletus by selling all of the women and children into slavery, killing the men, and expelling all of the young men as eunuchs, thereby assuring that no Miletus citizen would ever be born again. A year afterward, Phrynicus produced the tragedy The Capture of Miletus in Athens. The Athenians fined him for reminding them of their loss. In 479 BC,

4028-431: The Greek visitors of the sanctuary, and to influence the oracle to advise to Periander of Corinth , an ally of Thrasybulus of Miletus, to convince the latter to make peace with Alyattes. According to Tractatus de mulieribus (citing Xenophilos, who wrote the history of Lydia), Lyde was the wife and sister of Alyattes, the ancestor of Croesus. Lyde's son, Alyattes, when he inherited the kingdom from his father, committed

4134-510: The Greeks decisively defeated the Persians on the Greek mainland at the Battle of Plataea , and Miletus was freed from Persian rule. During this time several other cities were formed by Milesian settlers, spanning across what is now Turkey and even as far as Crimea . The city's gridlike layout became famous, serving as the basic layout for Roman cities. In 387 BC, the Peace of Antalcidas gave

4240-573: The Indo-European passage rite of the kóryos , would ritually take on the role of wolf- or dog-warriors. Immediately after this first victory of his over the Cimmerians, Alyattes expelled from the Lydian borderlands a final remaining pocket of Cimmerian presence who had been occupying the nearby city of Antandrus for one century, and to facilitate this he re-founded the city of Adramyttium in Aeolis . Alyattes installed his son Croesus as

4346-495: The Late Bronze Age. Miletus was a Mycenaean stronghold on the coast of Asia Minor from c.  1450 to 1100 BC. In c.  1320 BC , the city supported an anti-Hittite rebellion of Uhha-Ziti of nearby Arzawa . Muršili ordered his generals Mala-Ziti and Gulla to raid Millawanda, and they proceeded to burn parts of it; damage from LHIIIA found on-site has been associated with this raid. In addition

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4452-633: The Lydian control of the routes in inner Anatolia, and Lydia would gain access to the markets and maritime networks of the Milesians in the Black Sea and at Naucratis . Herodotus 's account of Alyattes's illness, caused by Lydian troops' destruction of the temple Athena in Assesos , and which was cured after he heeded the Pythia and rebuilt two temples of Athena in Assesos and then made peace with Miletus,

4558-506: The Lydian kings and the Carian city-states ensured that the Lydians were able to control Caria through alliances with Carian dynasts ruling over fortified settlements, such as Mylasa and Pedasa , and through Lydian aristocrats settled in Carian cities, such as in Aphrodisias . Alyattes had inherited more than one war from his father, and soon after his ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with

4664-517: The Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BCE. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by

4770-527: The Median Empire and another group of Scythians, probably members of a splinter group who had formed a kingdom in what is now Azerbaijan . These Scythians left Median-ruled Transcaucasia and fled to Sardis, because the Lydians had been allied to the Scythians. After Alyattes refused to accede to the demands of the Median king Cyaxares that these Scythian refugees be handed to him, a war broke out between

4876-526: The Median and Lydian Kingdoms in 590 BCE which was waged in eastern Anatolia beyond Pteria. This war lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BCE during a battle (hence called the Battle of the Eclipse) opposing the Lydian and Median armies, which both sides interpreted as an omen to end the war. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the king Syennesis of Cilicia acted as mediators in

4982-463: The Mermnad kings are uncertain and are based on a computation by J. B. Bury and Russell Meiggs (1975) who estimated c.687–c.652 BC for the reign of Gyges . Herodotus 1.16, 1.25, 1.86 gave reign lengths for Gyges's successors, but there is uncertainty about these as the total exceeds the timespan between 652 (probable death of Gyges, fighting the Cimmerians ) and 547/546 (fall of Sardis to Cyrus

5088-759: The New Testament account, the apostle Paul stopped on his way back to Jerusalem by boat. He met the Ephesian Elders and then headed out to the beach to bid them farewell, recorded in the book of Acts 20:17-38. During the Pleistocene epoch the Miletus region was submerged in the Aegean Sea . It subsequently emerged slowly, the sea reaching a low level of about 130 meters (430 ft) below present level at about 18,000  BP . The site of Miletus

