127-425: This article lists the known kings of Lydia , both legendary and historical. Lydia was an ancient kingdom in western Anatolia during the first millennium BC. It may have originated as a country in the second millennium BC and was possibly called Maeonia at one time, given that Herodotus says the people were called Maeonians before they became known as Lydians . Herodotus and other sources refer to three dynasties:
254-852: A Greek victory in 449 BCE, and the Ionian cities regained their independence. By the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), which ended the Corinthian War , Persia regained control over Ionia. In 334 BCE, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the Anatolian peninsula from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence. Following
381-754: 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 . For the Greeks, Tantalus was a primordial ruler of mythic Lydia, and Niobe his proud daughter; her husband Amphion associated Lydia with Thebes in Greece, and through Pelops
508-470: 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
635-457: A lion's head adorned with what is likely a sunburst, which was the king's symbol. The most prolific mint for early electrum coins was Sardis which produced large quantities of the lion head thirds, sixths and twelfths along with lion paw fractions. To complement the largest denomination, fractions were made, including a hekte (sixth), hemihekte (twelfth), and so forth down to a 96th, with the 1/96 stater weighing only about 0.15 grams. There
762-713: A powerful empire. Soon after Alyattes's ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with 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
889-510: A religion which remains marginally attested due to the known sources covering it being largely of Greek origin, while Lydian inscriptions regarding religion are small in number and no Lydian corpus of ritual texts like the Hittite ritual tablets have been recovered. Anatolia Anatolia ( Turkish : Anadolu ), also known as Asia Minor , is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up
1016-676: A sizeable Armenian population before the Armenian genocide ) an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region (also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands ) is Mount Ararat (5123 m). The Euphrates , Aras , Karasu and Murat rivers connect
1143-407: A son called Lamos, while pseudo-Apollodorus ( Bibliotheke 2.7.8) gives the name Agelaus and Pausanias (2.21.3) names Tyrsenus as the son of Heracles by "the Lydian woman". All three heroic ancestors indicate a Lydian dynasty claiming Heracles as their ancestor. Herodotus (1.7) refers to a Heraclid dynasty of kings who ruled Lydia, yet were perhaps not descended from Omphale. He also mentions (1.94)
1270-491: A third attack by the Cimmerians, led by their king Lygdamis . This time, the Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Gyges was killed. Gyges was succeeded by his son Ardys , who resumed diplomatic activity with Assyria and would also have to face the Cimmerians. Ardys attacked the Ionian Greek city of Miletus and succeeded in capturing the city of Priene , after which Priene would remain under direct rule of
1397-466: A very rich Roman province , worthy of a governor with the high rank of proconsul . The whole west of Asia Minor had Jewish colonies very early, and Christianity was also soon present there. Acts of the Apostles 16:14–15 mentions the baptism of a merchant woman called "Lydia" from Thyatira , known as Lydia of Thyatira , in what had once been the satrapy of Lydia. Christianity spread rapidly during
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#17327731951151524-580: Is demonstrable from contemporary records. According to semi-mythical accounts of his reign, he was the son of a man named Dascylus and came to power by overthrowing King Candaules with the assistance of a Carian prince from Mylasa named Arselis. Gyges's rise to power happened in the context of a period of turmoil following the invasion of the Cimmerians , a nomadic people from the Pontic steppe who had invaded Western Asia , who around 675 BC destroyed
1651-521: Is disagreement, however, over whether the fractions below the twelfth are actually Lydian. Alyattes' son was Croesus (Reigned c.560–c.546 BC), who became associated with great wealth. Croesus is credited with issuing the Croeseid , the first true gold coins with a standardised purity for general circulation, and the world's first bimetallic monetary system circa 550 BC. It took some time before ancient coins were used for commerce and trade. Even
1778-417: Is historical, the dates for it have never been determined with certainty. The traditional dates are derived from Herodotus, who gives some reign-lengths, but these have been questioned by modern scholars on the basis of synchronisms with Assyrian history. The name of the dynasty ( Ancient Greek : Μερμνάδαι ) may be attested in Lydian transmission as -𐤪𐤷𐤦𐤪𐤫𐤠 mλimna- . Etymologically, it possibly contains
1905-732: 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 . Alyattes's eastern conquests brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BC with the Medes , and a war broke out between the Median and Lydian Empires in 590 BC which
2032-581: Is not well understood how the Osmanlı, or Ottoman Turks , came to dominate their neighbours, as the history of medieval Anatolia is still little known. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum ) from the Knights of Saint John . With the acceleration of the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of
2159-415: Is probable that Ardys was killed during this Cimmerian attack. Ardys was succeeded by his son, Sadyattes, who had an even more short-lived reign. Sadyattes died in 635 BC, and it is possible that, like his grandfather Gyges and maybe his father Ardys as well, he died fighting the Cimmerians . Amidst extreme turmoil, Sadyattes was succeeded in 635 BC by his son Alyattes , who would transform Lydia into