5194-538: The Persian Achaemenid Empire under king Artaxerxes II control of the Greek city-states of Ionia , including Miletus. In 358 BC, Artaxerxes II died and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes III , who, in 355 BC, forced Athens to conclude a peace, which required its forces to leave Asia Minor (Anatolia) and acknowledge the independence of its rebellious allies. In 334 BC, the Siege of Miletus by

5300-433: The Persians in 494 BC. In 295 BC, Antigonus I's son Demetrius Poliorcetes was the eponymous archon (stephanephorus) in the city, which allied with Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt, while Lysimachus assumed power in the region, enforcing a strict policy towards the Greek cities by imposing high taxes, forcing Miletus to resort to lending. Around 287/286 BC Demetrius Poliorcetes returned, but failed to maintain his possessions and

5406-415: The arrival of Luwian language speakers from south central Anatolia calling themselves the Carians . Later in that century other Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled against the Hittite Empire . After the fall of that empire the city was destroyed in the 12th century BC and starting about 1000 BC was resettled extensively by the Ionian Greeks . Legend offers an Ionian foundation event sponsored by

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5512-451: The border between the two kingdoms appears to have been a retroactive narrative construction based on symbolic role assigned by Greeks to the Halys as the separation between Lower Asia and Upper Asia as well as on the Halys being a later provincial border within the Achaemenid Empire . Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BCE itself, following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from

5618-412: The city an important centre from which caravans could be protected. Phrygia under Lydian rule would continue to be administered by its local elites, such as the ruler of Midas City who held Phrygian royal titles such as lawagetai (king) and wanaktei (commander of the armies), but were under the authority of the Lydian kings of Sardis and had a Lydian diplomatic presence at their court, following

5724-441: The city and grant autonomy, restoring the democratic patrimonial regime. In 301 BC, after Antigonus I was killed in the Battle of Ipsus by the coalition of Lysimachus , Cassander , and Seleucus I Nicator , founder of the Seleucid Empire , Miletus maintained good relations with all the successors after Seleucus I Nicator made substantial donations to the sanctuary of Didyma and returned the statue of Apollo that had been stolen by

5830-400: The city during the first excavations of the 19th century, the Market Gate of Miletus , was transported piece by piece to Germany and reassembled. It is currently exhibited at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin . The main collection of artifacts resides in the Miletus Museum in Didim , Aydın , serving since 1973. Archaeologists discovered a cave under the city's theatre and believe that it is

5936-435: The city of Clazomenae concluded a reconciliation agreement which allowed Lydian craftsmen to operate in Clazomenae and allowed the kingdom of Lydia itself to participate in maritime trade, most especially in the olive oil trade produced by the craftsmen of Clazomenae, but also to use the city's port to export products manufactured in Lydia proper. Soon after capturing Smyrna and his failure to capture Clazomenae, Alyattes summoned

6042-408: The city was not forced to provide the Lydian kingdom with military troops or tribute, Smyrna itself was in ruins, and it would only be around 580 BCE, under the reign of Alyattes's son Croesus, that Smyrna would finally start to recover. Alyattes also initially initiated friendly relations with the Ionian city of Colophon , which included a military alliance according to which the city had to offer

6148-437: The city's tyrant Thrasybulus , and a treaty of friendship as well as one of military alliance was concluded between Lydia and Miletus whereby, since Miletus lacked auriferous and other metallurgic resources while cereals were scarce in Lydia, trade of Lydian metal in exchange of Milesian cereal was initiated to seal these treaties, according to which Miletus voluntarily provided Lydia with military auxiliaries and would profit from

6254-432: The current exchange rate on a weight basis was 1 to 13.3 at the time. The great advantage of the Croeseids compared to their electrum predecessors is that they were very reliable: the pure gold and pure silver coins all had a clear intrinsic value, entirely guaranteed by their purity and clearly defined by their weight, which, as an added benefit, was standard. On the contrary, the actual composition of various electrum coins

6360-401: The daughters of Melas the Younger might have in turn married Alyattes and become the mother of his less famous son, Pantaleon. Thanks to these close ties, Ephesus had never been subject to Lydian attacks and was exempt from paying tribute and offering military support to Lydia, and both the Greeks of Ephesus and the Anatolian peoples of the region, that is the Lydians and Carians, shared in common

6466-423: The ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of Cyaxares's son Astyages with Alyattes's daughter Aryenis , and the possible wedding of a daughter of Cyaxares with either Alyattes or with his son Croesus. The border between the Lydian and Median empires was fixed at a yet undetermined location in eastern Anatolia; the Graeco-Roman historians' traditional account of the Halys River as having been set as