2286-681: Is probably a Medieval Latin innovation. The modern Turkish form Anadolu derives directly from the Greek name Aνατολή ( Anatolḗ ). The Russian male name Anatoly , the French Anatole and plain Anatol , all stemming from saints Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 283) and Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458; the first Patriarch of Constantinople ), share the same linguistic origin. The oldest known name for any region within Anatolia
2413-418: Is related to its central area, known as the "Land of Hatti " – a designation that was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians , but later became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule of ancient Hittites . The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, though not particularly popular at the time, was Ἀσία ( Asía ), perhaps from an Akkadian expression for
2540-678: The Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire . Its capital was Sardis . At some point before 800 BC, the Lydian people achieved some sort of political cohesion, and existed as an independent kingdom by the 600s BC. At its greatest extent, during the 7th century BC, it covered all of western Anatolia . In 546 BC, it became a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire , known as Sparda in Old Persian . In 133 BC, it became part of
2667-764: The Aeolian , Ionian and Dorian colonies situated along the eastern coasts of the Aegean Sea , but also encompassing eastern regions in general. Such use of Anatolian designations was employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian ( r. 284–305 ), who created the Diocese of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Diocese, but completely unrelated to the regions of Asia Minor. In their widest territorial scope, Anatolian designations were employed during
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#17327731951152794-594: The Anatolian languages , the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BCE. The earliest historical data related to Anatolia appear during the Bronze Age and continue throughout the Iron Age . The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians , up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in
2921-973: The Arab invasion of the Levant (634–638). In the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia migrated over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the northwestern rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In
3048-635: The Balkans . The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region. Another Indo-European people, the Luwians , rose to prominence in central and western Anatolia c. 2000 BCE. Their language belonged to the same linguistic branch as Hittite . The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa ( Troy ),
3175-579: The Black Sea , coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau . This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary . Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands , and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia . To the southeast, it is bounded by
3302-467: The Eastern Anatolia Region , which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia (named as such after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman / Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia ( Eastern Armenia ) in 387 AD). Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia (which had
3429-551: The Etruscans of northern and central Italy and the Lydians has long been a subject of conjecture. The Greek historian Herodotus believed they came from Lydia, but Dionysius of Halicarnassus , a 1st-century BC historian, argued that the Etruscans were indigenous to Italy and unrelated to the Lydians. Dionysius pointed out that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia , who was regarded as an important source and authority for
3556-717: The Greek and Roman eras. During the 6th century BCE, all of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire , the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty of Persia . In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt , as it became known, though quelled, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars , which ended in
3683-849: The Gulf of Alexandretta . Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles , and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe . During the Neolithic , Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent . Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there
3810-665: The Hellenic world . He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey , brought all of Anatolia under Roman control , except for the southeastern frontier with the Parthian Empire , which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BCE – 217 CE). After
3937-659: The Later Roman Empire . Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the Pilgrim's Road that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the Christian hagiographies of the 6th-century Nicholas of Sion and 7th-century Theodore of Sykeon . Large and prosperous urban centers of Byzantine Anatolia included Assos , Ephesus , Miletus , Nicaea , Pergamum , Priene , Sardis , and Aphrodisias . From
List of kings of Lydia - Misplaced Pages Continue
4064-446: The Medes from Western Asia in the 590s BC. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians. Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east, where extended Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia. Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in
4191-522: The Paleolithic . Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük , Çayönü , Nevali Cori , Aşıklı Höyük , Boncuklu Höyük , Hacilar , Göbekli Tepe , Norşuntepe , Köşk Höyük , and Yumuktepe . Çatalhöyük (7.000 BCE) is considered the most advanced of these. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with
4318-422: The Roman province of Asia . Lydian coins, made of electrum , are among the oldest in existence, dated to around the 7th century BC. Lydia is generally located east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak , Manisa and inland Izmir . The boundaries of historical Lydia varied across the centuries. It was bounded first by Mysia , Caria , Phrygia and coastal Ionia . Later,
4445-723: The Roman Republic ; western and central Anatolia came under Roman control , but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Mithridates VI Eupator , ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia, waged war against the Roman Republic in the year 88 BCE in order to halt the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean Sea region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars ) to break Roman dominion over Asia and
4572-609: The Saite Egyptian kingdom, then ruled by the pharaoh Amasis II . Croesus also established trade and diplomatic relations with the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nabonidus , and he further increased his contacts with the Greeks on the European continent by establishing relations with the city-state of Sparta . In 550 BC, Croesus's brother-in-law, the Median king Astyages, was overthrown by his own grandson,
4699-696: The Seleucids , and when it was unable to maintain its territory in Asia Minor, Lydia was acquired by the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum . Its last king avoided the spoils and ravage of a Roman war of conquest by leaving the realm by testament to the Roman Empire . When the Romans entered the capital Sardis in 133 BC, Lydia, as the other western parts of the Attalid legacy, became part of the province of Asia ,
4826-487: The Tyrrhenians . Other sources, such as Strabo , name Tmolus and his son Tantalus as kings of the region about the same time, supposedly ruling from the land about Mount Sipylus , but it is asserted that these two were the same people as Manes and Atys, especially as Omphale is a member of both families. Dionysius of Halicarnassus instead puts Cotys as the son of Manes, and as the father of Atys. The known legendary kings are: Herodotus says that Lydus gave his name to
4953-436: The Vallahades from Greek Macedonia ), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia. A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinople and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece , and also towards the United States , the southern part of the Russian Empire , Latin America, and
5080-437: The first division of the Roman Empire , Anatolia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire , otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium . In the 1st century CE, Anatolia became one of the first places where Christianity spread , so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. Byzantine Anatolia was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in
5207-430: The migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived most of their ancestry from local Anatolian hunter-gatherers , suggesting that agriculture was adopted in site by these hunter-gatherers and not spread by demic diffusion into the region. Anatolian derived Neolithic Farmers would subsequently spread across Europe, as far west as
List of kings of Lydia - Misplaced Pages Continue
5334-461: The serpent of the river Sangarios (which appears in the heavens as the constellation Ophiucus ) and captured the simian tricksters, the Cercopes . Accounts tell of at least one son of Heracles who was born to either Omphale or a slave-girl: Herodotus ( Histories i. 7) says this was Alcaeus who began the line of Lydian Heracleidae which ended with the death of Candaules c. 687 BC. Diodorus Siculus (4.31.8) and Ovid ( Heroides 9.54) mentions
5461-462: The "sunrise" or possibly echoing the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The Romans used it as the name of their province , comprising the west of the peninsula plus the nearby Aegean Islands . As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to the vaster region east of the Mediterranean, some Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrà Asía ), meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia, whereas
5588-447: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Of the remainder, most have left Turkey since then, leaving fewer than 5,000 Greeks in Anatolia today. According to Morris and Ze'evi, 4 million christians were ethnically cleansed from Asia minor by the Turks from 1894 to 1924. Anatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs , covered by recent deposits and giving
5715-445: The 1st century BC. The Lydian language is usually not categorized as part of the Luwic subgroup, unlike the other nearby Anatolian languages Luwian , Carian , and Lycian . Lydia's early history remains shrouded in obscurity. During the Late Bronze Age (1600 BC-1200 BC), the territory that later became Lydia overlapped with two kingdoms called Mira and Šeḫa , themselves part of a broader political entity called Arzawa . Like
5842-409: The 3rd century AD, based on the nearby Exarchate of Ephesus. Under the tetrarchy reform of Emperor Diocletian in 296 AD, Lydia was revived as the name of a separate Roman province, much smaller than the former satrapy, with its capital at Sardis. Together with the provinces of Caria , Hellespontus , Lycia , Pamphylia , Phrygia prima and Phrygia secunda , Pisidia (all in modern Turkey) and
5969-462: The 6th century BCE. The earliest historically attested populations of Anatolia were the Hattians in central Anatolia, and Hurrians further to the east. The Hattians were an indigenous people, whose main center was the city of Hattush . Affiliation of Hattian language remains unclear, while Hurrian language belongs to a distinctive family of Hurro-Urartian languages . All of those languages are extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of
6096-423: The Aegean Sea. Since the Etruscan language was a Pre-Indo-European language and neither Indo-European or Semitic, Etruscan was not related to Lydian , which was a part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages. Instead, Etruscan language is considered part of the pre-Indo-European Tyrrhenian language family , along with the Lemnian and Rhaetian language . A 2013 genetic study suggested that