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6572-443: The existence of a Lydian citadel in the Phrygian capital of Gordion , as well as Lydian architectural remains in northwest Phrygia, such as in Dascylium , and in the Phrygian Highlands at Midas City . Lydian troops might have been stationed in the aforementioned locations as well as in Hacıtuğrul , Afyonkarahisar , and Konya , which would have provided to the Lydian kingdom access to the produce and roads of Phrygia. The presence of

6678-495: The first Croeseids were indeed issued by Croesus before the Achaemenid invasion, and not after the Achaemenid as has sometimes been suggested. The gold coins had an initial weight of 10.7 grams. The silver coins also were issued in 10.7 grams, together with many smaller denominations, from 1/3 to 1/48. This makes it the world's first bimetallic monetary system though the idea of smaller silver denominations had originated in Cyme (Aeolis) under Hermodike II . Soon after however,

6784-454: The first coins in history made from electrum , a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. The weight of either precious metal could not just be weighed so they contained an imprint that identified the issuer who guaranteed the value of its contents. Today we still use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state and not by the value of the metal used in the coins. Almost all coins used today descended from his invention after

6890-531: The first who sold goods by retail. Croesus replaced all the electrum coins by gold and silver coins using a single coin type: the facing foreparts of a lion and a bull. Compared to later copies made by the Achaemenids, the original Croeseid use a more natural rendering of the two animals. The reverse was struck with two incuse squares. The coins were minted in Sardis. The gold and the silver were refined in Sardis from raw electrum in workshops in Sardis. Recent archaeological excavations have shown stratigraphically that

6996-515: The forces of Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquered the city. The conquest of most of the rest of Asia Minor soon followed. In this period, the city reached its greatest extent, occupying within its walls an area of approximately 90 hectares (220 acres). When Alexander died in 323 BC, Miletus came under the control of Ptolemy, governor of Caria , and his satrap of Lydia, Asander , who had become autonomous. In 312 BC, Macedonian general Antigonus I Monophthalmus sent Docimus and Medeius to free

7102-408: The foundation of the Apadana Palace . Under Darius I , the minting of Croeseid in Sardis was then replaced by the minting of Darics and Sigloi, probably around 515 BC. The earliest gold coin of the Achaemenid Empire , the Daric , followed the weight standard of the Croeseid, and is therefore considered to be later and derived from the Croeseid. The weight of the Daric would then be modified through

7208-441: The framework of the traditional vassalage treaties used since the period of the Hittite and Assyrian empires, and according to which the Lydian king imposed on the vassal rulers a "treaty of vassalage" which allowed the local Phrygian rulers to remain in power, in exchange of which the Phrygian vassals had the duty to provide military support and sometimes offer rich tribute to the Lydian kingdom. The status of Gordion and Dascylium

7314-399: The gold coins were struck in a lighter standard of 8.1 grams. The modification of the weight may have been the result of a policy to exchange and remove all electrum coins in circulation with the heavier format, the 10.7 grams corresponding to the nominal weight of gold in a standard 14.1 grams electrum stater (about 70%). Once this was done the coins were lightened to 8.1 grams corresponding to

7420-409: The governor of Adramyttium, and he soon expelled these last remaining Cimmerians from Asia Minor. Adramyttium was moreso an important site for Lydia because it was situated near Atarneus and Astyra , where rich mines were located. Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east. The kings of Lydia and of the former Phrygian kingdom had already entertained friendly relations before the destruction of

7526-472: The hill beside the city, was built at this time. Miletus was headed by a curator . Seljuk Turks conquered the city in the 14th century and used Miletus as a port to trade with Venice . In the 15th century, the Ottomans utilized the city as a harbour during their rule in Anatolia . As the harbour became silted up, the city was abandoned. Due to ancient and subsequent deforestation , overgrazing (mostly by goat herds), erosion and soil degradation ,

7632-523: The inhabitants of the city for the construction of their temple of Athena. Alyattes was thus able to acquire a port which gave the Lydian kingdom permanent access to the sea and a stable source of grain to feed the population of his kingdom through this attack. Smyrna was placed under the direct rule of a member of the Mermnad dynasty, and Alyattes had new fortification walls built for Smyrna from around 600 to around 590 BCE. Although under direct Lydian rule Smyrna's temple of Athena and its houses were rebuilt and