6223-850: The Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh , these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The English-language name Anatolia derives from the Greek Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ) meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. The Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from ἀνατέλλω anatello '(Ι) rise up', comparable to terms in other languages such as " levant " from Latin levo 'to rise', " orient " from Latin orior 'to arise, to originate', Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine', Aramaic מִדְנָח midnaḥ from דְּנַח denaḥ 'to rise, to shine'. The use of Anatolian designations has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to
6350-544: The Assyrian colony of Kanesh , use an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, whose Anatolian trading posts were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia , the Hittites were centered at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) in north-central Anatolia by the 17th century BCE. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language , or nesili (the language of Nesa) in Hittite. The Hittites originated from local ancient cultures that grew in Anatolia, in addition to
6477-411: The Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory. From the late 8th century BCE, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians . The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia , before both were finally checked by the Assyrians. The north-western coast of Anatolia
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#17327731951156604-404: The Carian dynasts allowed him to recruit Carian and Ionian Greek soldiers to send overseas to assist the Egyptian king Psamtik I of the city of Sais , with whom he had established contacts around 662 BC. With the help of these armed forces, Psamtik I united Egypt under his rule after eliminating the eleven other kinglets with whom he had been co-ruling Lower Egypt . In 644 BC, Lydia faced
6731-402: The Carian word mno- 'son' or 'descendant', which would then represent an argument for the Carian origin of the Mermnad clan. There were five kings, all historical figures, in the Mermnad line: Gyges died in battle c.644 BCE, fighting against the Cimmerians , and was succeeded by Ardys. The most successful king was Alyattes, under whom Lydia reached its peak of power and prosperity. Croesus
6858-527: The Caucasus have been proposed, but are not generally accepted. The region became famous for exporting raw materials. Organized trade between Anatolia and Mesopotamia started to emerge during the period of the Akkadian Empire , and was continued and intensified during the period of the Old Assyrian Empire , between the 21st and the 18th centuries BCE. Assyrian traders were bringing tin and textiles in exchange for copper, silver or gold. Cuneiform records, dated c. 20th century BCE , found in Anatolia at
6985-399: The Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territory in these regions. After 1180 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittite Empire disintegrated into several independent Syro-Hittite states , subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians , another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from
7112-523: The Etruscans themselves, were at war with the Greeks. The French scholar Dominique Briquel contends that "the story of an exodus from Lydia to Italy was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th century BC." Ultimately, these Greek-authored accounts of the Etruscan origins are only the expression of the image that Etruscans' allies or adversaries wanted to divulge and should not be considered historical. Archaeological evidence does not support
7239-486: The Heraclids ruled Lydia for 505 years through 22 generations with son succeeding father all down the line from Agron to Candaules. While Candaules was the last of the Heraclids to reign at Sardis , Herodotus says Agron was the first and thereby implies that Sardis was already the capital of Lydia in Maeonian times. Candaules died c.687 BC and so the 505-year span stated by Herodotus suggests c.1192 BC for Agron's accession. The known Heraclid kings are: Although this dynasty
7366-400: The Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles, as well as to the Maghreb . Most modern Europeans derive a significant part of their ancestry from these Neolithic Anatolian farmers. Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family , although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that
7493-436: The Insulae ( Ionian islands , mostly in modern Greece), it formed the diocese (under a vicarius ) of Asiana , which was part of the praetorian prefecture of Oriens, together with the dioceses Pontiana (most of the rest of Asia Minor), Oriens proper (mainly Syria), Aegyptus (Egypt) and Thraciae (on the Balkans, roughly Bulgaria). Under the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610–641), Lydia became part of Anatolikon , one of
7620-408: The Iron Age had similar genetic profiles and were part of the European cluster. The Etruscan DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Etruscans exhibited a blend of WHG, EEF, and Steppe ancestry, with 75% of males belonging to haplogroup R1b and the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup being H . The Lydians in early Antiquity adhered to
7747-445: The Lydian kingdom until its end. Ardys's reign was short-lived, and in 637 BC, that is in Ardys's seventh regnal year, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia , under their king Kobos, and in alliance with 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
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#17327731951157874-411: The Lydians were the first to use coins of pure gold and pure silver or the first precious metal coins in general. Despite this ambiguity, this statement of Herodotus is one of the pieces of evidence most often cited on behalf of the argument that Lydians invented coinage, at least in the West, although the first coins (under Alyattes I , reigned c.591–c.560 BC) were neither gold nor silver but an alloy of