7738-664: The inside, and it contained a now lost crepidoma . The tomb of Alyattes was excavated by the Prussian Consul General Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal in 1853, and by American excavators in 1962 and the 1980s, although by then it had been broken in and looted by tomb robbers who left only alabastra and ceramic vessels. Before it was plundered, the tomb of Alyattes would likely have contained burial gifts consisting of furniture made of wood and ivory, textiles, jewellery, and large sets of solver and gold bowls, pitchers, craters, and ladles. He created

7844-452: The joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians. In Polyaenus' account of the defeat of the Cimmerians, he claimed that Alyattes used "war dogs" to expel them from Asia Minor, with the term "war dogs" being a Greek folkloric reinterpretation of young Scythian warriors who, following

7950-457: The latter by the Cimmerians. After defeating the Cimmerians, Alyattes took advantage of the weakening of the various polities all across Anatolia by the Cimmerian raids and used the lack of a centralised Phrygian state and the traditionally friendly relations between the Lydian and Phrygian elites to extend Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia. Lydian presence in Phrygia is archaeologically attested by

8056-477: The men of Miletus and married their Carian widows. This is the mythical commencement of the enduring alliance between Athens and Miletus, which played an important role in the subsequent Persian Wars . The city of Miletus became one of the twelve Ionian city-states of Asia Minor to form the Ionian League . Miletus was one of the cities involved in the Lelantine War of the 8th century BC. Miletus

8162-695: The model of the Croeseid until around 520 BC. The design of the animals though was more rigid, less natural, than the original Lydian issues. These coins were found in very fresh condition in the Apadana hoard , coins deposited under the foundation stone of the Apadana in Persepolis , dated to circa 515 BC, confirming that they had been recently minted under Achaemenid rule. The deposit did not have any Daric and Sigloi, which also suggests strongly that these Achaemenid coins only started to be minted later, after

8268-429: The name Aluáttēs derives it, via a form with initial digamma Ϝαλυάττης ( Waluáttēs ), itself originally from a Lydian Walweteś ( Lydian alphabet : 𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤𐤯𐤤𐤮 ). The name Walweteś meant "lion-ness" (i.e. the state of being a lion), and was composed of the Lydian term walwe ( 𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤 ), meaning "lion", to which was added an abstract suffix -at(t)a- ( 𐤠𐤯𐤠- ). Dates for

8374-491: The other Ionian Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, that is Teos , Lebedus , Teichiussa , Melie, Erythrae , Phocaea and Myus , is still uncertain for the period of Alyattes's reign, although they would all eventually be subjected by his son Croesus. Alyattes's eastern conquests extended the Lydian Empire till the Upper Euphrates according to the scholar Igor Diakonoff , who identified Alyattes with

8480-479: The political organisation of both cities. According to Pausanias , the Megarians said that their town owed its origin to Car , the son of Phoroneus , who built the city citadel called 'Caria'. This 'Car of Megara' may or may not be one and the same as the 'Car of the Carians', also known as Car (King of Caria) . In the late 7th century BC, the tyrant Thrasybulus preserved the independence of Miletus during

8586-657: The rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander. The first available evidence is of the Neolithic . In the early and middle Bronze Age the settlement came under Minoan influence. Recorded history at Miletus begins with the records of the Hittite Empire, and the Mycenaean records of Pylos and Knossos , in the Late Bronze Age. Miletus was a Mycenaean stronghold on the coast of Asia Minor from c.  1450 to 1100 BC. The 13th century BC saw

8692-465: The ruins of the city lie some 10 km (6.2 mi) from the sea with sediments filling the plain and bare hill ridges without soils and trees, a maquis shrubland remaining. The Ilyas Bey Complex from 1403 with its mosque is a Europa Nostra awarded cultural heritage site in Miletus. The first excavations in Miletus were conducted by the French archaeologist Olivier Rayet in 1873, followed by

8798-399: The same stone from the south. The sarcophagus and its contents had been removed by early plunderers of the tomb. All that was left were some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal. On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone. Herodotus described the tomb: But there is one building to be seen there which is more notable than any, saving those of Egypt and Babylon. There