8001-419: The Maeoniae, Heracleidae (Heraclids) and Mermnadae. The first two are legendary, though later members of the Heraclid dynasty are at least semi-legendary. The Mermnadae are historical. The earliest Maeonian or Lydian king mentioned by Herodotus is Manes who was the father of Atys . There was a severe famine during the reign of Atys and half of the citizens, led by Atys' son Tyrrhenus, emigrated to Italy as
8128-424: The Median king 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. Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BC itself, following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son Croesus , born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which
8255-402: 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,
8382-432: The Persian king Cyrus the Great , and Croesus responded by attacking Pteria , the capital of a Phrygian state vassal to the Lydians which might have attempted to declare its allegiance to the new Persian Empire of Cyrus. Cyrus retaliated by intervening in Cappadocia and defeated the Lydians at Pteria in a battle , and again at Thymbra before besieging and capturing the Lydian capital of Sardis , thus bringing an end to
8509-411: The Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. From the 9th century BCE, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia , Caria , and Lycia , all of which had Hellenic influence. Arameans encroached over the borders of south-central Anatolia in the century or so after
8636-475: The administration of the Empire preferred the description Ἀνατολή ( Anatolḗ ; lit. ' the East ' ). The endonym Ῥωμανία ( Rōmanía "the land of the Romans, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire") was understood as another name for the province by the invading Seljuq Turks , who founded a Sultanate of Rûm in 1077. Thus (land of the) Rûm became another name for Anatolia. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia . During
8763-407: The appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River , the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and
8890-496: The archaeological excavations at Sardis. Although certain literary accounts purport the existence of two early Lydian dynasties, namely the house of Atys - after whose son Lydus the Lydians were supposedly named - and the Heraclids, who allegedly ruled for twenty-two generations before 685 BC, these sources are steeped in mythology and lack historical credibility. Lydia was an independent kingdom from an unknown time until 546 BC. According to Herodotus, one of Lydus's descendants
9017-466: The arrival of Indo-European languages. Attested for the first time in the Assyrian tablets of Nesa around 2000 BCE, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland , however, the Hittites (along with the other Indo-European ancient Anatolians ) were themselves relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia from
9144-465: The bulk of the area of modern-day Turkey. Nonetheless, a variety of non- Turkic languages continue to be spoken by ethnic minorities in Anatolia today, including Arabic , Kurdish , Neo-Aramaic , Armenian , the North Caucasian languages , Laz , Georgian , and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to
9271-462: The coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia ( Pre-Socratic philosophy ). In Classical antiquity , Anatolia was described by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus and later historians as divided into regions that were diverse in culture, language, and religious practices. The northern regions included Bithynia , Paphlagonia , and Pontus ; to
9398-525: The control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk sultans. The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids . The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s; they bear the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugrul". Since the minting of coins
9525-536: The country and its people. The line of Lydus continued through an unstated number of generations until they, as Herodotus says, "turned over the management of affairs to the Heraclids". He adds that the Heraclids in Lydia were the descendants of Heracles and a slave-girl belonging to Iardanus; the line was from Heracles through Alcaeus , Belus and Ninus to Agron who was the first Heraclid king of Lydia. Herodotus says
9652-561: The death of Alexander the Great and the subsequent breakup of the Macedonian Empire , Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids , the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BCE. In 133 BCE the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to
9779-596: The decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335 to 1353, the Mongol Empire 's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381. By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks . Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under
9906-554: The defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BCE, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria , and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians , a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of
10033-631: The early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire ). During World War I, the Armenian genocide , the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus ), and the Assyrian genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian , Greek , and Assyrian populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 , most remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during
10160-527: The east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes's successor Croesus ruled over - 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, and it
10287-572: The end of the Lydian kingdom; theoretically, it may even have taken place after the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. 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, forcing the Lydians to retreat to their capital city of Sardis. Some months later
10414-526: The era of classical antiquity (see Classical Anatolia ), the Anatolian languages were largely replaced by the Greek language , which came to further dominate the region during the Hellenistic period and the Roman period . The Byzantine period saw the decline of Greek influence throughout the peninsula as the Byzantine–Seljuk wars enabled the incoming Seljuk Turks to establish a foothold in