8904-419: The same visit as Acts 20 (in which Trophimus accompanied Paul all the way to Jerusalem, according to Acts 21:29), Paul must have made at least one additional visit to Miletus, perhaps as late as 65 or 66 AD. Paul's previous successful three-year ministry in nearby Ephesus resulted in the evangelization of the entire province of Asia (see Acts 19:10, 20; 1 Corinthians 16:9). It is safe to assume that at least by

9010-402: The same way and has changed enough to be extremely honest and fair (someone).Alyattes after seeing this becomes a changed man. In the south, Alyattes continued what had been the Lydian policy since Gyges's reign of maintaining alliances with the city-states of the Carians , with whom the Lydians also had strong cultural connections, such as sharing the sanctuary of the god Zeus of Mylasa with

9116-457: The service of its famous and feared cavalry, which was itself made up of the aristocracy of Colophon, to the Lydian kingdom should Alyattes request their help. Following the capture of Smyrna, Alyattes attacked the Ionian city of Clazomenae , but the inhabitants of the city managed to successfully repel him with the help of the Colophonian cavalry. Following Alyattes's defeat, the Lydian kingdom and

9222-767: The site where the Apostle Paul in 57 AD met the elders of the church of Ephesus near the close of his Third Missionary Journey, as recorded in Acts of the Apostles (Acts 20:15–38). It is believed that Paul stopped by the Great Harbour Monument and sat on its steps. He might have met the Ephesian elders there and then bade them farewell on the nearby beach. Miletus is also the city where Paul left Trophimus , one of his travelling companions, to recover from an illness ( 2 Timothy 4:20). Because this cannot be

9328-437: The site. For some centuries the location received a strong impulse from that civilization, an archaeological fact that tends to support but not necessarily confirm the founding legend—that is, a population influx from Crete . According to Strabo : Ephorus says: Miletus was first founded and fortified above the sea by Cretans, where the Miletus of olden times is now situated, being settled by Sarpedon, who brought colonists from

9434-478: The sun and moon, spring and winter (the fall of the constellation Taurus corresponded to the date of the spring sowing), strength and fertility, Asia Minor and Europe, and Lydia and its neighbor Phrygia. Alternatively, the lion - symbol of Lydia - and the bull - symbol of Hellenic Zeus (from the Seduction of Europa ) - are facing each other in truce; Note that hunting lions attack from the rear, also imagery of

9540-500: The technology passed into Greek usage through Hermodike II - a Greek princess from Cyme who was likely one of his wives (assuming he was referred to a dynastic 'Midas' because of the wealth his coinage amassed and because the electrum was sourced from Midas' famed river Pactolus ); she was also likely the mother of Croesus (see croeseid symbolism). He standardised the weight of coins (1 stater = 168 grains of wheat). The coins were produced using an anvil die technique and stamped with

9646-480: The temple of an Anatolian goddess equated by the Greeks to their own goddess Artemis. Lydia and Ephesus also shared important economic interests which allowed Ephesus to hold an advantageous position between the maritime trade routes of the Aegean Sea and the continental trade routes going through inner Anatolia and reaching Assyria, thus acting as an intermediary between the Lydian kingdom which controlled access to

9752-455: The terrible crime of tearing the clothes of respectable people and spitting on many. She too held her son back as much as she could and placated those who were insulted with kind words and actions. She showed all his compassion to her son and made him feel great love for himself. When she believes that he is loved enough and abstains from food and other things, citing his illness as an excuse, Xenophilos accompanies his mother that he does not eat in

9858-521: The time of the apostle's second visit to Miletus, a fledgling Christian community was established in Miletus. In 262 new city walls were built. However the harbour was silting up and the economy was in decline. In 538 emperor Justinian rebuilt the walls but it had become a small town. During the Byzantine age the see of Miletus was raised to an archbishopric and later a metropolitan bishopric . The small Byzantine castle called Palation located on

9964-469: The town of Atriya was under Milesian jurisdiction. The Manapa-Tarhunta letter also mentions Atpa. Together the two letters tell that the adventurer Piyama-Radu had humiliated Manapa-Tarhunta before Atpa (in addition to other misadventures); a Hittite king then chased Piyama-Radu into Millawanda and, in the Tawagalawa letter, requested Piyama-Radu's extradition to Hatti . The Milawata letter mentions

10070-606: The town was fortified according to a Hittite plan. Miletus is then mentioned in the " Tawagalawa letter ", part of a series including the Manapa-Tarhunta letter and the Milawata letter , all of which are less securely dated. The Tawagalawa letter notes that Milawata had a governor, Atpa , who was under the jurisdiction of Ahhiyawa (a growing state probably in LHIIIB Mycenaean Greece ); and that