10541-639: The era of the Ottoman Empire , many mapmakers referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia . Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan . Geographers have used East Anatolian plateau , Armenian plateau and the Iranian plateau to refer to the region; the former two largely overlap. While a standard definition of Anatolia refers to the entire Asian side of Turkey, according to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, this difference in terminology "primarily result[s] from
10668-758: The expansionist policies of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus , many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians , Tatars , Azeris , Lezgis , Chechens and several Turkic groups left their homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars , much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims ( Bosniaks , Albanians , Turks , Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as
10795-669: The fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Syro-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states . From the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, much of Anatolia (particularly the southeastern regions) fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire , including all of the Syro-Hittite states , Tabal , Commagene , the Cimmerians and Scythians , and swathes of Cappadocia . The Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed due to
10922-722: The following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm , with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced. In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara . After
11049-432: The history of Lydia, never linked the Etruscans to Lydia or mentioned Tyrrhenus as a Lydian ruler. In contemporary scholarship, Etruscologists overwhelmingly support an indigenous origin for the Etruscans, dismissing Herodotus' account as based on erroneous etymologies. Michael Grant argue that the Etruscans may have propagated this narrative to facilitate their trading in Asia Minor, when many cities in Asia Minor, and
11176-775: The history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt , Assyria and the Mitanni . The Ancient Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left to battle over control of eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria . The Assyrians had better success than
11303-417: The history of the Lydians. Later chronologists ignored Herodotus' statement that Agron was the first Heraclid to be a king, and included his immediate forefathers Alcaeus, Belus, and Ninus in their list of kings of Lydia. Strabo (5.2.2) has Atys, father of Lydus and Tyrrhenus, as a descendant of Heracles and Omphale but that contradicts virtually all other accounts which name Atys, Lydus, and Tyrrhenus among
11430-521: The idea of Lydian migration to Etruria. The Etruscan civilization's earliest phase, the Villanovan culture , emerged around 900 BC, which itself developed from the previous Proto-Villanovan culture of Italy in the late Bronze Age . This culture has no ties to Asia Minor or the Near East. Linguists have identified an Etruscan-like language in a set of inscriptions on Lemnos island, in
11557-582: The kingdom of Argos ".) In Greek myth, Lydia had also adopted the double-axe symbol, that also appears in the Mycenaean civilization, the labrys . Omphale , daughter of the river Iardanos, was a ruler of Lydia, whom Heracles was required to serve for a time. His adventures in Lydia are the adventures of a Greek hero in a peripheral and foreign land: during his stay, Heracles enslaved the Itones; killed Syleus, who forced passers-by to hoe his vineyard; slew
11684-557: The latter emerged successful. Croesus brought Caria under the direct control of the Lydian Empire, and he subjugated all of mainland Ionia , Aeolis , and Doris , but he abandoned his plans of annexing the Greek city-states on the islands of the Aegean Sea and he instead concluded treaties of friendship with them, which might have helped him participate in the lucrative trade the Aegean Greeks carried out with Egypt at Naucratis . According to Herodotus, Croesus ruled over all
11811-460: The latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. According to Richard Hovannisian , this changing of toponyms was "necessary to obscure all evidence" of the Armenian presence as part of the policy of Armenian genocide denial embarked upon by the newly established Turkish government and what Hovannisian calls its "foreign collaborators". Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to
11938-460: The legend that the Etruscan civilization was founded by colonists from Lydia led by Tyrrhenus , brother of Lydus. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was skeptical of this story, indicating that the Etruscan language and customs were known to be totally dissimilar to those of the Lydians. In addition, the story of the "Lydian" origins of the Etruscans was not known to Xanthus of Lydia , an authority on
12065-544: The line of Tantalus was part of the founding myths of Mycenae 's second dynasty. (In reference to the myth of Bellerophon , Karl Kerenyi remarked, in The Heroes of The Greeks 1959, p. 83. "As Lykia was thus connected with Crete , and as the person of Pelops , the hero of Olympia, connected Lydia with the Peloponnesos, so Bellerophontes connected another Asian country, or rather two, Lykia and Karia , with
12192-536: The majority of the land area of Turkey . It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to
12319-418: The maternal lineages of western Anatolians and modern Tuscans had been largely separate for 5,000 to 10,000 years, with Etruscan mtDNA closely resembling modern Tuscans and Neolithic Central European populations. This suggests Etruscans descended from the Villanovan culture , indicating their indigenous roots, and a link between Etruria, modern Tuscany, and Lydia dating back to the Neolithic period during
12446-586: The mid-5th century onwards, urbanism was affected negatively and began to decline, while the rural areas reached unprecedented levels of prosperity in the region. Historians and scholars continue to debate the cause of the urban decline in Byzantine Anatolia between the 6th and 7th centuries, variously attributing it to the Plague of Justinian (541), the Byzantine–Sasanian War (602–628), and
12573-497: The migration of Early European Farmers from Anatolia to Europe. A 2019 genetic study revealed that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus shared genetic similarities, with both groups having a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry and one-third Steppe-related ancestry . This study also suggested indigenous origins for the Etruscans, despite their pre-Indo-European language. A 2021 study confirmed these findings, showing that Etruscans and Latins in
12700-547: The military power of Alyattes and Croesus expanded Lydia, which, with its capital at Sardis , controlled all Asia Minor west of the River Halys, except Lycia . After the Persian conquest the River Maeander was regarded as its southern boundary, and during imperial Roman times Lydia comprised the country between Mysia and Caria on the one side and Phrygia and the Aegean Sea on the other. The Lydian language
12827-475: The north. However, they did not necessarily displace the population genetically; they assimilated into the former peoples' culture, preserving the Hittite language. The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script . In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom ( c. 1650 BCE ) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BCE after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and
12954-641: The northwest, the Galatian variant of Gaulish in Galatia until the 6th century CE, Cappadocian in the homonymous region, Armenian in the east, and Kartvelian languages in the northeast. Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BCE in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during
13081-747: The only remaining part of the Byzantine East , and thus commonly referred to (in Greek) as the Eastern part of the Empire. At the same time, the Anatolic Theme ( Ἀνατολικὸν θέμα / "the Eastern theme") was created, as a province ( theme ) covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region , centered around Iconium , but ruled from the city of Amorium . The Latinized form " Anatolia ", with its -ia ending,
13208-660: The original themata , and later of Thrakesion . Although the Seljuk Turks conquered most of the rest of Anatolia, forming the Sultanate of Ikonion (Konya), Lydia remained part of the Byzantine Empire. While the Venetians occupied Constantinople and Greece as a result of the Fourth Crusade , Lydia continued as a part of the Byzantine rump state called the Nicene Empire based at Nicaea until 1261. Lydia
13335-526: The other Arzawa Lands, these kingdoms had tumultuous relations with the Hittite Empire , acting both as allies, enemies, and vassals at various points in time. By roughly 800 BC, the Lydian people appear to have established their presence and achieved some degree of political cohesion. However, precise dates and events are impossible to determine due to the absence of contemporary written records. The only firm evidence for this early period comes from
13462-607: The peoples to the west of the Halys River, although the actual border of his kingdom was further to the east of the Halys, at an undetermined point in eastern Anatolia. Croesus continued the friendly relations with the Medes concluded between his father Alyattes and the Median king Cyaxares , and he continued these good relations with the Medes after he succeeded Alyattes and Astyages succeeded Cyaxares. And, under Croesus's rule, Lydia continued its good relations started by Gyges with
13589-442: The pre-Heraclid kings and princes of Lydia. The gold deposits in the river Pactolus that were the source of the proverbial wealth of Croesus (Lydia's last king) were said to have been left there when the legendary king Midas of Phrygia washed away the "Midas touch" in its waters. In Euripides ' tragedy The Bacchae , Dionysus , while maintaining his human disguise, declares his country to be Lydia. The relationship between
13716-549: The previous major power in Anatolia, the kingdom of Phrygia. Gyges took advantage of the power vacuum created by the Cimmerian invasions to consolidate his kingdom and make it a military power, he contacted the Neo-Assyrian court by sending diplomats to Nineveh to seek help against the Cimmerian invasions, and he attacked the Ionian Greek cities of Miletus , Smyrna , and Colophon . Gyges's extensive alliances with
13843-567: The ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide , Western Armenia was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly established Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into
13970-583: The region. Thus, the process of Anatolia's Turkification began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century, when the Ottoman dynasty collapsed in the aftermath of World War I . Between 1894 and 1924, millions of non- Turkic peoples and Christians were suppressed and removed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities from
14097-599: The reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I (306–337), who created the Praetorian prefecture of the East , known in Greek as the Eastern Prefecture, encompassing all eastern regions of the Late Roman Empire and spanning from Thrace to Egypt . Only after the loss of other eastern regions during the 7th century and the reduction of Byzantine eastern domains to Asia Minor, that region became
14224-564: The rest of Europe. Following the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward its newly established Armenian provinces. Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until
14351-509: The rule of the Mermnad dynasty and to the Lydian Empire. Lydia would never regain its independence and would remain a part of various successive empires. Although the dates for the battles of Pteria and Thymbra and of end of the Lydian empire have been traditionally fixed to 547 BC, more recent estimates suggest that Herodotus's account being unreliable chronologically concerning the fall of Lydia means that there are currently no ways of dating