10176-621: The trade routes leading to the inside of Asia and the Greeks inhabiting the European continent and the Aegean islands, and allowing Ephesus to profit from the goods transiting across its territory without fear of any military attack by the Lydians. These connections in turn provided Lydia with a port through which it could have access to the Mediterranean Sea. Like his great-grandfather Gyges, Alyattes also dedicated lavish offerings to

10282-401: The true weight of gold in the electrum coins, which had often been voluntarily debased. Reducing the weight of the gold stater to 8.1 grams also allowed to simplify the exchange mechanism between gold and silver, as now 1 gold stater of 8.1 grams corresponded precisely in value to 10 silver staters of 10.7 grams, or to 20 silver coins of 5.35 grams (weight of the future Achaemenid Siglos ), since

10388-503: The valley may have belonged to them, but the location looked to the sea. The prehistoric archaeology of the Early and Middle Bronze Age portrays a city heavily influenced by society and events elsewhere in the Aegean, rather than inland. The earliest Minoan settlement of Miletus dates to 2000 BC. Beginning at about 1900 BC artifacts of the Minoan civilization acquired by trade arrived at

10494-517: The west, and the second Ionian city he attacked was Smyrna despite the Lydian kings having previously established good relations with the Smyrniotes in the aftermath of a failed attack of Gyges on the city, leading to the Lydians using the port of Smyrna to export their products and import grain, Lydian craftsmen being allowed to settle in Smyrniot workshops, and Alyattes having provided funding to

10600-825: The work was the greatest. Some authors have suggested that Buddhist stupas were derived from a wider cultural tradition from the Mediterranean to the Indus valley , and can be related to the funeral conical mounds on circular bases that can be found in Lydia or in Phoenicia from the 8th century B.C., such as the tomb of Alyattes. Attribution: Miletus Miletus ( / m aɪ ˈ l iː t ə s / ; Greek : Μῑ́λητος , romanized :  Mī́lētos ; Hittite : 𒈪𒅋𒆷𒉿𒀭𒁕 Mīllawānda or 𒈪𒆷𒉿𒋫 Milawata ( exonyms ); Latin : Mīlētus ; Turkish : Milet )

10706-542: Was additionally protected by the nearby small island of Lade. Over the centuries the gulf silted up with alluvium carried by the Meander River. Priene and Myus had lost their harbors by the Roman era, and Miletus itself became an inland town in the early Christian era; all three were abandoned to ruin as their economies were strangled by the lack of access to the sea. There is a Great Harbor Monument where, according to

10812-547: Was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Ionia . Its ruins are located near the modern village of Balat in Aydın Province , Turkey . Before the Persian rule that started in the 6th century BC, Miletus was considered among the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities. Evidence of the first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by

10918-522: Was imprisoned in Syria. Nicocles of Sidon, the commander of Demetrius' fleet surrendered the city. Lysimachus dominated until 281 BC, when he was defeated by the Seleucids at the Battle of Corupedium . In 280/279 BC the Milesians adopted a new chronological system based on the Seleucids. In 279 BC, the city was taken from Seleucid king Antiochus II by Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus , who donated

11024-524: Was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia , the son of Sadyattes , grandson of Ardys , and great-grandson of Gyges . He died after a reign of 57 years and was succeeded by his son Croesus . Alyattes was the first monarch who issued coins , made from electrum (and his successor Croesus was the first to issue gold coins ). Alyattes is therefore sometimes mentioned as the originator of coinage, or of currency . The most likely etymology for

11130-496: Was the son of the king Sadyattes of Lydia and his sister and queen, Lyde of Lydia, both the children of the king Ardys of Lydia. Alyattes ascended to the kingship of Lydia during period of severe crisis: during the 7th century BCE, the Cimmerians , a nomadic people from the Eurasian Steppe who had invaded Western Asia , attacked Lydia several times but had been repelled by Alyattes's great-grandfather, Gyges . In 644 BCE,

11236-419: Was very hard to determine, so that the true intrinsic value of each coin could not be easily estimated. The royal symbol, or stamp, created by Aylettes gave the coins a declared value and today we still use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state and not by the value of the metal used in the coins. The lion attacking the bull motif on this coin type has been variously theorized as symbolizing

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