14478-601: The shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century". Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two geographical regions of Turkey to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line, the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region , the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highlands,
14605-517: The smallest-denomination electrum coins, perhaps worth about a day's subsistence, would have been too valuable for buying a loaf of bread. The first coins to be used for retailing on a large-scale basis were likely small silver fractions, Hemiobol, Ancient Greek coinage minted in Cyme (Aeolis) under Hermodike II then by the Ionian Greeks in the late sixth century BC. Sardis was renowned as
14732-857: The southeast, while Galatian , a Celtic language , was spoken throughout Galatia in the central peninsula. Among the other peoples who established a significant presence in ancient Anatolia were the Galatians , the Hurrians , the Assyrians , the Armenians , the Hattians , and the Cimmerians , as well as some of the ancient Greek tribes , including the Ionians , the Dorians , and the Aeolians . In
14859-445: The two called electrum . The dating of these first stamped coins is one of the most frequently debated topics of ancient numismatics, with dates ranging from 700 BC to 550 BC, but the most common opinion is that they were minted at or near the beginning of the reign of King Alyattes (sometimes referred to incorrectly as Alyattes II). The first coins were made of electrum , an alloy of gold and silver that occurs naturally but that
14986-417: The west were Mysia , Lydia , and Caria; and Lycia , Pamphylia , and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore. There were also several inland regions: Phrygia , Cappadocia , Pisidia , and Galatia . Languages spoken included the late surviving Anatolic languages , Isaurian , and Pisidian , Greek in western and coastal regions, Phrygian spoken until the 7th century CE, local variants of Thracian in
15113-495: Was Iardanus , with whom Heracles was in service at one time. Heracles had an affair with one of Iardanus' slave-girls and their son Alcaeus was the first of the Heraclid Dynasty said to have ruled Lydia for 22 generations starting with Agron . In the 8th century BC, Meles became the 21st and penultimate Heraclid king and the last was his son Candaules (died c. 687 BC). Gyges is the first king whose existence
15240-634: Was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Europe , with their descendants coming to dominate the continent as far west as the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles . The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia , who were neither Indo-European nor Semitic , were gradually absorbed by the incoming Indo-European Anatolian peoples , who spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The major Anatolian languages included Hittite , Luwian , and Lydian ; other local languages, albeit poorly attested, included Phrygian and Mysian . The Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken throughout Mitanni in
15367-403: Was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign , it can be considered that the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks, had become formally independent from the Mongol Khans. Among the Turkish leaders, the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman I and his son Orhan . The Anatolian beyliks were successively absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. It
15494-525: Was an Indo-European language in the Anatolian language family , related to Luwian and Hittite . Due to its fragmentary attestation, the meanings of many words are unknown but much of the grammar has been determined. Similar to other Anatolian languages, it featured extensive use of prefixes and grammatical particles to chain clauses together. Lydian had also undergone extensive syncope , leading to numerous consonant clusters atypical of most Indo-European languages. Lydian finally became extinct during
15621-428: Was captured finally by Turkish beyliks , which were all absorbed by the Ottoman state in 1390. The area became part of the Ottoman Aidin Vilayet ( province ), and is now in the modern republic of Turkey . According to Herodotus , the Lydians were the first people to use gold and silver coins and the first to establish retail shops in permanent locations. It is not known, however, whether Herodotus meant that
15748-437: Was defeated by Cyrus the Great at the battles of Pteria and Thymbra . Cyrus annexed Lydia after the Siege of Sardis which ended in early 546 BC, but the fate of Croesus himself is uncertain. Lydia Lydia ( Ancient Greek : Λυδία , romanized : Ludía ; Latin : Lȳdia ) was an Iron Age kingdom situated in the west of Asia Minor , in modern-day Turkey . Later, it became an important province of
15875-503: Was further debased by the Lydians with added silver and copper. The largest of these coins are commonly referred to as a 1/3 stater ( trite ) denomination, weighing around 4.7 grams, though no full staters of this type have ever been found, and the 1/3 stater probably should be referred to more correctly as a stater, after a type of a transversely held scale, the weights used in such a scale (from ancient Greek ίστημι=to stand), which also means "standard." These coins were stamped with
16002-435: Was inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean / Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BCE, related to the Greeks of southeastern Europe and the Aegean . Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks , usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks . Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on
16129-407: Was waged in eastern Anatolia lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BC 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 the ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of
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